Only you can know whether you will have more use for petals or hips. Hips are used for tea, are you more likely to use the sunburn remedy or drink tea? You can have both. As the flowers fade, gently collect the petals by knocking them from the flower, leaving the flower stem intact. The hips will form if you do not cut the flower but simply pick the petals.

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

Setting seed is pregnancy. If the plant is stressed, it may not set seed. If, for some reason, the pollen didn't make it to the pistles to accomplish fertilization, or if the weather was not conducive to fertilization (too wet, too cold, too hot, etc.) seed won't be set. If the plant is too immature, it may not set seed. Just as with people, "getting pregnant" is hit and miss. Some are more fertile and willing to set seed than others. Those of us here in extreme heat areas quickly find out how late in the heat we can pollinate before it stops working. A friend out in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs, has already stopped pollinating because it's too hot for fertilization to work. I'm still pollinating here just north of Los Angeles because it's still working. If I allow the seed parents to dry out, they'll stop setting seeds. If I don't watch how I water and the pollinated flowers get soaked by the hose, fertilization might easily be stopped for those blooms. If your rose fits any of the mentioned categories, it could explain why seeds didn't set. Kim

The Rugosas sucker on their own roots, don't they? Roots spread out & throw up new canes in an ever-expanding patch over time. Might want to find a grafted one if this wouldn't work in your space. Thorniest rose I grow is Aloha Hawaii, a shortish climber whose main canes are literally studded with thick long sharp thorns. Can be grown as a stocky shrub with pruning or allowed to frame the window for a double deterrent. Blooming laterals not as bad as the main canes, but no one could wade through it without a suit of armor. Fragrant double blooms in a range of sunset hues that repeat well & often from early to late here. Lovely fat hips if not deadheaded. HelpMeFind says occasional bloom after the first flush, but Member Ratings average out to Good- from 11 feedback reports. Bloom frequency increased with age here to 4-5 flushes at 4 years old. Nippstress grows this in zone 5b Nebraska. http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.39802.4&tab=1  Keep in mind that it would be a barrier if you ever needed to exit through that window, though. Sue