The Largest Blotch - A Deadend?

Hybridizing this year began in earnest about 2 weeks ago.  As mentioned in the last post, this is also the time that I first get to see last year's survivors blooming outside for the first time.  With the Hulthemias, there are many surprises.  The blotches are typically larger and darker, and the growth pattern tends to change.  I also get the chance to see how they fare to bugs and diseases.  Thrips love some blooms, but leave others alone.  The same is true for the curculio beetle.  Again, this year we have had just the right amount of downy mildew - no seedling deaths, but significant defoliation in those seedlings that are highly susceptible. 

One seedling (I discussed this seedling in an earlier post last year in Smooth Hulthemias), keeps surprising me.  It appears to be thornless (or nearly so), it has very good disease resistance, and to date, it has the largest blotch that I have ever seen in terms of percent of the length of the petal that the blotch covers.  So far, I have collected pollen from about 6 or 7 blooms, and wouldn't you know it - it appears to be pollen sterile (no pollen is releasing from the dried anthers).  I am now trying to pollinate it with other Hulthemias to see if it will set hips.  I sure hope this isn't a "dead-end".

Hulthemias - First Blooms Outside

The 2011 seedlings are just now blooming for the first time outside of the greenhouse.  There are many changes that are evident.  In the Hulthemias, color saturation, blotch size (larger) and vigor are more noticeable on the more mature seedlings when exposed to full sunlight conditions.  The seedling shown below is one of my favorites so far.  Although both photos were taken with my iPhone, they were taken under very different lighting conditions.  The first photo was taken under lower light conditions just before sunset, while the second photo was taken in the morning.  The color representation in the second photo with the single bloom is more characteristic of the real thing.  The blooms are a golden yellow with a burgundy blotch.  I will follow this post up in the next few days with another post showing several of the other seedlings from 2011 also blooming for the first time outside.

Hulthemias with Form

Although my favorite Hulthemias have 10 to 15 petals, I am liking some of the ones that have enough petals to provide the classic exhibition form as seen in those shown below.  The first seedling has 'Singin' in the Rain' as the seed parent, while the second has 'Pearl Sanford' and the third 'Cal Poly'.  The 'Singin' in the Rain' seedling's blotch is somewhat smaller, so is not ideal, however in the other two, the blotch seems to offer some additional interest.  What do you think?

Ralph S. Moore Rose Garden and Friends of Sequoia

Today a group of us, friends of Mr. Ralph Moore (we call ourselves "Friends of Sequoia"), met today in Visalia at the rose garden that was built and dedicated in honor of Mr. Moore.  We were there today to reminisce about him and the times that we spent with him.  We were there also to give thanks to the Master Gardeners who have worked hard to maintain the garden in its beautiful condition and to hear Burling Leong speak about chip budding and Kim Rupert speak about his "burrito" method for rooting hardwood cuttings.  It was a beautiful day to get together.

While there today, I thought back to the time that I visited the garden the year after Mr. Moore passed away.  I was in Visalia for a meeting and couldn't miss visiting his garden.  As I was walking around the garden taking photos, I started noticing clothing drying on the fencing and on some of the bricks around the garden.  In the photo below, you can see some white clothing just to the right of the garden bench.  As I moved in closer to get photographs of some of Mr. Moore's roses, a homeless man, looking embarrassed, came up to me and apologized as he picked up his drying underwear that he had just washed. With the clothing gone, I then took the photo of 'Ralph's Creeper' as seen below.

Later, after the homeless man left, 3 young boys, presumably part of a wedding gathering, came over to look at the roses.  They seemed to enjoy the garden as much as I did.

When I first saw the homeless man using the garden to dry his clothes, I initially had a feeling of anger, as though he was defacing Mr. Moore's garden.  Thinking further back though I remembered a time that I had spent with Mr. Moore and Chris Warner at the same garden.  As I thought more about it, the contrasts of the homeless man using the warmth of the garden to dry his clothes, and the young boys enjoying the roses that they had stumbled upon, I decided that Mr. Moore would have gotten a real kick out of it all.

New Eyeconic for 2013

In 2013, there will be another Eyeconic family member added to the fruit juice series.  It will be known as Pomegranate Lemonade.  Though more petit than the other two ('Eyeconic Lemonade' and 'Eyeconic Pink Lemonade'), it makes up for plant size with its larger, and more intense blotch.  The blotch starts dark pink when it first opens, and then changes to an even darker, more purplish color on the second day.  Being a smaller, somewhat spreading shrub, I think that it will be most attractive as a tree rose.

Early Notes on Darlow's Enigma Seedlings

For the past 5 years I have been trying to come up with a repeat blooming multiflora type rose to use in breeding with my Hulthemias.  I decided to try this at the suggestion of Mr. Ralph Moore.  He thought that a rose with an abundance of lighter colored blooms, with a central darker Hulthemia blotch, would make for a nice landscape type shrub.  I had to agree with him, and took his suggestion as "an assignment".  Since I have a thornless multiflora derivative that I use for rootstock, I decided to start with that plant.  Well, after 5 years, I am not satisfied with my progress and have had only one weak repeat blooming seedling that mildews badly, and have still not got the blotch into it.

So, in comes 'Darlow's Enigma', a rose that to me has all of the characteristics that I had been looking for in a multiflora, except that it is already a repeat bloomer, AND it sets hips well.  And more importantly, I have learned this year that it germinates very well, producing seedlings with great vigor.  Additionally, it is cold tolerant, fragrant, very disease resistant and there are reports that it blooms well even in shadier conditions.  So you may ask, "are there any bad qualities?"  Thorns - nasty hooked thorns.

This is my first year to plant "OP" seeds of it.  From it, 25 hips yielded 133 seeds, with 37 germinations.  Overall germination rate was therefore 28% - a rate that I consider good for most roses.  There are a couple of caveats when using it:  it only produces about 5 seeds per hip (meaning that you have to do many crosses to produce an adequate number to seeds); and approximately half of the seedlings are non-remontant (meaning that they only bloom in the springtime and will not bloom in their first year as new seedlings). Another potential problem is lack of compatibility with the Hulthemias - that is something that I will be finding out this year.

Today I went through all of the 'Darlow's Enigma' seedlings to check the frequency of several characteristics.  The data can be seen in the table below.

The first 14 seedlings noted above appear to be non-remontant.  They had already produced many leaflets without any sign of producing any blooms.  They were generally overly vigorous similar to other species type seedlings that I have worked with and were over-growing and crowding out the seedlings that were producing flower buds.  The non-remontant seedlings were therefore culled (except for 2*, more on this later), so that the repeat blooming seedlings (seedlings 15-33) would have more room to grow.

Looking at the table there are several observations.

None of the non-remontant seedlings produced thorns before the 3rd leaf node, and those that produced thorns earlier seemed to have a greater overall density of thorns (thorns/node).  The tendency for early branching was not necessarily related to thorniness.  Thorns were either curved or straight (see below).  The curved ones are particularly a nuisance.

The seedlings producing flower buds appear to have a great tendency toward fewer or no thorns.  The flower buds are usually appearing in 2 groups on these young seedlings.  For example, seedling #16 had 3 buds that were further along in development, but it was also producing a secondary grouping of 6 more buds (noted as "3+6").

Only about 1/3 of the remontant seedlings have bloomed so far.  Of these about half are white and the other half are pink.  I sniffed each of the blossoms, but was only certain of fragrance in one of them.  Seen below are photos of the first blooms of 3 of the seedlings.

The fragrant seedling is shown below. Note also its apparent lack of thorns.

*There were at least 2 seedlings that did not have the characteristic foliage that was present in all of the other seedlings.  Both of these were non-remontant, and because they were different, they have not yet been culled.  If they get too vigorous, I will probably take cuttings of them and eliminate the originals so that they do not compete too much with the remontant group.  Below is a photo showing leaves of the glossy seedling on the right compared to the characteristic matt finish on the left.

As mentioned, all but 2 of the non-remontant seedlings were culled.  Additionally, all of the thornier remontant seedlings were culled.  In the end, 15 seedlings remain. Please note that this data is on very young seedlings. Many seedlings change significantly as they mature. It very well may turn out that all of the seedlings will gain thorns as they mature such that all of the "thornless" ones will be as thorny as 'Darlow's Enigma'. An update will follow later on.


** For those who are counting, there are only 33 seedlings described in the above table.  Two seedlings were not listed because the were too small and appeared as runts that will probably not survive due to some incompatibility.  Additionally, 2 other seedlings must have succumbed early on.

First seedling to bloom 2012

The first seedling for the 2012 season has bloomed (yesterday).  Today it was culled.  That is the fate of 80% of the new seedlings on their first bloom.  Ideally, each seedling would be grown on for 2-3 years outside the greenhouse to see how they fared in the elements - exposed to weather, bugs, and disease, but space limitations necessitate early decision making.  I hope that I don't make as many mistakes as I did last year.

As seen below, this first seedling was a Hulthemia.  However, with such a small blotch and lack of vigor it did not make the "first cut".

There are many other new seedlings with new buds about to bloom for the first time.  Some of these will be kept for further evaluation.

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.