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.

How pretty! I love it when roses grow together, intertwining. Is the red one Altissimo? Jackie

I actually found one on the site linked below from following a link to the right (one of the ads). LOL It looks kind of pricy, but worth it, I think! You'll have to scroll down and look around - I can't remember where exactly, but it's on the flexible molds site. Here is a link that might be useful: Rose Petal Soap Mold

Kentucky - I have been trying to figure out how to make some raised beds- or raised pots for the front yard landscaping. I don't want the look of basic garden vegetable beds for around the front of the house though. I thought maybe I could dig 2 ft hole and put a 2 ft raised planter on top of it, that night work. I iam also thinking about making very big planters (they are ridiculously expensive to buy. I am not sure about the aestetic for my front landscaping, but after considering many materials and my craftsmanship capabilities I have a plan. I will just have to try it and see how it looks. It could sit above ground, part in ground or in ground. My design is 2"x2" wood frame cube (or taller) dark cedar stained (ECO friendly and plant safe). Side and bottom panels of 1" hardware cloth. Inner lining of natural burlap. It would sit on 8" concrete blocks (in ground) with the hole side up foradditional drainage. Inside bottom filled with river rocks then another lining of burlap to contain the soil and the plant and finally mulch on top, of course. It would have to be big enough to allow 3'x3' space for the roots to grow in the soil area. Again, the aestetic is the probelm (aside form all the hard work and digging). I think it wold look descent but odd. To build a retaining wall for the space under the front window of the house would not look right eiterh at the height I need it to be. I think the real solution is to pay for a backhoe to come in here and excavate the clay and then have new soil put in - way too expensive for me right now. I do have one narrow strip on the west side of the front yard that I am lining with concrete blocks to build up that soil area. I plan on very tall trellises lining that hill (all my land is hilly) and covering them with rose and jasmine vines as a privacy fence. The probelm is the area is part shade - never sunny and that is not goo for any of the plants I like. I bought the Charles Darrow Hybrid Musk for that location as it is reported by others to grow and bloom very well in shade. I also have some varieties of Jasmine that might do in that spot. I am also thinking of Camelias and Sky Pencil Holly. My Hollies are about 1ft tall now. It will be years before they grow big enough.