I grew a rose years ago from a rugosa hip. I don’t recall doing anything other than letting it completely dry out and then splitting it open over a pot Andrew then leaving it outside to see what happened. It wouldn’t have been anything other than a bit of garden soil as this was when I was skint. I think we had just 2 appear, one of which grew really well.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
I grew some from hips picked in a public car park. Split them open and separate the seeds. I used a small window box for mine filled with ordinary seeds and cuttings compost, sowed the seeds on top and then covered with a thin layer of compost.
I left them outside all winter in rain, hail and snow and in spring I had a little forest of seedlings to prick out and pot on. I then grew them as a hedge but have to say it was a bit too exposed and they suckered, looked dreadful all winter and not all of them grew well into decent shrubs so we pulled them all up.
If you're only planning to grow one or two you can select the strongest seedlings and nurture them and you'll have fine plants.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I have done this. I chose hips that were really soft and ripe, washed off the seeds and planted them in gritty compost, leaving the pot outside in a cold-frame. They germinated in the spring, I grew them on, potted them up and planted them out in a group next spring. (The advice is to plant out in autumn but my heavy wet clay isn't good for this.) They have flourished. Each year I cut them back hard and they shoot up and flower, pink or white, then produce scarlet hips. They are very healthy and vigorous but I must admit, they do sucker.
Must be easy I think, we have it along our banks, never planted it, it just came, present from the birds, it’s now everywhere and I’ve tried all sorts to get rid of it, it just keeps popping up again in the Spring, I cut it right down to ground at the end of the year. Very prickly vicious plant.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
I have Rosa rugosa seedlings! I'm planning a mixed hedgerow so I also sowed cobnuts and elder in pots. I've found elder ridiculously easy to grow in the past, but so far nothing. But I think there's one tiny cobnut seedling, it's too small to be sure. I've never had any luck raising hawthorn from berries, maybe they are one of the ones that won't germinate unless they've passed through a bird. But about half of my hawthorn cuttings have new leaves.
Yesterday I potted up 40 R. rugosa seedlings. I'd made the mistake of putting the whole hip in a pot, so I had a densely-packed cluster of seedlings to untangle. But this morning they look happy. The maybe cobnut seedling is, and I think there is a second one coming up beside it. No sign of elder seedlings, which surprised me, because I've grown them before, very easily. And I've ended up with seven infant hawthorns.
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East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
I left them outside all winter in rain, hail and snow and in spring I had a little forest of seedlings to prick out and pot on. I then grew them as a hedge but have to say it was a bit too exposed and they suckered, looked dreadful all winter and not all of them grew well into decent shrubs so we pulled them all up.
If you're only planning to grow one or two you can select the strongest seedlings and nurture them and you'll have fine plants.
Very prickly vicious plant.
In the sticks near Peterborough