[mlizzy]

I am going to try to convince hubby to try to make some rose hip wine. That sounds like it would be really good for several ailments.LOL

All this rose hip talk has brought me back to my "hedge" that I planted some 20 years ago. I had contacted the Chicago Botanic Gardens information center, and they suggestion Rosa Carolina (native to Illinois!) for a wild rose. It grew very, very well, and by suckering, was doing battle with the lemon balm to completely take over our front-yard garden, and except for a portion cordoned off by concrete! (where I had planted low-grow sumac; nice pretty foilage, that eventually in the season took on some ailment though--never did look into it), the lemon balm and rosa did just that.

But now I'm thinking since we have a huge deep front yard (for the burbs anyway), that I could plant a few Carolinas (up front) as they were not struck with any disease (for the most part), formed a beautiful tall thick hedge, the flowers very simple, fragrant, and plentiful, and the rose hips that followed were large enough to put to good use.

(I had never really looked into how to use them prior, though; thanks for the link you sent.) It mentions putting them in boiling water, so I'm wondering about that in regard to saving the vitamin C. I suppose if I just make wine, I don't have to worry about it (in more ways than one as you say)... :) Thanks again!

Rosa Carolina

[greeneyes]

Nice looking rose. Reading through the info, reminded me that our Rosa Rugosa came through last year’s drought without ever watering it.

The rose hips have many nutrients: iron, calcium, Vitamin E, selenium, manganese, b-complex vitamins, trace amounts of magnesium potassium, and sulfur, in addition to Vitamin C. So you’ll get some useful stuff anyway.

The vitamin C is already 20 to 40% more than an orange. So If you cook it for 10-20 minutes, you lose more than 50%, but you still have some. Maybe you should drink 2 glasses of wine just to be sure.LOL

I guess you could always just add a few crushed ones after you open the wine, just to add to the Vitamin C if you want. As long as you don’t have the symptoms of Vitamin C deficiency, I wouldn’t worry about it.

You could always just make a smoothie using rose hips as one of the ingredients. Another thing to remember, is that dandelion greens also have Vitamin C and other good stuff. They tend to grow without effort on your part, and are one of the first things to green up in the spring.

You can also grow green peppers indoors, and get some vitamin c that way. One green pepper has 291% of the RDA for vitamin c. An orange only has 116% RDA.

I like tea, and lots of the teas that I like have rose hips as the first or second ingredient, so I wanted to have rose hips to be able to make my own herbal teas with the rose hips.

Since I don’t use boiling water or steep very long, I figure I am getting some of my vitamin c that way, and some in other ways. I love to put green pepper rings on my salad, and I also love stir fry with green peppers and onions etc.