Photography by Marie Viljoen.
It’s autumn, and it’s rosehip season—time to gather the fruits of the last roses of summer. We’ll also identify two invasive rose species and make an easy syrup whose main demand upon you is the ability to shake a Mason jar.
The autumn hips of Rosa multiflora and R. virginiana.
R. multiflora in bloom in June. Their blossoms are beautiful and they smell good.
Festive multiflora rosehips in autumn. Many birds relish rosehips, especially once frost has softened them and bletted their tannins.
Multiflora hips are tiny, creating sprays of color that seem too attractive to cut.
Beach rose rosehips ripen in late summer.
The beach rose shrubs that light up shorelines in summer were imported for their beauty and hardiness their wide single flowers and fatly attractive hips combined with...
...their adaptability to challenging urban conditions where nutrient poor soil often goes hand in hand with lack of water made these East Asian native roses very appealing
The hips on beach roses are substantial. Also, you are taking home the nutritious, still-astringent raw ingredients for a noteworthy syrup, one whose sugar content diminishes the longer it ferments.
The rosehips of native Rosa virginiana.
The hips of beach roses are easy to collect: just pinch their stems between thumb and forefinger.
A fermented syrup is made by combining sugar and fruit, nothing else. When the flavor is somewhere in the hard-to-describe-realm between tart and sweet, I stop, strain, bottle, and refrigerate the pale amber (if it’s rosehip) syrup.
After six weeks the rosehips have turned glacé-like, and the seeds and hairs can be scooped out easily. After the syrup is strained, one can either toss and compost the remaining rosehips or scoop out the now-soft insides and air dry the flavorful meat of their shells.
Antioxidant-rich fresh aronia juice, rosehip syrup, and lemon, shaken up. Rosehips are high in lycopene, Vitamins C and K, and contain a lot of potassium.
Rosehip Syrup
You can use any rosehips for this syrup, of course. After a a few days you will notice syrup forming at the bottom of the jar. At this point it can be used and will be very sweet.