First Seedling to Bloom 2016

It has begun!  This is the first bloom with many more to come in the next few weeks.  Not sure if I can keep up with it all - but it sure is fun!

I couldn't help trying out the watercolor enhancement in Photoshop.  Someday I may take up painting again.

Blooms and Fruit Coming Soon!

It was just 2 1/2 weeks ago that I noticed the first rose bud forming on the new seedlings.   Now, there are many more forming, and that means that the blooms are not far off.  Soon the sepals on the seedlings below will start to break open and reflex, showing the petals beneath. Will there be an attractive color, a pleasant fragrance?

There are other seedlings blooming and about to bloom.  These are not roses, but are from other seeds that were planted in 2014.  The first below is coming from lilac seeds.  Although I have 7 lilac seedlings, this is the only one that will be blooming this year.  Hopefully, the others will bloom next year.  Wouldn't it be nice if lilacs bloomed throughout the year like roses?

The next seedlings are blueberry seedlings.  I have many more of these, and several are forming fruit for the first time this year.  They were mentioned in a post in 2014 when they were being potted up out of the rose seedlings beds (see Hulthemia Persica Seedlings (Part 3)).

Lastly, in the photo below, there is a seedlings coming from the blueberry variety named "Pink Lemonade".  It has unusual foliage coloration.  It is not developing fruiting flower buds this year, but I will keep it based on it's interesting foliage.  Hopefully, it will produce fruit next year.  

Path Break - Amaryllis

So, what does this post have to do with rose breeding?  Not much, but it is about planting seeds, and amaryllis are flowers, and, I wanted to make a post on February 29th since this is a leap year!

We always grow an amaryllis during the Christmas season.  We usually buy a "red" one, but almost always we get a light orange one.  This year we got a red one named "Mammoth Red".  It turn out being true to it's name and looked just like the photo.  There were actually 2 blooming stalks and each stalk had 4 flowers (sorry I didn't get a photo of ours, but it really did look like the photo below).  So I decided to try my luck at getting seeds.  I looked at a couple of youtube videos, followed the directions, and viola!  We have amaryllis sprouts!

It took 6 or 7 weeks for the seed pods to ripen, and they produced these black papery seeds.

After harvesting, the seeds were allowed to dry for 3 days and then planted.  Another 3 weeks later (just like the youtube videos said), they have started sprouting.  There were 7 baby amaryllis that I counted when I took this photo (can you find them all?).  Now, I just have to wait 2 or 3 years to see the first blooms.  This is a fun side-experiment, but not near as fun as rose breeding!  So my advice to you, is consider planting amaryllis seeds, but I suspect that you will get more fun and quicker results planting rose seeds.  Give it a try!

Seedlings of Happenstance

As is typical of most years, the first pollinations of the year are based on what is blooming at the time.  2015 was no exception.  Last year there were 2 seedlings that were blooming early that I had not consider to combine in a cross.  However, since they were blooming, I decided, "why not?!"  The seed parent was Q199-1 (a single petalled Hulthemia), while the pollen parent that I used was P15-1 (a very double, bright yellow mini).  More detailed descriptions can be found in the post entitled, "First Pollination of 2015".  It turns out that the very first pollination ended up failing, meaning that the hip dried up and fell off before any seeds had formed.  However, after making the cross, I decided to repeat it several times, such that at the end of the pollinating season, there were 31 hips forming that ended up producing 481 seeds.  Of these, so far 266 seedlings have sprouted.  Had the parents not been the first roses to bloom, I would not have made the cross.  Perhaps something beautiful will come out of this cross of happenstance.  :)

It won't be long and these will be blooming!

The very first flower bud of the year was seen yesterday on another cross that germinated a bit earlier (see below).

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day with an un-named floribunda seedling!

The Best Seedlings of 2015

The new rose seedlings are starting to sprout like weeds!  Counted 918 on Saturday and germinations increasing daily.  The best early germinator continues to be 'Pearl Sanford', with 26% of the seeds already germinated.

It will be a few weeks before any of the new seedlings show off their first blooms.  During this time of the year, I like to reflect on the best seedlings of last year (2015), looking to use most of these for crosses in 2016.

So here they are, the best of 2015.

2016 Rose Germinations - Part 1

They're sprouting!

Above are seedlings of a mini Hulthemia R82-1 crossed with a larger Hulthemia Q247-3.  This seed parent is having the best early germinations so far.  Q247-3 is one of my best Hulthemias and is shown below.

Next, is a seedling from one of my more anticipated crosses, a seedling of 'Midnight Blue' X 'Blue For You'.  The cotyledons have a purplish coloration, so I am hopeful that this suggests that it's blooms will have a nice more purple to blue coloration.  We should get a better idea about it's bloom color in about 8 weeks - I can't wait!

What New Roses Await in 2016?

The seedling beds are all planted again and ready to go!

First each group of crosses were planted together and tags were placed to indicate the parentage of each cross. 

Next, a top dressing of perlite was used to cover the newly planted seeds.  This is done to provide a dryer surface layer to help prevent a fungus from growing that is deadly to new seedlings, called "damp off".

This year we planted just under 41,000 seeds.  Some of my most anticipated crosses are listed below.  J76-3 is 'Thrive!', and I206 is 'First Impression'.  G168-2 is 'Thrive!'s seed parent and Q117-3 is a thornless remontant seedling coming from a a seedling of 'Thrive!' known as L56-1 crossed with "Basye's Thornless".  Q220-1 is a seedling of 'Midnight Blue' X "Basye's Thornless".  I am especially hopeful for something interesting coming from the cross of Q220-1 X 'Blue For You'.

We should have the first blooms in about 8 weeks.  I can't wait!

Late 2015 Hulthemia Blooms

We are starting to empty the greenhouse again of all the surviving seedlings.  Here are a few of the late blooms to brighten your December day.

The first one below is of a mini that I hope to release in the next 2-3 years depending on how it does next year outside.  It seems to have good cleanliness and vigor.

The next seedling has changed color as the weather has cooled and now has a nice burnt orange coloration.  This seedling and the seedling following it both have "Basye's Thornless" as a grandparent.  Unfortunately this bloom did not open flat and instead had one of the petals curled back behind the bloom, but you get the sense of it's unusual color.

This next seedling has quite a lot of petals for a descendent of "Basye's Thornless" since singleness is a fairly strong trait.  It's blotch is not that large, but still seems to add interest to the blooms.

Unlike the seedling above, the following seedling has a very large blotch, in fact it has the largest and darkest blotch of this year's batch of seedlings.  Like most of the seedlings that I have raised with these darker blotches, it has a lot of Hulthemia persica baggage: stunted rangy growth and thorns.  Although this seedling is not good enough to name or release, it may be useful as a breeder for future generations.

The next seedling hopefully will have good black spot resistance since one of it's parents is a Will Radler variety.  It seems to be in almost constant bloom.

The final seedling shown below is one of my favorites this year.  It is thornless and has been in constant bloom.  It is also a grandchild of "Basye's Thornless" and seems to have good resistance to powdery mildew.

Old and New Seedlings

Here are some random new and old seedlings that I am liking today. 

From 2010, one of my favorites, a fragrant English style seedling.

And here is one from 2013, a fairly floriferous Hulthemia.

The next one is a new 2015 seedling coming from the seed parent L56-1 (a 'Thrive!' seedling) that is bright red, crossed with 'First Impression'.  I didn't think that I would get a yellow rose from that cross since the red color is so strong.

And, below are two more 2015 seedlings that should be "keepers" for now.

The last seedling is almost thornless and has a nearly black eye.  I'm not sure that "black-eyed" roses would sell very well!  What do you think?!

'Midnight Blue' X Basye's Thornless

A seedling from 2013, coming from a cross of 'Midnight Blue' X Basye's Thornless, this is one of my favorite Basye's Thornless seedlings.  It is fully remontant, nearly thornless, blooming in very large clusters, and produces abundant hips.  I learned this year that the seeds germinate very well.  So of course I had to use it extensively this year as a seed parent.  One of the crosses that I am most hopeful for is a cross of this seedling X 'Blue for You'.  Since there are many hips, I hope to have several seedlings to look at from this cross in about 5 months.  This seedling is also the seedling that I highlighted in Winter, Spring or Fall, that had good fall colors and hips.

'Tigris' Revisited

It had been quite awhile since I used 'Tigris' in my breeding program, but last year I decided to try something different and cross back onto 'Tigris' one of my better hybrid Hulthemia mini parents.  Of course the mini Hulthemia had to be used as a pollen parent since 'Tigris'' pollen appears to be infertile.

I had forgotten how well 'Tigris' seeds germinate (not that you should necessarily try to use 'Tigris' since you don't get many seeds per hip and the seedlings will not bloom during the first year).  There are about 5 'Tigris' seedlings clumped together in the photo below.  The bloom in the photo is coming from a different seedling.  I hope that the 'Tigris' seedlings will bloom next year.  I have had to wait 3-4 years for some 'Tigris' seedlings to bloom.

The seedling below is of a new 2014 Hulthemia hybrid that is many generations down from 'Tigris'.  Some of the old 'Tigris' baggage can be seen in this seedling.  It is fully remontant, however has somewhat angular and thorny growth, although it does have a larger heat stabile blotch.  

'Knock Out'® Grandchild

The seedling shown below is also a new 2015 seedling and is of a similar coloring as the rose mentioned in the last post.  Looking closely at the photo, you may notice that it even has a few speckles.  Unlike the seedling mentioned in the previous post, this seedling has quite a lot of thorns.  However, I am probably more excited about this seedling as compared to the last, because it has the 'Knock Out'® rose as one of it's grandparents.  'Knock Out'® confers excellent blackspot resistance to many of it's seedlings.  Though this seedling is two generations away from 'Knock Out'®, I am hopeful that some of the improved disease resistance will remain.  I think this seedling would be a great choice to cross with the "Speckled Hulthemia" in the last post.  What do you think?!

Speckled Hulthemia

Over the years, I have seen a few speckled seedlings showing up from time to time.  Here is a brand new one and it is one of my favorites.  It is almost completely thornless and it sets hips!  I'm not sure whether the speckles will be as prominent outside, but since this one will make the "cut" for now, I will be seeing it outside next spring.