A facile and green route for the synthesis of palladium nanoparticles was developed utilizing non‐toxic and renewable natural Rosa canina fruit extract as the reducing, stabilizing and capping agent, and they were applied as a heterogeneous catalyst for Suzuki coupling reactions between phenylboronic acid and a range of aryl halides containing iodo, bromo and chloro moieties in water under moderate reaction conditions. The structural investigation of the generated nanoparticles was performed with UV–visible spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X‐ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and energy‐dispersive X‐ray analysis. The method has some advantages such as high yields, efficiency, elimination of surfactant, chemical reductants, ligand and organic solvent, economic, cleaner reaction profiles, heterogeneous catalysis, simple methodology and easy workup. The catalyst can be recovered and reused seven times without any significant decrease in catalytic activity. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.