Beautiful dog roses now line the lanes, their flowers attracting lots of bees. Dog roses are not only beautiful to look at but they also provide the key ingredient for rose-hip syrup, which provided big doses of vitamin C for people, particularly children, in wartime.
The dog rose is native to Europe, north west Africa and western Asia and the “dog” tag features in the name in many languages. The dog rose is the rose seem in medieval heraldry, on shields and coasts of arms. The rose grows happily it seems wherever it can find a footing and the flowers are small and delicate in a range of colours.
The hip, or fruit, of the dog rose is very high in vitamin C. Here's one way to make the syrup when the berries appear in autumn. Boil two cups of water and add four cups of rose hips and a cup of sugar. Let simmer for about 20 minutes then put into lidded containers and keep in the fridge. You can use honey instead of sugar, says one cook. Older people will remember being given spoons of rose hip syrup when they were children in the days during and after the Second World War.
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