o rose, thou art sick

i walk past the house i basically grew up in on my way to work almost every day. it's a really odd sensation, waving to old neighbours and stopping for a chat, seeing that the place still has the hideous red blinds my mum bought in the spare room window, wondering what the people who are like live there now. i could kid myself that it's a shortcut, and that's why i walk that way every day, but it only realistically shaves 2 minutes off my journey, and i only ever walk that way on my way to, not from, work. the real reason i walk that way is because it is situated on a contemporary housing estate between the village i now live in, and the village i work in. the people who built the housing estate have given it every faux-suburbia detail you'd expect; fake gables, fake pillars, banks of ornamental plants seperating the path and the road. it's no different from any other in the country; especially down to the fact that these banks of ornamental plants are all non-native to the uk. they're all cheap, hardy, perennial, invasive foreign plants, which stirs something in me, makes me feel uneasy and quite angry in fact. a lot of uk wildflowers and plants are endangered, and the people who build estates like this are building them on land where these plants would previously have grown. i am not saying they shouldn't be building homes, but the idea of planting cheap imported plants to take up space and provide something green and suburban rapidly seems irresponsible when growing native plants is possible, and would in fact be a commendable act of conservation by these companies.

still, as usual i have been making the best of an unsurprisingly bad lot. while spring was spent tossing handfuls of native wildflower seeds in to these banks (i am starting to see some growth, which pleases me), the beginning of summer has seen me anxiously watching one of the invaders with interest.

the plant in question is the japanese rose. the japanese rose differs from wild english roses, in that its flowers and hips ripen at the same time, and its petals are a far more lurid pink (as you can probably guess, it was bred as an ornamental). you rarely see wild english roses these days, so if you're looking to make rose flavoured things you're either gonna have to turn to your back garden, or arm yourself with a pair of scissors and go to battle with the invaders colonizing suburbia. which is exactly what i did.

as with other invasive wildlife, such as the signal crayfish, if you remove reproductive opportunities from the japanese rose, you're actually helping out our native wildlife, so really, there isn't any reason not to pick (and to be honest, there are so many hips on a japanese rose that the likelihood of you preventing it self-seeding more plants is so slim as to be laughable). it's basically your patriotic duty to buy jam sugar and declare war.

these are the petals and hips i got on one half hour outing (and that probably included the walk there and the walk back):


i also got some surprise wild lavender, which i was, i assure you, a lot more responsible in picking (you should only ever pick what you'll actually use and never completely strip a plant; nature doesn't belong to any one person, or in fact, just to people at all), which i found growing in an alleyway on my walk. as you can see, that's quite a ludicrous haul, the tubs shown holding at least 400-500ml each. with my river cottage hedgerow handbook as my guide, i rinsed my haul and got to work on preserving my spoils.

we'll start with the hips, with which i made:

rosehip syrup

basically this is the easiest thing ever. for every 150 grams of hips you have, use 250mls of water. bring it all to the boil in a huge pan, and let simmer for about 15 minutes, mashing gently with a potato masher every so often. strain it through a musin lined sieve, chuck away the pulp, rinse out the muslin, and re-strain into the pan. add 150g granulated sugar, stir over a low heat until the sugar is dissolved, then bring to a boil, and take off the heat. pour it into hot, sterilized jars.

here's mine:


and now onto the petals. with most of mine i made rose petal jelly (recipe also taken from the river cottage hedgerow handbook):

rose petal jelly

makes two small jars

250ml water
250ml japanese rose petals (gently pressed down)
350g jam sugar (ie. sugar with added pectin)
juice of 1/2 a lemon

pour the water into a medium saucepan and bring to the boil. take off the heat and stir in the petals. put into a bowl, cover, and leave for an hour at least, or overnight if you have the time:

strain the liquid through a fine sieve back into your pan and place over a low heat. add the sugar and stir to dissolve, then add the lemon juice and bring to a scary, fast boil. keep this rolling boil going for 4 minutes, then take the pan off the heat.

allow the mixture a couple of minutes to calm down, then pour into hot, sterilized jars, filling them to the brim before screwing on the lid.

here are my jars:


let's all just take a moment to look at the beautiful colour of this. i was awestruck, like a little kid. this was so simple to make that i am already scouting for my next fix of petals; i definitely need as much of this jelly in my life as is humanly possible.

now, for my final petals, and my bonus lavender:

floral sugar

i can't remember where i got this recipe for floral/herbal sugars, but basically all you do is layer up the petals and sugar in airtight jars, and every couple of days, stir, until you have beautifully scented and flavoured sugar for use in baking and cooking. the reason this way is the best i have found is because it does not bruise the petals and therefore it is less likely that your sugar will ferment.

here's mine:

i used granulated sugar for the rose petals, and unrefined caster sugar for the lavender. mostly because it was what i had around, but also because i suspect the lavender sugar will be the one i reach for more in the main body of cakes and baking, and the rose will be more of a 'finishing sugar', for sprinkling on top of cakes and desserts.

so, not a bad haul for one afternoon of walking/picking/singlehandedly taking on irresponsible landscape gardening, eh? i've now got a shelf full of preserves i can use in my cooking, and i've done wild roses the country over a favour in the process. it's a wonder more people don't do this kind of thing; as it definitely does a body good.