Dog rose

Rosa canina

Rosaceae

The hedgerow rose — hips for winter vitamin C, petals for a cooling, fragrant cup.

Hips and petals are food. Garden roses sprayed for show are not tea.

Parts used: Ripe hip · Unsprayed petal
Traditional notes: Winter colds · Dry, irritated tissues · Gentle astringent · Culinary syrup
Grow · USDA 6b: Shrub, USDA 4–8 A rooted sucker or a nursery dog rose. Seed needs a winter. In work: Jun · Jul · Sep · Oct · Nov
Harvest: Petals as they open; hips after first frost, still firm and red.

Hips after the first frost, when they soften and sweeten.
A once-flowering wild rose wants less pruning than a hybrid tea.
Dry hips split and scooped of seed hairs — the hairs itch the gut.

Safety

Unstrained hips Florist-shop petals

Companions

Plant with Chives, Clove pink, Eggplant, French marigold, Garden peony, Garlic.

Lore

Attar, hips, and the War of the Roses were all this genus. The tea is usually the hip after frost, strained of its itchy hairs. A garden rose sprayed for beetles is not a medicine.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.