Big Hip

Big Hip is a named seedling selection of the European apple rose made by Ken Asmus at Oikos Tree Crops in southwestern Michigan, and it exists for one reason: hip production per square foot of shrub. Asmus screened apple-rose seedlings for plants carrying the heaviest load of large hips on the smallest frame, and also for precocity, so Big Hip plants flower and set fruit by their second year rather than idling. The comparison that matters to growers is against Rosa rugosa, the default hip rose in North America: Asmus reports Big Hip yielding at least triple a rugosa plant, with markedly better-tasting fruit. It is distributed as open-pollinated seed rather than as a grafted clone, so the name describes a selected population, not a fixed nursery cultivar. Hips are eaten fresh at the soft stage and used in the usual hip preparations.