Saturday, April 7, 2018

Waiting a Long Time for Blooms...

One of the things that makes rose breeding so fun is that usually it is not a very long wait to see new blooms after the baby roses sprout.  In fact most seedling roses will bloom in only 8-10 weeks after germinating.  That is the kind of wait that I can manage.


It doesn't work out that way though when you work with species, or near species type roses.  Seedlings may not bloom for a year or more after germinating in species crosses.  The seedling in the photo above is finally developing buds in it's third year of growing. It first sprouted in the greenhouse in 2016.  It germinated from a batch of seeds from a seed parent that typically produces the modern types that bloom in just a few weeks after sprouting.  Usually, from modern rose crosses, I will not keep these types of seedlings that refuse to bloom in the first year.  This seedling was different however, in that it appeared extremely clean, it was very vigorous, and it seemed to produce little to no thorns.  I thought that it would certainly bloom in 2017, but it did not.  Now with lots of buds forming, the long wait is over!  I expect that it will produce simple, 5 petalled pink blooms that will not be very spectacular.  As long as the blooms are not ugly, I will keep the plant to see if I can make a hedge of it.  I will post photos of the blooms when they open.

3 comments:

  1. Fingers crossed Jim! What an exciting profession you have. I am looking forward to the flowers. groetjes,
    Hetty

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  2. I found out this same thing when I started some open pollinated ‘belle of sultane’. I had initially about 8 or 9 plants. Now I am down to 5 or so but it took all of them at least two years to bloom. Because they were in an obscure area of the garden, I just left them. I will probably not keep them because they did not compare to Momma, which I still love. Hope your seedlings make you happy! We do have to have lots of patience. Most people don’t realize that.

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  3. Fantastic stuff ! I was wondering if perhaps you could offer some advice on hybridizing with hulthemia a at some point , perhaps suggest a good parent or two to work some into my lines . My email is epiphyteme@icloud.com if you ever have time to chat !

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