Hi Marleah,

I can try and answer some of your questions but I haven't been doing this too long myself.
I harvest my hips at 120 days or if they start to turn color such as yellow, orange or red. Watch the stem too if that starts to discolor such as yellow or brown, take the hip off as soon as you can.

After I harvest the hip and if I have time I open it up and take the seeds out and let them soak in purified water for 2-3 days. If I don't have time to do that I will put the hips inside a zip-lock plastic bag with a paper towel to absorb the moisture...... then into the refrigerator until I can get to them to take the seeds out and soak them.

After the seeds have soaked for 2-3 days I put them in a wire strainer and over the kitchen sink I clean them really good. I then put them in play sand in a small plastic container in plastic bags then into the refrigerator. I leave them there for a few weeks then put them outside in a shed when the temps get down into the 50's at night and mid 60's during the day. I do get germinations at this time also.

I used to store my seeds in paper towels with peroxide/water but I do not do that anymore. I don't use any peroxide at all. Just purified water. The sand is a good medium to store them in, its clean and I found that I did not have much mold with it. Also if you clean your seeds really good, getting as much as the pulp matter off of them as you can you should not have mold buildup. I scrape my seeds clean with my fingernails over the sink with the tap water running really slow. But be sure and put a paper towel or something over the drain-hole in the sink when doing this.
I hope this has help you, good luck and be sure and post some pics of your new seedlings.

Hi Marleah,

It looks like I may have OP hips from Alfred Sisley, Grimaldi, Heritage, and Outta the Blue if you want any. I am going to grow some seedlings, but it looks like there will be plenty of seeds!

Cheers,
Michelle

Hi Michelle,

Thanks so much for the offer!

I however have plenty of OP hips awaiting harvest here.

I did not suceed with doing my own pollenations first try so I literally just gave up.

Decided this year I am going to try seeds again and see what I can get and refine my methods a bit more.. boy to they need tweaking from last year!

Maybe after I get that sort of figured out then I can worry about making crosses.

Thanks again for the offer :)

Marleah

Marleah,

I wait until they begin to change colors, then they are ripe, just like an apple. I extract the seeds, wash them really good, like ramblinrosez, and then store them in zip bags in the fridge in just moist peat moss or coco coir. I wait until I see them sprouting a small root to pot them up.

Hope that helped you some.

Gerry

Question from a hip-harvesting newbie - if the hip is very large but shriveled and brown, and the seeds inside are black, it is too late to try to grow the seeds? I found a large hip on a climbing rose but the stem it was on seemed bent and the hip was shriveled. When opened up, the many seeds were black and there was a faint amount of what may have been mold, or could have just been otherwise decaying hip material. From another climber, a hip was plump and red, and the seeds were nice and tan as I had remembered from past years. I don't try to grow these (not a patient person) but wondered if there was any point in saving these for others who do in the general seed swaps. Thanks in advance for any information.
Terri
:-)