Rosehip bush: care, planting
An ornamental rosehip bush is grown in garden plots to obtain valuable vitamin berries, create a hedge and as a rootstock for roses. The hedge turns out to be dense and thorny, and during flowering, the bushes look very decorative, all strewn with white, pink or red fragrant flowers.
Rosehip is a wild rose. Its flowers are not as large and varied in shape and color as cultivated varieties of roses. But the fruits that ripen after flowering are unique in their rich vitamin and mineral composition.
The decorative rosehip bush not only blooms beautifully, but also gives useful berries
The beautifully flowering wild rose is also called park roses, since, due to its unpretentiousness, it grows in the most inappropriate conditions. Ornamental varieties with beautiful double flowers have been developed, for example “Konigin von Danmark”
Most of the cultivated varieties of rose hips originated from four natural species – cinnamon, wrinkled, daurian and gray-gray. In decorative varieties, fruits can be large, weighing more than 4 grams, or small. Large-fruited varieties include: “Jubilee”, “Globus”, “Apple”, “Oval”. Their berries are suitable for making jam.
Small-fruited varieties include: “Vitamin”, “Vorontsovsky”, “Titan”, “Rubin”. Small berries are good for drying.
Features of growing, planting and caring for rosehips
Rosehip loves well-lit places. It is best to plant it in the fall, at the end of September, but you can also plant it in the spring before bud break. To prevent uncontrolled growth of the shrub, it is necessary to limit the growth of its root system. To do this, a small ditch is made around the plantation and slate sheets are buried to a depth of 30 cm.
Rosehip loves fertile, alkaline or neutral soil. Before planting, a bucket of compost, 50 g of superphosphate and 30 g of potassium fertilizer per 1 square meter are applied to the site. Rosehip has cross-pollination, therefore, for better fruiting, several different varieties are planted nearby on the site.
To preserve varietal characteristics, decorative rose hips are propagated by cuttings or root suckers. The cuttings are rooted in light soil, covered with a transparent bag or glass jar
Spring pruning is carried out 2 or 3 years after planting. The bushes are thinned by cutting off weak branches located close to the ground. Leave 15 or 20 strong branches.
Rosehip is drought-resistant, so it is often not required to water it; 3 waterings per season are enough. 2 buckets of water are poured onto one young bush. Rosehips are fed with complex fertilizers 3 times a year – in early spring, after flowering and in August or September.
Decorative rose hips differ from wild varieties in larger berries and beautiful double flowers. Decorative varieties are propagated vegetatively – by cuttings or seedlings.