When To Dead Head Roses.

[devadiva]

I am a rookie gardener and have a bright red climbing rose which has been a picture this year. All flowering is now over and I was going to dead head the plant but find there are 100's of rose hips where the flowers once were.
Do I go ahead or not and what do I do with the rosehips?

[maggiebee]

I would remove dead heads and rose hips. These are the seed cases and I would dispose of these (unless of course you want them to seed for any reason).

[devadiva]

Many thanks = now where did I leave the secateurs?

[Clanad]

Make agreat tea ut of the hips... tastes pretty good and loaded with Vitamin C. However, you really don't have to deadhead this type of rose. Most "climbing roses" (they don't really vine type "climb") only bloom once perseason and the purpose for deadheading any flower is to encourage re-blooming... won't work with climbers... Secondly, leaving the bright yellow hips will feed some birds in the winter...

Having said all that... you may wish to "train" the rose by selectively pruning it after it goes dormant. My guess is the flowers on your rose are 4 or 5 petals which makes it a "wild rose" derivative. Very hardy and will cover a bare wall very well if pruned and tied up where you want it to go.

By the way, the Vitamin C in the hips degrades fairly quickly... best to keep it in a plastic bag in the fridge and then only fora fewweeks at most...

[devadiva]

Thanks to Clanad for your suggestions too.

[woofgang]

some roses are sold with bright hips as part of their charm. They make a nice bright winter display and the birds enjoy them...for climbers and ramblers which aren;t pruned, you don't really need to.

[Brinjal]

Your rose bush will not flower prolifically if you leave it to develope hips. If you want it to keep flowering especially the hybrid ts you when the petals start to drop you should cut the head off at the second five fingered leaf.

[woofgang]

I always leave the last flush of all my roses to develop hips and thenprune them in early spring, they flower profusely.

[Old_Geezer]

Hips can be pretty but not as pretty as blooms. Break them off when the bloom has dropped it's petals to encourage the plant to create more.

Do so early enough and I don't think the hips are much use for anything except composting.

[woofgang]

OG, my birds and squirrels eat them