Rose hips are the fruits of roses, but when they appear they can puzzle even seasoned gardeners. That's because we've been spoiled by repeat-blooming roses, which are often sterile and therefore won't bear fruit; or we've been trained to quickly snip off fading roses (and, inadvertently, the fruit that may have developed). But rose hips add color and life to the autumn garden, mixing beautifully with fall foliage and perennial seed heads and, later, attracting birds that eat these fruits. Here are some roses that can be relied upon to bear beautiful rose hips in fall:
Rugosa roses:
Both the paper-white Rosa rugosa ‘Alba’ and the smoky cerise R. r. ‘Rubra’ produce identical plump green fruit, often one inch in diameter, that ripen through stages of yellow and orange to a bright tomato red. The many rugosa hybrids offer plants with more compact habit (such as ‘Wild Spice’), larger blooms (such as exquisite light pink ‘Fru Dagmar Hartopp’) and vivid colors (such as the bright yellow ‘Rugelda’). All will continue to bloom even as hips form and mature, creating memorable September displays of new blooms and ripe red fruit.
Apple roses:
Named for its hips, Rosa villosa (also known as Rosa pomifera) has fruits that are apple shaped and really red, although I have to admit I've never seen an apple quite so fuzzy. Rosa pomifera makes a very nice hedge, growing to about five feet in the Midwestern US. If you are looking for the same startling fruits on a shorter plant, try the similar species Rosa mollis.
Rosa glauca:
Also called Rosa rubrifolia, the vase-shaped, thornless Rosa glauca fits in so well anywhere that it can often be found in the borders of gardeners who say they don't grow roses and in the catalogs of nurseries that say they don't sell roses. After its cheerful pink flowers have blown away (in the first breeze to stir them), the purplish-red foliage provides summer-long contrast for companion plants. In fall, masses of small hips ripen brightly and steal the show.
Rosa moyesii:
An abundance of single-petaled red blooms are produced in spring by R. moyesii and its descendants ‘Geranium’ and ‘Highdownensis’. While impressive, this display can be lost in the overall abundance of the season. In fall, however, just one of the large, lacquered-red, flagon-shaped fruits of R. moyesii makes an impression; a 10-foot shrub covered with a thousand of these is a sight not soon forgotten. The straight species and the varieties ‘Geranium’ and ‘Highdownensis’ are all confused in the nursery trade. But you can't go wrong, whichever one you end up with.
Rosa spinosissima:
Just as the discerning gardener would not limit himself to the largest, blowsiest hybrid teas, there is no reason to stop with the most obvious rose hips. Rosa spinosissima and its immediate relatives offer distinctive round, black hips in abundance. These are effective against any light-colored background in the garden, and when clustered with brighter hips in autumnal arrangements. ‘Windrush’, a David Austin rose with R. spinosissima ancestry, provides impressive sprays of hips, often appearing together in varying stages of ripeness.
Canadian Explorer roses:
‘George Vancouver’ and many of its Canadian Explorer kin will make impressive hips very easily, and will color to red if your growing season is long enough. Leaving hips to form will curtail bloom for the remainder of the season, so it is simply a matter of deciding what you want in your garden—more roses in summer, or bright rose hips in autumn.
Image by Ruth Hartnup/CC BY 2.0
