Hello everyone,
I’m relatively new to hybridizing. I started a few years ago, now I think I have one or two that I would like to propagate for selling as they are unique compared to other roses available locally. I would greatly appreciate any advice on this. Thank you!
Velvetrose - I’d be interested in knowing about your hybrids, what’s special, what region(s) they’ve been test grown. I’m in mid Michigan, zone 5-6 and have my own little business growing & selling in local farmers market. (I had two babies last year that I’m keen to see how they do over winter.). Perhaps you’d be interested in letting me grow, propagate & sell your babies with a non-exclusive license. If mine show promise, could consider a reciprocal arrangement.
My email is DLM48430@gmail.
Dan
Hi,
First of all, you need to check how you can patent/protect your creation. If in USA, you have different possibilities. In Europe, go for an EU PBR (Plant Breeders Rights)…ect. For a good coverage of different countries in the wolrd, note that US would be 1 year after 1st international sales or presentation. EU 4 years. China/Australia/Japan 6 years.
Second, name the variety so you can register the trademark.
Third, you need a network to grow quality plants and sell it to wholesellers or gardencenters.
But most of all, you need to test these varieties for production (no production, no sales), and for usage in different climates and type of soil.
Don’t hesitate if you have questions 
It might be worth asking first how big your ambitions really are–some folks aim only to name a rose and sell it on a relatively small scale, while others are interested in a bigger market and profit potential. In the former case, it’s enough to simply register your varieties with the American Rose Society (ICRA for genus Rosa) and then find ways to distribute or sell small numbers of plants however you see fit. The latter case calls for much more complex planning and action, as Matthias has indicated.
Regardless of your initial intentions, it is always worth considering whether the world will really benefit from the introduction of your new roses, and how those varieties might stack up against not just local availability, but also global competition. After all, a rose, once formally named and introduced, is (at least theoretically) forever on the record.
For anyone in the U.S. with bigger ambitions, with potentially substantial difficulty and expense, you can try to go it alone and apply a U.S. Plant Patent, make your own arrangements with growers and marketers, etc. Without significant help or experience, or well-developed commercial relationships, you will incur significant out-of-pocket expenses and you can lose precious time under patent protection in the process. That is why many people here will instead opt to work with nurseries or other companies that already have established industry connections and will do all of the hardest work for you, and will sometimes only charge you for any fees that aren’t recovered through sales within a certain contracted period. This can still be risky for breeders, and a significant portion of the profit is lost to the originator of a rose (and rights to decide the selling name will usually be forfeit), but it is much easier, especially for a novice.
Stefan
Thank you for your replies! I don’t think I want to go commercial or “go super big” but I’d like to sell my own on small scale. I’ve looked into plant patents and they seem quite expensive?
I like the idea of giving garden flowers personal names, but it must be very difficult if you are trying to sell hybridised roses on a small scale, without a patent, to find names that haven’t been patented or that aren’t the brand name for something.
I tend to just give flowers their accepted name like Peace Lily or Calathea.
Roses apart, I find it infuriating when I google interesting sounding words to find that not only has it been branded but that a google search only finds references to the branded version. Anything you can think of seems to be manacled by somebody branding it, making it hard to find the true original unbranded meaning. (Including looking up the word “manacled”). Somebody owns most words.
Would you need permission to use a name for a rose that you sell on a small scale without a patent? Obviously you would have to try to check that it hadn’t been patented for another rose, but what about other roses that have unpatented names, or names that have been used in brands, from something out of Harry Potter to a song title to a celebrity wine?
I read that the 1960’s band Procol Harum was named after a pedigree show cat owned by the parents of one of the band, so maybe they didn’t need permission to use the same name. Clever name though. I have no idea what it means, I just read that it was a slight mis-spelling of something that translates as “far beyond these things”. These people would have been educated in Latin and things.
I can’t imagine how hard it is to name a rose when you do want to patent it.
Edit: I wonder if any patented rose has been named Yggdrasil? (It has probably already been thought of or used).
Are you planning on propagating by rooting cuttings? Or by grafting?
If you propagate your own you can sell directly to people: locally through something like a farmer’s market, or online through something established like Etsy or Facebook Marketplace, or others.
You can also provide plants to local nurseries if they are willing to sell them for you. You would have to see if they are wanting to have time testing the plant for themselves before being willing to.
Otherwise, you can find a place that sells roses online that might be willing to test your rose to sell.
This could alleviate you from having to propagate, other than the first plants that you need to propagate to get them for testing.
Lots of options to look into, and then see if you like one more than the others.
Duane