10/08/2026
THE ROSE HIPS THAT WENT TO WAR 🌹
In the autumn of 1941, British schoolchildren headed into the hedgerows with baskets. They weren’t picking flowers.
They were picking rose hips for the war effort.
German submarines were sinking merchant ships carrying food to Britain, and ships that did make the crossing had to reserve precious cargo space for the supplies the country needed most. Imported oranges became increasingly difficult to obtain—leaving Britain searching for another reliable source of vitamin C, especially for children.
And growing wild along roadsides and hedgerows was an answer hiding in plain sight: rose hips, extraordinarily rich in vitamin C.
So the Ministry of Health organized a national collection.
Schoolchildren, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, teachers, members of the Women’s Institute and other volunteers combed the countryside for the bright red fruits. Some children were paid 3 pence for every pound they collected.
By the end of that first campaign, they had gathered about 200 tons—an estimated 134 million rose hips.
Nine manufacturers turned the harvest into some 600,000 bottles of National Rose Hip Syrup, which began appearing in chemists’ shops in early 1942 as a wartime substitute for orange juice, intended especially for young children.
As the British Medical Journal reported at the time, “a teaspoonful a day will supply half the vitamin C a child needs.”
And those weren’t cultivated garden rugosas they were gathering. Much of the harvest came from Britain’s wild roses, including the dog rose (Rosa canina).
But if you grow a hip-producing rose today, you can see a little echo of that history in your own garden.
This time of year, the faded flowers you leave behind begin swelling into orange and red hips. Rugosa roses are particularly good at producing big, showy ones.
And there’s another reason to leave them.
In fall, stop deadheading and let your roses set hips. Hip development slows new growth and helps signal the plant that it’s time to prepare for winter.
So those bright fruits appearing on your roses right now aren’t just pretty.
Eighty-five years ago, their wild cousins were part of Britain’s wartime food supply.
Not bad for something we usually grow for the flowers. 🌹
Photo Credits
1. Torpedoed merchant ship / U-boat attack�Credit: Imperial War Museums, MISC 51237. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
2. Oranges-for-children photo, Britain, c. 1942�Credit: Ministry of Information Photo Division / Imperial War Museums, D 7966. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
3. Nature-walk children, Devon, 1941�Credit: Ministry of Information Photo Division / Imperial War Museums, D 3107. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
4. Norfolk Girl Guides National Rose Hip Collection�Credit: Girlguiding Norfolk County Archive Resource Centre (ARC), via MyLearning. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
5. British Medical Journal, “Medical News,” Jan. 31, 1942�Source: British Medical Journal, “Medical News,” January 31, 1942, Vol. 1, Issue 4230, p. 171.
