Right-now Rosehips are in season! These bright orange-red, oval shaped fruit are abundant in hedgerows everywhere.
In fact, Rosehips are produced by all sorts of rose plants, even on garden roses too. The one we forage for is the common Dog Rose (Rosa canina) the beautiful, delicate pink flower found scrambling through hedgerows in May. Unusually, these flowers are pollinated by beetles! The fruit then appears in September. Birds and small animals do eat rosehips so when we head out foraging we always make sure we leave plenty for wildlife.
Did you know......during the war Government scientists discovered, based on evidence from natural medicines, that rosehips have 20 times the vitamin C of oranges! They were considered to be so important that it was recommended that children had a teaspoon of rosehip syrup everyday. They even set up a national rosehip collection week where scouts, guides and other groups would head out to harvest the nation’s hedgerows. In 1941 this produced a 200 ton haul of hips which made 600,000 bottles of syrup!
We use foraged rosehips in the distillations for all our Hedgerow gins. We can't claim our products have vitamin C in them! The heat of the still does away with that, but they bring a little sweetness and then tangy sour notes which we think goes really well with the juniper and hedgerow foraged crab apple.
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