Gerry,
A rose hip needs four to five months to ripen and it should be at least 60 to 70 percent orange.

Check out some of my articles on my site. Link below.
George Mander

Here is a link that might be useful: Roses of Excellence

George,

Thank you for the link, I have read your pages a few times, and have gleened alot of information from them, I guess I was just hoping for someone to say, "yep yep, had that happen before, it will be OK!" I am still going to harvest the hip and try to germinate them, but am pretty much expecting failure, but hey, who knows, right?

Gerry