Germinating Rose Hip

I found this sprouting seedling the other day ago while cleaning out some of the pots of old leaves and other debris.  As seen in the photo below, the seedling is sprouting right out of the hip.  It reminded me of the time when I experimented planting whole rose hips directly into seedling flats and stratified them like that in the refrigerator.  I had wanted to see if there was something about the hips that would inhibit the seeds from germinating.  The hips had come from 'Avandel', a miniature rose, that I had learned many years ago from Carolyn Supinger of Sequoia Roses, was a good miniature rose seed parent.  My experiment proved that rose seedlings are happy to germinate directly from the rose hips.  The problem came when trying to separate one seedling from another because they all germinated together from the hip.  It was difficult to separate them without breaking the fragile roots.  This seedling too had a broken root, so was not transplanted, but it made me think again about how much living things are made to live.

2012 Germination Progress

Early in the year, in order to track progress and to assess germination rates, I make 3 or 4 counts of all of the seedlings that are germinating.  My first count this year was made last weekend.

So far, there have been 5,033 germinations.  Among these 2,751 were from Hulthemia crosses, and among those, there were 483 seedlings coming from crosses between Hulhemias and stripes.  Over the next 6 weeks, I anticipate an additional 5,000 to 10,000 seedling germinations.  By then, some of the new seedlings will be blooming for the first time.

Below is a portion of the Excel spreadsheet that I use to keep track of my seedlings.

I have found the spreadsheet to be particularly helpful when assessing the germination rates of new seed parents.  The far left column under "F", contains the number of germinations for each particular cross.  The percent germination can be seen in the right column.  Early in the season among the better germinating seed parents, there is often a large difference in germination rates reflecting the difference in time that it takes for seeds from a particular cross to germinate.  The seeds from some seed parents germinate very early, while other seed parents are late germinators.  Generally, I'll get 25-30% overall germination by the end of the season.

Before using a new seed parent, I will usually check the germination rate for "OP", or open pollinated seeds first before spending (and perhaps wasting) any time on them making crosses.  That is an important step, because many roses that produce abundant hips and seeds, have very poor germination rates.  With one seed parent, code name N147-30, I decided to take a chance and use it since I liked it so much and it seemed to set hips well.  Fortunately, it has turned out to have good germination rates (ranging from 27.27% to 38.69%).  N147-30 resulted from a cross of 'Pearl Sanford' X 'Thrive!', and is a miniflora to floribunda sized rose having a nice bright red coloring and glossy foliage with above average cleanliness.

Further down on the sheet there are several new seedlings that were tested for germination rates.  Two sister seedlings that I like very much, N161-1 and N161-2, are nice miniature Hulthemias that set loads of hips.  Usually, I will only pick 10-15 hips each of a new seed parent to check germination rates, so as not to waste too much seedling bench space.  With these two however, I had high hopes for them being good germinators and wanted to see the range of seedling possibilities, so I picked lots of hips and planted all of their seeds.  As you can see, out of 1,454 seeds of N161-2 that were planted, there have been ZERO germinations so far!  That is powerful evidence that time should not be wasted using it as a seed parent.  It is possible that these are both later germinators since the seed parent of these two is also a late germinator, so I will wait and keep my fingers crossed.  Later in the season, I will give an update on their final germination rates.

Crested Moss Seedlings

The new 2012 seedlings are sprouting like crazy and some of my most hoped for crosses are showing excellent germination.  Shown below is a group of seedlings coming from a Hulthemia cross.

Although the development of new Hulthemia hybrids is my primary focus, I have interests in other unusual roses as well.  One of my other interests is to develop a good repeat blooming crested moss miniature rose.

On the website HelpMeFind, the crested moss trait is given this description: "The fringed and mossy sepals project from the buds in such a way that they resemble little three-cornered hats like the French tricorne that Napoleon often wore" (for more information about crested moss type roses, please google "Chapeau de Napoleon rose", or for an excellent description, please go to Paul Barden's website at http://paulbardenroses.com/centifolias/cristata.html).  My interest in the crested moss roses was first piqued by Mr. Ralph Moore several years ago.  He spent more than 30 years working with the crested moss roses before he got any repeat blooming seedlings.  He ended up with a handful of repeat blooming crested moss varieties that have not been released.  One of his repeat blooming hybrids that I have had the opportunity to work with is his "Red Crested Moss".  It produces large red semi-double to double blooms and has a fair amount of cresting on its sepals.  Although it rarely sets hips (I have only seen one), it has proven to have good pollen fertility.  I had not used it much until last year, but was very happy to see that many hips were produced and was even more pleased to see an excellent germination rate among several of the crosses where it was used as the pollen parent.  The batch seen below, is from a cross of 'Pearl Sanford' X "Red Crested Moss". I may have planted them too densely to allow for good growth.

While it is possible that the first generation may not exhibit any of the crested moss type sepals, I am very excited to see what develops over the next few weeks!

Meeting Alain Meilland

Last week, at the Huntington Botanical Gardens, I had the unique opportunity to meet one of the foremost international leaders in roses - Alain Meilland, of the House of Meilland, where he was the featured guest for the Great Rosarians of the World event.  He is the 6th generation to lead this company, which is probably most famous for producing the hybrid tea rose known as 'Peace'.  It is perhaps the most recognized rose of all time and figures into the lineages of a great many of the modern roses on the market today.

He shared about the importance of family, friends, and roses in his life.  Due to his father's unexpected passing, Alain had to take the helm of the company at the early age of 18 years.

One of the more interesting things about their operation is that they built their greenhouses on tracks so that the surviving rose seedling plants could be exposed to the outdoor elements without having to transplant them.  Instead of moving the roses outdoors like I have to do, the greenhouses are "rolled" out of the way - pretty slick!

My rose hybridizing efforts are dwarfed by the tremendous work done in France by the House of Meilland.  Nevertheless, I still have hopes for producing something unique and worthwhile.  After all, this rose hybridizing hobby is not only about numbers, but it is a combination of having the sometime good fortune of doing the right cross at the right time.

It was a real pleasure meeting the man, Alain Meilland.  I hope to have the opportunity to one day meet him again in France.

2012 First Germinations

The germinations have begun!  The first 2 rose seedlings sprouted on January 21st, and many more are already popping.  This is the time of the year when anticipation begins to mount.  The first new never before seen blooms should be presenting themselves in about 8 weeks.  I am really looking forward to see what shows up in this batch!

Ready for the 2012 Seedlings!

We seemed to start a bit late this year getting the greenhouse unloaded of the surviving 2011 seedlings.  The first seedling bench was unloaded on the day before Christmas, and the remaining 3 benches were finished on New Years Eve Day, and New Years Day 2012.  There were about 250 seedlings saved and potted up for further evaluation outdoors.  After the seedling benches had been cleared of any remaining roots and leaves, they were amended with additional potting soil and fertilizer which was blended into the old soil.  This was then flattened out and a top dressing of Sunshine Mix #5 and #3 were added (both of these mixes have a lower fertilizer content ideal for germinating seeds).  Seed planting started on 1/2/12.  With help from the whole family and a friend named Tembherman, we got the seedling benches planted in record time!  The last seeds were planted on January 6th and the next day, they were all tucked in with a layer of perlite on top.  The perlite helps to keep the surface dry, which reduces seedling losses due to fungal diseases.

And so, another seedling growing year begins.....

Click here to see the process from start to finish.

I can't wait to see what sprouts!

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas to you all! We will begin our tradition of celebrating the 12 days of Christmas starting tomorrow. In whatever way you celebrate this season, may you find moments of rest and happiness.

Blessings to you and yours,

Jim Sproul

Smooth Hulthemias

If you have experience with 'Tigris' (the common ancestor to all of my Hulthemia hybrids), you know that it is anything but smooth.  In fact, with it's rambling habit, it seems to actually reach out and grab onto you when you walk by it.  It's curved pickles make it especially difficult to disentangle yourself from it.  Although I have had a few Hulthemia seedlings along the way that have been quite smooth, most of them had smaller nearly indistinct blotches.  Though not always the case, the seedlings with the better blotches seem to have the more prickly stems.

In the photo below, is a seedling that I have liked for it's blotch size and unusual coloring.  The second photo shows it's characteristically prickly stem in greater detail.  Though it is fully remontant, it's habit is reminiscent of the earlier once blooming types, having canes ambling all over the place.

Because of the thorny connection to good blotches, I was very pleased this year to find the seedling show below.  Though it is closer to a mini in size, it has one of the largest and darkest blotches that I have seen to date.  And if you look closely, you will not see any thorns along it's stems or peduncles.  As an added bonus, it has very good blotch heat stability.  The last photo, taken in cooler weather to show the intensity of the blotch, is unfortunately not very clear since it was taken with my iPhone 3GS.

Greenhouse Unloading Preparations

Soon, it will be time to clean out the greenhouse of all of the surviving 2011 rose seedlings.  The last of the culls, much larger plants than the earlier culls, filled our green waste container.

A week ago, I finished tagging the survivors, 250 in all.  We really don't have room for that many new seedlings.  That means that many of the seedlings that have been saved from years passed will have to go.

For the last few years, I have been using the metal tags shown below (the best that I have found so far) to tag seedlings.  I attach a piece of plastic ribbon so that the tags are easier to find when the plants begin to grow out in the springtime.  "Color-coordinating" each year's seedlings has made for easier identification.  Last year was orange, and the year before was bright pink.

Hulthemia Traits, the Good and the Bad

This new 2011 seedling shown below is probably the showiest Hulthemia that I have had to date.  Because I liked it so much, I propagated it early (click here to see first bloom).  These blooms are on a 10 inch cutting, and there were a total of 5 blooms in the cluster, so it appears to be fairly floriferous even at a smaller stage.  To me the coloring looks almost brushed on.  

Unfortunately, this seedling also seems to be carrying some of the "bad" baggage that is sometimes seen in the modern Hulthemia hybrids.  It seems to have a tendency to dieback.  This is a characteristic of 'Tigris'.  Although it might represent an adaptive trait in desert type environments for the original species where dieback would protect the plant from dying due to lack of water, it certainly is not a good trait in modern Hulthemia hybrids.

Fortunately, I have seen that many of the offspring of seedlings with dieback, do not have dieback themselves.  This seedling will therefore probably still have its place in the lineage of future Hulthemias.  There is another new Hulthemia that I hope to cross it with. It is vigorous, healthy, and sets a ton of hips. If it's germination proves to be good, it will be used extensively in the coming year.

'Thrive!' and 'Eyeconic Lemonade'

It is very exciting to stand in a field of roses, among which are some of your very own seedlings.  I remember exactly where the original seedlings of 'Thrive!' and 'Eyeconic Lemonade' sprouted in the greenhouse.  Both seedlings stood out from the others.

I still have the two original seedlings.  It is truly amazing how it is possible to make so many exact clones in such a short time.  Thank you Star Roses® for seeing a future in my roses.

Hulthemia Restaurant

I couldn't help but snap this photo when I saw the praying mantis waiting so patiently.  Judging by the size of it, the location must have been a great place for finding grub!

Joy In the Midst of Harvest

Harvesting rose hips, especially thousands of them, is not my idea of having a fun time.  However, this past week I have discovered that my previously, nearly completely uncooperative, best Hulthemia, has turned out to be a very good pollen parent this year.

This Hulthemia seedling bears the largest, most heat stable blotch that I have seen to date. Additionally, it is one a the cleanest seedlings that I have.  However, it has never set a hip, and up until this year, its code name "M62", was the most frequent code that I saw on the tags of failed pollinations lying on the ground.  In fact, the first year that I used it as a pollen parent, there were no hips collected.  Last year I collected only 20 hips from all of the crosses that I made with it.  There were a total of only 72 seeds extracted and just 27 seedlings that sprouted.  Several of these have superior blotches and will be kept for further evaluation.

This year, I am not yet finished harvesting and already have more than 100 hips collected where M62 was used as a pollen parent.

So what made the difference?  I am not certain, but wonder whether the unusually cooler spring weather allowed better pollen production, or perhaps the temperatures were more conducive to producing successful pollinations.  In addition to the better success with M62, I have noted that this year several less cooperative roses are showing an increased number of open pollinated hips.

The photos below are of M62.  The first photo shows the very first bloom on the immature seedling, the second is a later mature bloom, and the final photo was taken outside this year in late July, showing its blotch's very good heat stability. It can be seen that the blotch occupies more than 50% of the petal. Many of the crosses this year were with striped seed parents, so hopefully there will be several striped Hulthemias in the upcoming batch of seedlings.

Path Break - Indian Corn By The Dozen

Though this blog is subtitled "A path to new roses.....", now and then I intend to take a side path.  This side path highlights the Indian Corn that I just picked today.  Husking each of the cobs was surprisingly enjoyable.  I have to admit that it was almost as much fun as viewing brand new rose seedlings for the very first time.  Much like waiting for each tiny rose bud to unfurl, opening each husk produced a feeling of anticipation.  Each multi-colored cob was unique, always different from all of the others.  This harvest time reminded me that cooler weather is just around the corner, and I am looking forward to it!

Now I wonder.......do you think that multi-colored sweet corn could find a market?? Please don't tell my wife that I'm thinking about it!

'Thrive!' Drive

'Thrive!', a healthy descendent of the 'Knock Out'® rose, is a new landscape type rose that is being introduced by Star Roses in 2012.  The 17 'Thrive!' roses lining our driveway were planted earlier this year.  The photos in this post were taken today, July 30, 2011, in Bakersfield, California.  I am pleased with how it is performing despite the usual hot summer weather that we have been having.

The parentage of 'Thrive!' is ('Marmalade Skies' X 'Baby Love') X 'Home Run'.  This variety has excellent disease resistance in Bakersfield, to the powdery mildew and blackspot prevalent here, and has good disease resistance in other locations tested, getting some blackspot on the East Coast, but still holding onto most of its foliage.

The foliage and blooms are nicer during the spring bloom cycle, but IMHO it's not doing too badly now either.

The Hulthemia Holy Grail - Blotch Heat Stability

When breeding for Hulthemia hybrids, it is the blotch that is the focus of one's attention.  Seedlings lacking blotches, or those having smaller or more faint blotches are quickly looked over when a bolder, larger blotch catches the eye.  Selecting for those seedlings only, that have the eye popping blotch, results in very few seedlings that remain after the initial culling process is complete.

It can be quite disappointing therefore when the blotches "disappear" on many of these select few seedlings.  Unfortunately, that happens quite frequently.

Both of the above seedlings had good to excellent blotches when they first bloomed earlier this year as new seedlings.  Notes on their markers indicate comments like "great blotch", or "wow".  As can be seen currently, however, there is nothing "wow" about either of these two seedlings (the same can be said for most of the other "select few").

I am convinced now that the condition that contributes most to blotch fading is the higher nighttime minimum temperatures present during the summer months.  Initially, I had thought that maybe it was the greater light intensity or hotter daytime temperatures that were the cause for the blotch "disappearance".  Over the last few years though I have noted that good blotches typically return in October.  That has been true even when the daytime temperatures in October have been over 100º F (unfortunately not a rare occurrence in Bakersfield).  In October, despite high daytime temperatures, nighttime temperatures usually drop into the mid-60's or lower.  It appears then, that sustained nighttime temperatures above 70º F have the greatest effect on blotch fade, and the higher the temperature the more important the impact.

'Eyeconic™ Lemonade', as seen below in a photo taken today, has some degree of fade, but it is not as pronounced as in the seedlings in the photos above.  'Eyeconic™ Lemonade' has been useful in producing other nice yellow Hulthemias, some of which seem to exhibit good heat stability.

The seedlings in the following photos are all exhibiting improved heat stability.  These will be used heavily in future breeding while I continue to search for the Hulthemia Holy Grail.

All of the photos in this post were taken on July 23, 2011, after having warm summer-type weather in Bakersfield, California.

Informal Floribundas

The first rose depicted below is not a Hulthemia.  It is one of my favorite informal floribunda type seedlings for our area.  It blooms profusely and doesn't get any powdery mildew.  Unfortunately, it does get blackspot.  The other disappointment is that while it blooms profusely and sets hips well, the germination rate is close to ZERO.

It's parentage is [('Marmalade Skies' X 'Baby Love') X ('Stainless Steel' X 'Baby Love')] X 'Julia Child'.

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The next seedling is new this year and is a Hulthemia.  There are several from this cross that have many petalled informal type blooms that are showing a hint of the Hulthemia blotch at the base of their petals.  My favorite is a larger pink one, but I don't have any photos of it yet.

This one is from a cross of [('Marmalade Skies' X 'Baby Love') x 'Julia Child'] X [({[('Orangeade' X 'Abraham Darby') X 'Midnight Blue'] X ('Geisha' X 'Baby Love')} X {[('Orangeade' X 'Abraham Darby') X 'Midnight Blue'] X 'Persian Sunset'}) X "mixed Hulthemia pollen"].

And it's fragrant.

The Hulthemia Line

The Hulthemia blotch has fascinated many of us ever since Harkness and Cocker released their first hybrids.  In this post, I wanted to highlight something else that I am seeing in the Hulthemia hybrids - it is the Hulthemia line.

In several of the newer seedlings, I am seeing what appears to be an alternate representation of the blotch into what looks more like a line than a blotch.  Some of the seedlings are still showing a blotch at the base of their petals, however, others are just exhibiting a darker line down the center of their petals without any other evidence of the blotch.

I suspect that this line, through subsequent generations of selective breeding, can be darkened and emphasized.  Do you think that it is worth pursuing?!

'First Impression' Proving To Be Quite Clean

This is a short departure from writing about the new Hulthemias, to write about an older seedling.  With this post, I wanted to highlight the disease resistance that I am seeing in a seedling from 6 years ago that has been named 'First Impression'.  'First Impression' is a dark yellow floribunda, introduced by Nor'East, and now carried by Greenheart Farms.  It has surprisingly good disease resistance - especially in our climate, but I am getting good reports from other areas of the country too.

The photo above was taken with my iPhone during a trip to Greenheart earlier this year.  I took a video of the plant (unfortunately after its peak bloom) to show its disease resistance in our non-sprayed rose garden.  Click here to see the video.  'First Impression' is the second rose in the video and has all of its foliage.  The first rose is heavily defoliated, while the third rose (actually a fairly clean rose too) has several leaves showing blackspot.  'First Impression' doesn't have a single blackspot on it.  For those interested in breeding yellow roses, I would suggest using this one.  There haven't been a lot of hips on 'First Impression' in my experience, but for some reason, most of our roses have produced an abundance of OP hips this year including 'First Impression.  I would mainly use it as a pollen parent, but who knows, maybe you could also get lucky and get good hips on it too!

'First Impression' came from a cross of [('Lynn Anderson' X 'Tournament of Roses') X 'Hot Tamale'] X ('Stainless Steel' X 'Baby Love').  Other than from 'Baby Love', I am not sure where it is getting its good disease resistance.

A Brief Study of Hulthemia Petal Color Distribution

For anyone already reading this blog, it is clear that the characteristic defining difference between regular roses and Hulthemia rose hybrids is the darker blotch seen at the base of the petals in the Hulthemia hybrids.  The blotch though, has several variations, all of which have the potential for offering new distributions of color on rose petals.

Several different distributions of color can be seen in the photo below.  This is by no means a complete representation of the various color distributions that are possible with the Hulthemia hybrids, but it does show a range of the possibilities.

All of these have at least a hint of the blotch, but on closer look, it can be seen that besides the obvious difference in color of the petals, there are also different distributions of the blotch color and accompanying petal coloration patterns.  To more easily discuss these differences, I have repeated the above photo of Hulthemia petals with numbers attached to each of the petals and copied it below.

Probably the most classic representation of the blotch is seen in petal 19.  There is a good solid blotch that goes all the way to the base of the petal and it has a distinct outer edge about 1/3 of the way to the petal edge.

Variations on this pattern include those with a lighter coloring just outside the blotch zone.  The lighter color really helps to accentuate the blotch.  Examples of this variation are petals 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18 and 21.   You might include petal 7 in this group, and you would probably be right.  I think it is a bit different though because it also has a fairly larger separation from the blotch and the petal base.  The blotch that remains is barely visible, but it is there.  Others that have a "cut-off" zone of the blotch from the petal base include petals 1, 5, 6, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 24, and 25.  You might throw in a few others with more subtle "cut offs".  This effect is less noticeable on more mature seedlings.

Another variation is a kind of "streaking" of the blotch out to most of the rest of the petal.  Examples of this pattern can be seen in petals 3, 5, 17, 22, and 25.  Not seen in these examples is another more gradual blending of the blotch as it fades (rather than "streaks") out further on the petal. This can be seen in the photo below of petals from J93-3.

Finally, some of the petals are showing more of the blotch going outward along the center of the petals simulating the appearance of a "line" (I will mention more about this in a later post), examples include petals 1, 3, 5, and 11.

For the fun of it, I included petal 23 in this photo.  As seen in an earlier post, it is possible to combine striping with the blotch.

The last 2 photos show the streaking effect in better detail.  In these seedlings the blotch is not as dramatic as in the more classic type Hulthemia blotch.