dog rose

Photo: Roberta F. — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 3 through 7

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Dog rose is the classic European wild rose whose hips built the tradition of rosehip syrup — it was the backbone of Britain's wartime vitamin C supply. Hips are thin-fleshed and tart rather than richly fleshy, so they are processed into syrup, jelly, or tea rather than eaten as fresh fruit.

Hardiness

Zone 3–7

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Summer–autumn

Mature size

Arching shrub 1–3 m, scrambling to 5 m through supporting growth

Light

Full sun; tolerates partial

Soil pH

6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Europe from Norway south to North Africa, and southwest Asia (Afghanistan, Cyprus, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey); widely naturalized elsewhere via bird-dispersed seed.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–4 yrs

Growth speed

Fast.

Spacing

200 cm (79 in) apart — about 4 m² (43 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Pinnately compound leaves with 5–7 oval, serrate leaflets that release a mild, pleasant fragrance when bruised. Stems are arching with small, sharp, hooked prickles that aid the plant in climbing and scrambling through hedgerow shrubs.

Root system

Not strongly suckering — spreads mainly by seed and by resprouting from the root crown after cutting, rather than by aggressive rhizome spread. Its vigorous, adaptable roots are the reason it is used worldwide as a grafting rootstock for cultivated roses.

Fruit description

Hips are oval, 15–30mm long, ripening orange-red from September to October and persisting roughly two months before blackening if uneaten. Flesh is thin around numerous seeds coated in irritant hairs; flavor is tart, sweetened by frost. Rosa canina is the classic European wild rosehip and the traditional source of British and continental rosehip syrup, prized during and after WWII as a vitamin C supplement when citrus was scarce; reported ascorbic acid content is around 0.2–2.4% fresh weight, with PFAF citing figures as high as 2000mg/100g for exceptional material.

Propagation

Rose seed typically takes two years to germinate due to natural dormancy. This can be shortened by scarifying seed and warm-stratifying it 2–3 weeks in damp peat at 27–32°C, then cold-stratifying 4 months at 3°C; alternatively, stored seed can be cold-stratified 6 weeks at 5°C and sown early, or green (unripe) seed sown immediately for germination the following late winter. Also propagated by half-ripe cuttings in July, hardwood cuttings 20–25cm long in early autumn, layering, and division of root suckers. Its vigorous, adaptable root system also makes it the standard rootstock used commercially for grafting cultivated garden roses.

Pollination

Rosa canina has an unusual reproductive system known as 'canina meiosis': it is pentaploid, and during meiosis only two sets of chromosomes recombine normally while the rest are transmitted intact, unrecombined, through the egg cell only. Self-pollination and a degree of apomixis (seed formed without full fertilization) both occur, so seedlings tend to closely resemble the seed parent — a trait historically exploited to propagate consistent hip-bearing stock.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.