First Pollination of 2015

Last week I moved some of my new rose seed parents into the greenhouse.  Having some seed parents in the greenhouse helps me to get an earlier start on pollinations.  Like todays cross, most years the first cross is one of happenstance - I'll use whatever happens to be blooming early.

Last year, I discovered that one of the new seedlings from 2013, it's code name is "Q199-1", sets hips very well and this year because I really liked the seedling (it is one of my better Hulthemias), I decided to plant lots of open pollinated seeds from it.  Note that when testing new prospective seed parents for germination, I always plant the seeds more densely than normal.  The reason is that in my experience, many roses have a very low germination rate.  As seen below, however, this seedling's seeds germinate exceedingly well.  In fact, had I known that germination would be so good, I would not have planted the seeds so close together.  Even so, this gives an opportunity for the more vigorous seedlings to show themselves.

As it turns out, the seedling parent of this group of seedlings would be blooming tomorrow.  So, I decided to use its first bloom for the first pollination of the year.  I had to remove it's petals before the bloom opened so as to prevent self pollination.  It's petals are shown below.

Another seedling, "P15-1", a bright yellow mini (see below) coming from 'First Impression' was also blooming today.  So I took some of it's anthers and let them release their pollen.  The pollen was then applied to the Hulthemia mentioned above.

So then, this was not a cross that I had planned, but who knows, maybe something interesting will come from it.  We'll have to wait until next year to find out.  Stay tuned!