You're right, of course, it depends upon MANY things. I'd think, though, if your Cl. Mme. Testout is vigorous and healthy, missing a few shouldn't make a tremendous difference. Now, if it was a small own root plant, immature, potted, etc., and it pushed three blooms, probably leaving one or two might make a difference. Generally, the smaller, weaker, more stressed the plant, the fewer hips it would probably require to prevent it from flowering. Kim

yes, I ponder this question every year, attempting to keep up with deadheading sweet peas. Inevitably, there comes a point when I just think 'sod it, I am bored with them now'.....and let them pod away. And, of course, this issue comes up with roses (although, for roses which don't set heps, I am obviously a lot slacker regarding deadheading than those with huge green globes hanging off them.
And then there is the issue of timing........suppose I go away for a weekend before doing the deadheading - is the 'damage' done? How long does a hep have to exist before the rose acts as though viable fertility rates mean no more blooms - a day, a week, a nanosecond?
Until, overwhelmed with the many variables, I do the ostrich thing....and wander off to some other, less worrying part of the garden.

I am off to the woods now....but when I get back, I will be ripping the sweet peas out - a vicious task requiring violent tugging, followed by frustrating tanglement in the various support methods.....and since it was netting this year, I expect to get hot and sweary (sweaty too).

Just speculating--but I think it might be a stem-by-stem thing. A stem with a cluster of developing hips is going to route most of its available chemical energy into filling out those fruits and seeds, rather than making new shoots at that location. Maybe there is a central planning council that can dispatch extra sugars and starches to the pregnant stems (like our WIC program), maybe not.

I doubt that a few hips would have any systemic effect on the whole plant. I certainly wouldn't be getting out that ladder.

We do see examples of whole-plant pregnancy in some annuals and biennials which shrink themselves to almost nothing as they pump all their nutrients into developing seed. Bit perennials and woody plants don't do that, AFAIK.

Thanks for chiming in on this one Campanula - you expressed exactly my dilemma about wondering how soon the damage is done and not really wanting to have it be a source of stress. Thanks to our resident rose experts, Kim & Michael, I now have official permission not to get out that ladder (though I do admit to stretching up to pull those laterals off the top of the arch and I could JUST reach them). That does make a lot of sense what you said, Michael, about the roses not going into whole-plant dormancy. That seemed to be the crux of the issue, and it would make sense that woody perennials wouldn't do that - one acorn won't fell the mighty oak, and all that. And as for the central planning council, that might be a threat but as we've often stated here on GW, roses don't read (so they'd ignore the regulations anyway).

Sweet peas might be another story on going dormant from a few seeds, but if they're the perennial kind it seems like once they're established you can't really kill them anyway. So go off and spend time in some other more rewarding area of the garden Camps, and rip the little buggers out when they annoy you enough.

Thanks all for your help in understanding this process!

Cynthia

I checked Raspberry Rugostar this morning--it blooms even if there are hips on the same stem! It is a hybrid rugosa.

This post was edited by zack_lau on Mon, Jul 29, 13 at 11:16

Perhaps it depends on what kind of rose it is - my large old tea roses don't ever get deadheaded, but they set hips and then keep blooming anyway. I can remember one Christmas when I was cutting sprays of lovely round orange hips off my Le Vesuve to use with dried pomegranates in a bowl, and while I was at it I was able to also cut Le Vesuve flowers for the table! Go figure..

Jackie

Hmm, that's encouraging to hear, Zack & Jackie. So it sounds like rose hips aren't actually inhibiting rose production and can co-exist with new blooms. I imagine they still draw some energy away from blooming, but with the tough Rugosa or well-established Le Vesuve, the rose had plenty of energy to spare. Kind of like parents in big families - changing diapers in some offspring (with more on the way) while teaching others to add and still others to drive. Makes me tired to think of it, but it's more testimony that roses are not the wimps they are sometimes made out to be.

Cynthia

Sure, good repeaters will bloom some alongside hips. Knock Out blooms quite well. The Knock Outs you see blooming at the mall have not been deadheaded. (Still, I'm sure there is some reduction.) Carefree Sunshine, on the other hand, loses maybe 3/4 of repeat bloom if not deadheaded.

That depends upon which rose; how vital the particular plant is; where it is, in what climate and how suited it is for that climate; how suited it is for the culture it receives.

New Dawn grown in the ground for over eight years in Torrance, CA, flowered in spring, set hips and refused to repeat any flowering until it was fully dead headed. It did the same in fifteen gallon cans at Limberlost Roses in Van Nuys, CA; my garden in Granada Hills, CA and in the Santa Clarita Valley, CA. I facilitated the gifting of the New Dawns in the Torrance garden to friends who retired to Tehachapi, CA, where the ground froze to a depth of a foot in winter. Stone fruit requiring 600 chill hours are grown commercially in Tehachapi (or were, in those years). The same New Dawn plants which were spring flowering unless fully dead headed, flowered in flushes without dead heading in Tehachapi and repeated that performance for well over a decade, until I lost contact with the friends who retired there. They may still, I don't know. They received far more attention in the coastal garden in Torrance than they ever did in the mountain garden in Tehachapi, yet they behaved as Beales' and everyone else's books state they should in the mountains. The rose simply required conditions it couldn't receive along the coast, nor in the inland valleys.

Pretty Lady in Santa Clarita gardens are continuing to flower with regular dead heading. Mine usually does, but I let it set nearly four dozen hips I pollinated and I haven't received a single bloom from it in nearly three months. The plants of Blue for You which I pollinated heavily on are behaving the same. Those I didn't pollinate on continue flowering. Many of the roses in my garden are loaded with hips (all modern floribundas, shrubs and polys) from my pollinating and haven't produced any new growth nor flowers in several months. Hips take approximately 100 days to fully ripen. Once I begin harvesting the ripe hips, new growth begins and flowering resumes. It all depends upon the factors I listed above. Kim

Kim, do you know whether removing the fully ripe hips matters as opposed to letting them hang?

I would imagine the main difference would be in speed of recycling, Michael. While the seeds are "ripe", viable, at around a hundred days, some roses will hang on to the hips far longer until the point of abscision forms the membrane across the peduncle and the hip falls on its own. By that point, here, I often lose many of my crosses to squirrels, birds, rats and whomever else wanders through and finds them interesting. I'm paying attention to the time this year because I pollinated a fraction of the number I did last year and hope to harvest them before something else does. So far, so good.

Leaving them on until the plant sheds them simply takes longer before resumed growth and flowering occurs. Kim

This is a fun and very enlightening discussion folks! Your story about New Dawn, Kim, seems to support the notion that the extent to which hips interfere with a rose's blooms depend on the "energy" reserves that the rose has to draw upon. Tough as nails roses like Knockout (as Michael mentioned) or the roses Jackie and Zack mentioned have such a reservoir of health and energy that hips are unlikely to affect them much in any climate unless something else interferes with their vitality. Notorious wimps like Tom Brown or Grey Pearl might be killed by one hip any time anywhere, assuming they set any in the first place. In your story of New Dawn, it sounds like the rose was able to build up a greater store of energy reserves in a climate pattern more to its liking, and therefore the hips affected it to a much lesser extent.

I was wondering a related question to Michael's - is every rose hip that spontaneously appears on a bush pollinated so as to produce viable seed, and could it matter that you are deliberately trying to get your roses "pregnant" in your breeding efforts, which might take more energy for the rose than a random hip popping up here and there. I'm thinking of the analogy of chickens, and I don't know if it applies here. When chickens have a set of fertilized eggs, they shift all their energies from laying new eggs to brooding and caring for the bunch. The unfertilized eggs that we eat are expected to be "ever-blooming", however, every day or two. I imagine that you're also leaving the hips on the rose far longer than the random hips I encounter, which also makes a difference as you've already said in the recycle rate.

Related to your squirrel comment, would it help to tie a netting or panty hose segment over the crosses to keep it on the bush even if the critters mess with it? Exhibitors seem to do something of the sort for show blooms. I could totally see me getting manic if a cross that I've waited years to develop got carried off by a witless tree rat that didn't really want to eat it anyway, and buried it somewhere in my neighbor's yard!

Thanks for the enlightenment, everyone!

Cynthia

There have been very few in my experience which set "hips" without seed in them. Whether the seed is actually viable or not, it would register as a "pregnancy", Cynthia. Unfertilized chicken eggs are ovulation. Flowering is ovulation, so they would be comparable. If the eggs were fertilized, they would then be comparable to "hips". Yes, the quantity of hips set could easily make the difference due to the size, genetics of the plant and many other factors. It wouldn't make any difference if the hips present were from my playing bee, an actual bee or the plant self fertilizing. In that case, the presence of a seed represents fertilization and the plant shouldn't care whom or how, just that it is present. The only way my deliberate hips remain on the plant longer than volunteers would be due to deliberate dead heading, or not. The seed are generally felt to be viable after a hundred or so days. Very often, the hips will remain on the plants quite a bit longer than that, like many other "fruit bearers". Some oranges can last many months on the tree after they are sufficiently ripe to eat. Meyer lemons here will also hang on the tree until nearly rotten, or until something steals them or knocks them off. If anything, particularly this season, my pollinated hips are remaining on the plants a shorter time than usual, simply because I have been marking their time by calendar and don't want to have to race the theiving varmints for them. Kim

Thanks for the extra explanation, Kim - I think I'm sort of starting to understand the process! So, my analogy of roses and chickens actually has some validity, eh? Wow, just think of the breeding potential if you could cross a rose with a chicken - not only would the plant immediately eat any bugs that settled on it (and peck to death any thieving varmints for you), but it would produce its own fertilizer and be a truly self-sustaining system!

And we thought the ultimate rose breeding challenge was a disease resistant vigorous hardy fragrant everblooming lavender...

Cynthia

You're welcome, Cynthia! Yes ma'am, there is a bit of validity to your analogy. I don't think I want to go down the road of crossing roses and chickens, though. They would probably be all you've envisioned, but the three varmints in my house make all the noise I care to deal with. Roses clucking around the garden (or crowing at dawn!) would be a bit too much. Besides, as it is neither coyotes or any other predators bother the roses! Kim

Egad, you're right Kim. Just picture the mayhem if you had to run out into the street yelling - "help, the coyotes just carried off my Blessed Child". Much as we love our roses, I don't think the neighbors (or police) would understand.

Cynthia

Well, there IS that, but I also don't cherish the thought of prickles in my scrambled eggs nor having to spray my chicken breasts for Japanese Beetles or black spot! Kim