I have collected quite a range of Rose Hips from wild species Roses and intend growing my own collection from seed. Rose hips vary in colour from Black, Orange, Red and Green and the seed inside varies in the quality of crop it will produce.

Seed Grown Roses

• I have de-husked the rose hips and separated out the seed on tissue paper to dry.
• Shortly I will sow them in a gritty compost in 3″ pots and let them stand over winter so they get a bit frosted.
• I have been lucky with previous attempts and have several roses growing on that are my own work. It will not be a grave concern if I do not get  germination in spring or plants to grow on as it has only cost me a bit of time.
• Breeders go about finding new varieties by taking infinite care with pollination and are much better at germination.

Black Magic Rose Seed Raising

• More care is recommended by some folk who wash seeds in distilled water or weak bleach solution.
• Others go as far as using a food blender to clean off the pith and pulp. To my way of thinking nature uses none of these tricks or aids. Wild briar grows quite successfully so I  only give nature a helping hand.
• Seeds should germinate in the spring following an Autumn sowing.
• Rose seedlings can suffer from damping off, so water with Bordeaux mixture.
• Many resultant seedlings will be prone to mildew, weed out weaklings.
• Some roses will flower in the first year but species roses may take 3 years to flower.

I have taken hips from Rosa Canary Bird shown above which in itself is a cross with probable R.hugonis x R.xanthina parentage