Should You Remove Old Rose Hips in Spring?
Rose hips are the ripe red and orange fruits that appear after the blooms fade. They contain seeds that sprout into rose seedlings, but are they okay to leave on your bush? The answer may surprise you!
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Rose hips—the fruit of roses—have many uses, so you may not want to remove them! They’re edible, they contain seeds to propagate, and they’re ornamental in the winter garden. You have many options when it comes to handling them. Leave them be, collect them, or chop them off before they appear.
No matter what you do, there’s no wrong way to deal with old rose hips. They may turn black and dry on the shrub, fall to the ground, or get picked up by birds. They’re a lovely sight when bright red, and unsightly when black and shriveled.
So, the question remains: Should you remove old rose hips in spring? Let’s find out!
The Short Answer
You should remove last season’s hips if you want to use them or collect their seeds. Rose seeds require a winter chill period to germinate. When you collect them from the hips in spring, they’re primed and ready to sprout after planting. The hips are edible fruits, too; though they have many seeds, they’re slightly sweet and floral.
You may leave the hips on the shrubs if you’d like local animals to eat them, or if you appreciate the way they contrast with the green leaves.
The Long Answer
Whether or not to remove old rose hips depends on your growing goals and how you’d like your garden to look. There’s no right or wrong thing to do; try experimenting with removing them this year and see how your plant responds.
Encourage More Blooms
Plants need energy, nutrients, and moisture to form new tissue. Stems, leaves, flowers, seeds, roots, and fruits all need resources to grow. As rose shrubs form hips, they send tons of vitamins, minerals, sugar, and moisture into them.
Cut the fruits off and you’ll encourage your roses to redirect their resources into blooms, leaves, and roots. You’ll have more flowers sooner in the growing season than if you left the fruits on the plants. Simply take your pruners, choose a spot above a leaf, and cut! New sprouts will form from wherever you slice.
You may also remove the hips in the fall when you hard prune your roses. Remove them before the winter and you won’t have to deal with them in the spring! Continuous deadheading during the growing season will prevent the fruits from forming altogether.
Promote Bigger Flowers
Not only will your roses have more flowers without the hips, but they’ll also grow large ones with the extra resources at their disposal. You can use this method to your advantage to promote a few, giant blooms rather than many small ones.
Start the process by snipping off the hips from the last growing season. Then, remove a few of the forming flower buds. Leave one or two at the tips to open up. The flowers that remain will grow large and voluptuous with all the extra moisture, nutrients, and sugars at their disposal.
Disbudding roses and snipping their hips is a method used by florists to promote giant roses for bouquets. You can do the same in your yard to grow giant blossoms for indoor arrangements.
Save Seeds
I like to grow roses from seeds in the spring—starting roses from seeds is the only way to discover new varieties! The seedlings have a chance of sprouting blossoms of different colors, shapes, and sizes. Before sprouting the seeds, they’ll need to undergo a cold period first.
This cold period, known as cold stratification, is necessary to encourage the seeds to germinate. Rather than harvesting the hips in autumn and keeping them in the fridge, you can leave them on the shrub throughout the winter months and collect them in spring. Frosty weather outdoors will grant the seeds their cold period, and they’ll sprout when you plant them.
Collect seeds by mushing the hips and picking the seeds out from inside. Plant them a quarter to a half inch deep in pots with potting soil outdoors. Placing a humidity dome of plastic or glass on top will help them stay moist. Seedlings should pop up a week to a month after planting.
Use Rose Hips
Whether you’re taking the hips off for the seeds or to promote more blooms, you can use the ripe fruits in a variety of home recipes. The flesh blends well in jams, jellies, syrups, and preserves. You can also dry the flesh and use it in teas alongside chamomile, mint, and bee balm.
You can eat them fresh, although they have stringy flesh and a hard outer coating, and may be difficult to chew. Cooking, preparing, or boiling them first will help weaken and soften them for your dishes.
Another unique preparation is a rose hip salad dressing. Soak the fruits in vinegar for a few days in the fridge, then blend the vinegar with olive oil and a bit of salt, sugar, and pepper to create a homemade salad dressing.
Leave Them Be
Instead of cutting each hip off your shrubs, you can leave them be! This is a great option for the lazy gardener who wants to feed local wildlife. Birds, squirrels, bears, rabbits, and many other animals love the tasty treats. They’ll eat them throughout the winter when there are few other food sources.
In spring, simply let the fruits stand on the shrubs. They’ll fall off eventually as new growth emerges in spring and summer. The leaves, blooms, and stems will replace last year’s stems and old fruit.
Over time, the fruits will shrivel, harden, and turn black. These black, shriveled ones still have value for wildlife! They contain seeds, which some birds love to snack on in all seasons.
Key Takeaways
- Whether to remove the fruits or leave them depends on your gardening preferences; there’s no wrong solution!
- The fruits contain seeds inside, and you can sow them in pots to start new rose plants.
- Removing the fruits redirects the shrubs’ resources towards more blooms, leaves, and stems.
- Like many fruits, the orange-red ones on roses are incredibly valuable for wildlife.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you dry rose hips?
Set them on a platter under indirect sunlight, and move them around every day or two. They’ll dry after a week or two outdoors. You may also dry them indoors in a kitchen or similar location. If you’d like them seed-free, remove the seeds before drying them.
Which roses have rose hips?
Most of them! Aside from hybrid tea roses, after rose blossoms receive pollen, they begin forming seeds and fleshy fruits to protect them.
How is it best to harvest rose hips?
Snip them off the plant with snips, pruners, or scissors. A simple slice should remove them.
