How to Grow Rosa Rugosa From Fruit Hips

Rosa rugosa is a shrub rose that blooms in hues of white, pink and red in the spring and summer. Native to China and Japan, it is also commonly known as the Japanese rose. It produces bright red rose hips in the late summer that are an inch or so in diameter. The hips resemble berries and develop at the site of spent flower petals and grow in clusters of varying size. The hips, if allowed to mature, each produce many seeds in their fleshy interior. The seeds can be cleaned, stored and cultivated, or the hips can be allowed to break down, be eaten by birds and self sow.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Rose hips
• Water
• Fine mesh sieve
• Household bleach
• Dish soap
• Paper toweling or newsprint
• Clear glass jar or sealable bag
• Sphagnum peat moss
• Potting mix
• Seed starting flats or seed pots
• Plastic bag or sheeting
• Water-soluble balanced fertilizer

1. Collect your rose hips when they are mature and ripe. You can tell they are mature when they are swollen, in full color and give slightly to pressure. Cut as many as you like.

2. Break open the ripe hips over a fine mesh strainer letting the loose seeds and pulp fall into the strainer and removing the largest chunks of hip flesh and skin.

3. Rinse the seeds in the strainer with tepid running water. Add a few drops each of dish soap and household bleach and swish around the seeds with your fingers to clean them and prevent disease. Rinse thoroughly again and turn out onto clean paper toweling or newsprint in a single layer. Let dry.

4. Place the dry seeds into a clear glass jar or resealable plastic bag with a few small chunks of damp sphagnum peat moss. Place the jar or bag into a 40-degree refrigerator for 30 to 120 days until the seeds germinate and sprout. Be sure to keep the moss slightly moist so the seeds do not dry out.

5. Pull the sprouted seeds from the jar or bag and carefully pot up into seed starting soil and nursery flats or pots. Moisten the soil and loosely cover the flats or pots with plastic to create a greenhouse environment.

6. Place the nursery trays or pots in a sunny location and keep the soil moist. Feed the seedlings with a balanced fertilizer solution diluted at least 50-percent with water twice a month while in their pots or flats. Plant the rose seedlings into larger pots or into protected beds when 4 to 5 inches in height. Plant year-old rosa rugosa plants into larger containers or directly into the garden soil.

References

• Virginia Tech University
• Alaska Rose Society
• University of Illinois