Last month I headed into the garden determined to bring my wayward rose bushes under control before winter arrived. Many were out of control with long, floppy stems, waving around in the wind like they had a mind of their own. I was late in getting started with this job, it should have been dealt with weeks before but they still had to be tamed as winter damage to the stems could result in damage to the whole plant.

It was a chilly, but sunny morning, and the sun was in my eyes. Mostly I was looking downwards and I didn’t notice, until I lifted my head, that I was cutting off stems with gorgeous big, fat, rose hips. Oh dear.

One stem complete with hips, remained. I left it intact, though I thought some other stems might produce a few more. I was suitably annoyed with myself for being so careless and apologised profusely to the garden birds. As a way of apology, I put out some extra fat balls and peanuts. Meantime, they have plenty of berries and crab apples to munch on and other rose bushes are forming hips too.

If you happen to be wondering which rose the hips are from, it’s Rosa ‘Tottering-by-Gently’ from David Austin.

The hips brought back long-forgotten memories from when my children were just babies – a time when it appeared to be almost compulsory to give your tiny bundles of joy (and hard work) daily spoonfuls of rosehip syrup. I didn’t stop to question the practice because my mum had told me that she gave it to me and my siblings, as it was full of vitamin C.

But now that the topic of rosehips had entered my mind, I had to, right there and then, visit Google to refresh almost forgotten memories. I was amazed when I realised how little I knew about the hips that so many of our gorgeous roses produce.

The following is courtesy of The Woodland Trust

A brief history of rosehip syrup

“During the war, government scientists realised that, weight for weight, rosehips have over 20 times the vitamin C of oranges. So the Ministry of Food recommended rosehip syrup and a generation of children began receiving a daily dose.

During World War II, a national week for the collection of rosehips was established in late September. Scouts, guides and other groups would head out to harvest the nation’s hedgerows. In 1941 this produced a 200 ton haul of hips which made 600,000 bottles of commercially produced syrup!

With the growing popularity of foraging, the vitamin saviour of World War II has been making a welcome comeback.

As well as vitamin C, rosehips are a great source of vitamin A, D and E. They contain an anti-inflammatory and have been shown to help relieve the symptoms of arthritis.“

What I’ve remembered

The brand that we used was called Delrosa, although it is no longer available in the UK. It was supplied free of charge by NHS baby clinics throughout the UK after the war. I don’t know when that free service came to an end, but I recall buying it from our local chemist shop for my own children in the ’70’s.

Did you know?

Just an extra snippet, if you’re still with me at this point. You might be vaguely interested to know that early Christians considered rose hips to be sacred, and crafted the first rosary beads from rose hips.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover the wonders of rosehips when I accidentally snipped them in the garden and it has deepened my appreciation of roses.