How to Save, Store, and Grow Rose Seeds

Properly harvesting and saving seeds from your favorite roses is a simple process which will allow you to easily propagate new plants.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Dry space
• Paper towel
• Envelope
• Rose hips

1. 
   Ripe rose hips.

   Hand pick ripe rose hips. Rose hips are ripe when they turn from dark green to reddish.

2. Allow hips to dry out for a a fews days (they will become shriveled looking). Then gently cut them open and find the large, brown, triangular shaped seeds. Alternatively, allow undried fruits to macerate by soaking them in water until hips and naturally separate from the seeds.

3. Air dry seeds if water maceration was used. Store dried seeds in cold stratification for 2-4 months or until spring. Cold stratification is a moist pre-chilling in which seeds are kept covered in moist sand or a damp paper towel in the refrigerator (about 40 degrees F) prior to planting.

4. Seeds may also be stored in an envelope and kept in a dry room temperature location for 2-4 years, but with some lose of viability.

5. Prior to germinating always cold stratify seeds for at least eight weeks. Prepared seeds should be sown 1/4-3/4 inches deep in soil and kept moist as you would any other seeds.

Tips & Warnings

• All rose hips are edible and rich in Vitamin C. However, only a few species have large enough hips to make them worth eating.
• Some hybridized roses do not breed true and the seeds will not produce plants resembling their parent.

[NewbieG]

on 9/15/2009 I was wondering why my mother's roses weren't making their own roses by now. So the secret is cold stratifying for 2 months?
Thank you, great article.