First Seedling to Bloom 2015

Wow, this warmer weather has continued to push the new seedlings growth along faster than normal.  Every year I anticipate and try to patiently wait for the first new seedling of the year to bloom.  This year there wasn't much waiting.  I first noticed the first bud about 3 weeks ago and it bloomed yesterday!  This was from a cross between 2 Hulthemia hybrid seedlings.  The blotch is not that large, but because the seedling is branching early and has more than 1 flower bud on the first bloom cycle, I will watch it a bit longer.

"Basye's Thornless" Seedlings - Burgundy Canes and Glossy Foliage

In 2013, I selected several repeat blooming seedlings of Basye's Thornless that came from crosses that I made in the previous year with a wide variety of other things including some of my Hulthemias and non-Hulthemia minis.  One of my favorite crosses was L56-1 X Basye's Thornless.  L56-1 resulted from a cross of {'Halo Today' X ['Geisha' X ('Tobo' X 'Singin' in the Rain')]} X 'Thrive!'.  It is a single red mini shown here.

I am still keeping about 10 of the seedlings resulting from the L56-1 X Basye's Thornless cross, two are shown below.  The first of the two is quite fertile as a seed parent and there are several new seedlings coming from it this year that will be blooming soon for the first time.

Basye's Thornless conveys cleanliness (good resistance to both black spot and powdery mildew), and fewer thorns to it's offspring.  Also, as seen in other seedlings of it in this link: Winter, Spring or Fall?, it frequently produces seedlings that give added interest when the plants enter dormancy, since many of its seedlings produce colorful hips and striking fall color.  If you haven't already tried it, Basye's Thornless is definitely worth considering as an addition to your mix of rose parents in your rose breeding program.  

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!

Waiting for Blooms

All of the new 2014 surviving seedlings have been potted up and are in their places outside of the greenhouse.  I can't wait to see whether some of these will have improved over what they looked like inside the greenhouse last year.

Every year there are some seedlings that germinate very late in the greenhouse just before it is time to clear out all of the seedling beds and replant with new seeds.  Most years I do not keep late germinating seedlings, however this past December I decided to keep about 40 of them (coming from the more desirable crosses).  This is one way to get some earlier blooms.  Below is a photo of a late germinating 2014 seedling with the first bloom of the season.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Roses and the Sigmoid Curve

Total germinations counted on a daily basis, and total culls seem to follow a sigmoid curve in my greenhouse.  Knowing this helps me to anticipate the changing workload of this hobby.  Rose seed germinations in general seem to start out slowly in the first month after planting the seeds in late December to early January, but then really pick up speed in the second month (usually February).  Then in the third month germinations slow down again.  Usually, I can expect 75-80% of germinations in the second month after planting the seeds.

Likewise, my rate of culling follows that same patten but is delayed by 8-10 weeks (which is the time that it takes for newly germinating rose seeds to bloom for the first time).  Though I was very meticulous in record keeping during my first two years after building our greenhouse (counting germinating seedlings almost daily, and counting daily culls), I only count germinations 3 or 4 times per year now, mainly focusing on calculating the germination rates of potential new seed parents.  Below are two charts from my first 2 years of hybridizing in our greenhouse.

This year, as is my usual habit, a portion of my seeds that were planted have come from some of the newer seedlings that have shown a tendency to set hips well.  These seeds came from open pollinated hips (meaning that I didn't spend any time doing cross pollinations on them).  Usually, I will only plant 10 hips worth of seeds to get an idea of about how many hips it takes to get a certain number of seedlings, but for some of the better seedlings, I will plant all of their seeds in hopes that something good will come from them.  Since the germination rates are unknown, I plant the seeds rather densely.  All of the seeds planted on the left side of the seedling bed shown below came from potential new untested seed parents, coming from open pollinated hips.  You can see that some areas seem to have no germinations (like the uppermost area on the left), while other areas are showing excellent germination.

A closer view of the more densely germinating area above is shown in the photo immediately below that was taken last week, while the second photo below is of the same area that was taken yesterday.  The warmer weather this past week has caused the seedlings to sprout like crazy.  During the first month after planting, there was a total of 2,059 germinations.  Over the last week there have been more than double that number of new germinations.

This area was planted with open pollinated seeds from a seedling code-named Q199-1.   I am very pleased that this particular seedling has an excellent germination rate.  It was the result of a cross between 2 of my favorite Hulthemia seed parents, and seems to have a better plant and blotch than either of its parents.

I'm looking forward to the first blooms, but it looks like I had better expect to be busy in about 8-10 weeks…..

Hardwood Rose Cuttings Experiment

I had never taken such late softwood cuttings for mist propagation as I did this last September.  The cuttings were placed under mist on September 29, 2014.  Below they are shown with evidence of excellent rooting when I pulled them out for transplanting into pots 2 days ago.

So, I thought, if roses can propagate this well under mist late in the year, I wonder if I can propagate hardwood cuttings under mist in the wintertime.  It is fairly easy to get hardwood rose cuttings to root outdoors in the wintertime in our climate, but you have to wait until the following winter to dig them up for transplanting.  If they root well under mist, I should be able to transplant them in early summer from the plug trays.  I had an unused tray on the misting table that I decided to use today.  I ignored the moss growing on the surface of several of the cells and just pushed the cuttings in.  I will report on the outcome of this experiment in a later post…

Winter, Spring or Fall?

Well officially, it is wintertime.  We have only had 4 days with temperatures below freezing, with the coldest day being 28º F.  The forecast for next week is for springtime temperatures in the lower 70's.

With the milder weather, many of the roses are still exhibiting nice fall colors.

And, fall colors where roses are concerned, would not be complete without rose hip photos.

So, here we are in the middle of winter, with fall colors, springtime temperatures and new sprouting roses.  Soon we will have blooms.

Let The Germinations Begin!

Yeah!  All the rose seeds have been planted.  Let the germinations begin!

A lot of work went into getting the seedling beds ready for planting, and then more work in getting all of the seeds planted.  Soon, instead of the "white" of the perlite being the most prominent color in the greenhouse, it will be the "green" of the new rose seedlings.  

The most fun time of the year is about to begin…

Last Blooms of the Year 2014

It is that time of the year again - time to clean out the greenhouse seedling benches.  So far we have potted up the survivors from two of the seedling benches, and two more to go.

Although the seedlings are not their best this time of the year, here are a few photos of the last seedlings that will be potted up.  The first two photos are of a couple of larger roses.  I am working on trying to produce cleaner hybrid tea and floribunda type roses.  They are from a cross of 'Gemini' X [('Marmalade Skies' X 'Baby Love') X 'First Impression'].

The next photo is of one of the better striped Hulthemias.  I am still not completely happy with this group, but we are making some progress.

Then finally to finish, shown below are photos of 2 other Hulthemia seedlings.  They both have 'Blue For You' as the pollen parent.  I am very pleased with the cleanliness and vigor that 'Blue For You' is passing along to it's offspring.  If you breed roses, consider bringing 'Blue For You' into your breeding program.  Thank you Kim Rupert for suggesting this one to me, and thank you Peter James for developing such a healthy wonderful rose.  The first seedling is nearly thornless.

Hulthemia Persica Seedlings (Part 3)

Since I did not baby the Hulthemia persica seedlings, they did not fare that well.  Only 4 have survived so far.  None of them were very vigorous.  If they were rose seedlings they would have all been culled for lack of vigor.  However, I was very pleased to see that one of the Hulthemia persica seedlings was putting out some root suckers.  The suckers seem more vigorous than the rest of the plant.  I suspect that the species in the wild builds up a root system that ultimately puts out new growth from root suckers each year. I have never seen Hulthemia persica in its native home, but would like to in order to better understand its natural growth pattern.

Shown below on the right is one of the original seedlings with the 2 suckers coming up from its roots seen on the left.

After digging them up, it is easy to see how long the suckers can be.  I can imagine that this characteristic is an adaptation for survival in its usual desert environment.

In addition to the Hulthemia persica seeds, other non-rose seeds that I planted this year in the seedling benches included crape myrtle, strawberry, lilac and blueberry seeds.

Below are seedlings of open pollinated Pink Lemonade™ blueberry seeds.

I also planted regular blueberry seeds coming from several of my favorite blueberry varieties.  These had already been potted up as seen below.

Most of the pots contain several blueberry seedlings.  I am hoping that a few of them will produce some blueberries this next summer.  The most vigorous, fruit producing seedlings will be planted in separate pots next year.

Decimation at the Sproul Rose Farm

It had to be done.  Over the years, despite continuous culling, the number of survivors grew too much.  Most years, during this time of the year when we are getting ready to pot up the new surviving seedlings, I will select 200-250 of the older outdoor potted seedlings for culling (we try to give most of them away).  This year however, instead of selecting roses to cull, I decided to select about 200 of the best roses to keep.

We have a total of 18 watering lines outdoors, each line waters 38-40 pots.  This year we cleared 11 of the 18 lines in order to make room for new rose seedlings.

Below are some of the older roses that I selected to keep.

The remaining roses were moved around to open up complete lines so that the new 2014 seedlings can be kept altogether.

The Sproul Rose Farm is looking very differently from what it looked like a couple of years ago at peak bloom (see Peak Bloom at the Sproul Rose Farm).

Shown below is one of the newest seedlings (from 2014) that will be potted up and planted outside in the next few weeks.  Culling is one of the hardest things to do when hybridizing roses, especially of the longstanding survivors.  Fortunately, most of them will find new homes.

Blogging Again

The roses grow, the spider mites invade, the greenhouse has to be sprayed, the weather is way too hot, the maintenance is overwhelming, and all of the rest of life goes on…..

I've missed blogging.

This post will be short, but wanted to share a photo of my best seedling coming from 'Eyes for You', used as a pollen parent.  The seed parent was a Hulthemia seedling of mine.  This new seedling has strong traits coming from it's pollen parent, including excellent fragrance.  It appears to be quite floriferous and clean to powdery mildew.  I am looking forward to seeing how it does outside next spring.

Smooth Mini Hulthemia

I'm not sure whether this seedling is a "final product", but I like it none the less.  Although I have had another thornless mini Hulthemia (see Smooth Hulthemias), this one has the vigor and continuous blooming power that the other seedling lacked.  Shortly after this seedling started blooming, it was clear that it would be a smaller blooming mini and since there were 3 larger blooming seedlings in close proximity, I thought that I would need to move it to protect it from getting crowded out by the other seedlings.  This seedling has instead turned out to be the more vigorous seedling and has somewhat crowded out the larger flowered Hulthemias that were flanking it.

The stems are quite smooth and free of prickles.

Interestingly, this is also only the second Hulthemia seedlings that I have noticed that has these "alligator skin" type hips.  Unlike the other seedling (see Unusual Hulthemia Hips), this seedling does not appear to have any dieback.  All of the growth remains green and healthy.

This seedling has been in near continuous bloom almost from it's first flower.  Even though this is a new 2014 seedling, I have begun using it in crosses with other mixed Hulthemia pollen.  This seedling was itself the result of a cross using mixed Hulthemia pollen, but because the mixed pollen came from new 2013 seedlings, I can make a good guess that it's pollen parent was a "Basye's Thornless" Hulthemia seedling, probably from 'Eyeconic Pomegranate Lemonade' X "Basye's Thornless".

This seedling's seed parent is also the seed parent of the other thornless seedling mentioned above and figures strongly into the genetics of some of my better Hulthemias.  It is code named "N159-5", and came from the following complex cross: <{Halo Today X [Geisha X (Tobo X Singin' in the Rain)]} X {[('Orangeade' X 'Abraham Darby') X 'Midnight Blue'] X 'Persian Sunset'}> X <{[('Orangeade' X 'Abraham Darby') X 'Midnight Blue'] X ('Geisha' X 'Baby Love')} X "mixed Hulthemia pollen".  The "mixed Hulthemia pollen" in this case had as it's source either 'Persian Sunset' or 'Tiggle'.