This year… for whatever reason… I have an over supply of seed. I have bagged up 95% of the deliberate crosses and filled two plastic shopping bags full of seeds in their little peat bags and I still have all the OPs I’ve collected to go and a few of the planned crosses. Normally I’d commandeer the fruit crisper in the fridge to stratify the seed but this year I can’t fit them in. I can’t go out and buy myself a 2nd hand fridge at the moment (maybe in a while but not atm) and am faced with the dilema of what to do with them. Do you think I could get away with outdoors stratification during winter? Outdoor temperatures will get down to about -7 degrees C over winter and I can put the shopping bags somewhere on the verandah so they don’t get frosted but where they will be cold. There will be a daily swing up to about 10-11 degrees C during the day during the coldest part of winter. If I keep them out of the sun they will stay about that temperature I think. Do you think this will work? At the moment, 2 days into winter, I’m getting nights down to 0 degrees C and days to about 14-15.
Mazel tov, Simon! My best germination year, I kept the seed in the garage, without refrigeration they came up like winter rye grass! The temps never dropped below 40F and seldom had more than about a 10 degree variation day to night. I really don’t think most modern roses require all that much cold. The past two years have been dogs for germination and both followed long periods in refrigeration. I’m not sure yet what I will do this year, but it will probably use refrigeration. Things are ripening quickly with the heat and being able to plant is still at least five months away.
@ Kim… ditto, this is a dog a year for me too regarding rotting seeds and refrigeration at 5 Celsius. Germinations have been uniformly crap, across the spectrum of different seeds for me this season…I am therefore starting to wonder if 5 Celsius + damp is bad for the type of rose seeds I have …sooooo … for the remainder of hips I am about to harvest (very late crosses and these are the last lot of the season), I plan to stratify them at 10 Celsius plus damp.
A basement is likely too warm, but an attic(rafters) may work. Neil
You could always do what I did, buy a special little refrigerator just for stratifying. Little fridges are fairly cheap and you can keep them at just the right temperature.
Two things-I usually keep my seeds out on the patio after an initial spell in the fridge, just don’t have much room when the holidays roll around. The outdoor temps here are about 30F to low 40’sF at night, and in the day they are about 40-50F without much fluctuation beyond that since they are in a cool covered north corner without any sun. So far I have had good germination, this works, and I don’t plan to change. Next thing-consider a little disciplined editing of your seed supply. Do each and every one of these seed batches further your goals, and are any of them irreplaceable? What if 50-60 % (or more) of these seeds germinate? I had more seed than usual germinate this past yr., and realized that I was at the maximum amount I could handle (this is probably far less than what you might be able to handle) so this yr., I have passed on anything that isn’t a must have. Even then, I have done a few crosses that I know will be pretty prolific seed bearers, but I am promising myself that I cannot exceed the amount I had last yr. Luckily, I have this damn hill to traverse, catch all water for the roses from rainfall and then have to hand carry it to each rose (on this damn hill) and this easily reinforces my ability to just say no to more seeds, at some point.
Good points, Jackie. I’ve concentrated on using Banksiae lutescens, Fedtschenkoana and the 1-72-1Hugonis, which either only flower now, or are at their best now, so everything potentially useful has been hit. I know I’ve gone over board, but here, it’s much like aquatic life. You make TONS of hips because you KNOW some vermin is going to feast on many of them. And, I KNOW the ones they ignore will be the “also ran” crosses I have generated and focus on the “must have” ones.
I’m after healthy, repeat flowering mauve and yellow (no, not together!) Banksiae types; healthy, repeat flowering Hugonis types (thornless would be nice!); both with larger flowers (of course!) and have pressed Jim’s First Impression and L56-1 into service early. I’m hoping Sweet Nothings proves useful with both types. Pretty Lady seems to be fairly cooperative so far, but the real stars for seed set have been the 1-72-1Hugonis and Sunburn. They are real “ho’s”! Both have seemed to set hips from every bloom used, as has Miracle on the Hudson. L-56-1 seems to have set hips from everything put on it except 86-3, which is no surprise.
I’m also trying something new toward the crested goal. Too often, the seedlings are rangy and with little to no cresting, so I’ve hit both April Mooncrest and MORcrest with Tom Thumb quite heavily. It takes MANY of Tom’s flowers to generate enough pollen and my eyes are really talking to me! Tom has also been used on the Hugonis seedling quite a bit, as well as on Indian Love Call. I’ve always thought of it, but hadn’t actually done it until this year, but Secret Garden is proving to be an enormous pollen provider, as are Indian Love Call and Rayon Butterfed. It sets reluctant hips, but I’ve actually tried it with a few things. I’m eager to see if some repeat can be created in the once flowering seedlings by incorporating Secret Garden in the mix. Supposedly, repeat in old European Garden Roses originated from Fedtschenkoana and Moschata, so why not use my DLFED and CPDLFED seedlings with Secret Garden (which is very close to Moschata) to see what results? It’s been great fun bringing together lines I’ve created to see what can come from them. I’m eager to see the results of 0-47-19DLFED crossed with Rayon Butterfed. I guess not quite as eager as I am to see 1-72-1Hugonis X Rayon Butterfed; or Indian Love Call X Rayon Butterfed; or…I’m not sure where the image will fall, but it is of L-56-1.
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These bags of seed ARE what’s left after judicious pruning of the seeds… I just could not bring myself to sowing ‘Bullseye’ x ‘Albertine’ for example. This one fell into the category of ‘what were you thinking’ and went into the fire. The ones I have left are ones I am particularly eager to see the results of.
It’s very hard to determine what is essential when you have multiple fronts on which you are working. On one front I am actively pursuing wichurana shrub crosses. Probably 60-70% of the seed I have collected were made on only 5 seed parents; my own ‘Bullseye’, ‘Immensee’, Flower Carpet Pink, Borderer, ‘Temple Bells’, and my own ‘Thinleaf’ (I’m very excited about this one actually). Then there has been a smattering of Rosa wichurana and ‘The Fairy’ pollinations put onto various floribunda, rugosa, and ‘Mutabilis’ (really looking forward to seeing what ‘Mutabilis’ x ‘The Fairy’ makes). I also have seeds from my hulthemia seedling and op 0-47-19 as well to bring together Mr Moore’s wichurana line and Jims wonderful hulthemia to make blotched wich-shrubs. I really want to breed a purple wich. groundcover rose too.
On another front, which is moving a lot slower, is the introduction of Rosa longicuspis var. sinowilsonii, bracteata, and clinophylla into things. There are a few crosses in the bags from this as well.
My last front is to collect and incorporate tetraploid species into modern tets as well.
There is also an emerging line of breeding to take on breeding thornless roses and there are a few bags of seed from this line of thinking.
There are the sundrys as well… those that I think sound interesting at the time but for which there is no gurantee they are going to make the cut (like ‘Alice Amos’ x ‘Double Knock Out’ which I’m now looking forward to seeing now that I have grown a few OP ‘Alice Amos’ seedlings and got strong stable purples from her; see 'Amity' Rose ).
So… yeah… these are what’s left after the hatchet has come down… there is room for them here and culling will sort them out pretty quickly too (I’m anticipating lots of mildew on seedlings this coming spring) and even if every seed came up I could find a place for it…
Try to get a cheap little bar fridge ASAP.