Regarding the “size of seed”-thing, there were precocious-blooming seedlings from BOTH SIZES, but none were kept this year…
The bar set by last-year’s seedlings was too high!
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I love it. SO MUCH!! Can’t wait to see what it does in year 3, and beyond. While examining the calyx and pedicels, I noticed the same strong, peppery scent of deadheading ‘Mutabilis’, coming from the very same tiny, glandular hairs. Based on this I am certain it is the pollen-parent of this wee shrub. So far it hasn’t set a hip; but I have seen some stamens, so maybe only fertile in one direction?
High hopes, easily dashed. Amiright?! lol
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Very cool plant you get!
Maybe you can check its pollen under a microscope. If a large portion is distorted, its fertile might be limited.
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I’ve picked over my ‘François Juranville’ (with shockingly little loss of blood!) for the ripe hips of my last two deliberate crosses onto it and a fistful of OP hips. Juvenile-bloom is the looked for criterion #1, with healthy foliage a close #1.5, fragrance standing at #2, I suppose. I want more of my wichura/polyanthas please!
I used pollen of Pemberton’s ‘Danae’ (7 seeds, all sank) and Austin’s ‘Abraham Darby’ (25 seeds, all sank) to both bring scent and to hold onto the warmer colour palette, and to possibly see the difference between the offspring w an older diploid shrub and a modern tetraploid one.
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Don’t worry, Francois will still demand his pound of flesh (or quart of blood)! It’s called “fertilizing”!
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Ain’t THAT the truth! Pruning out old canes is where I do my most “fertilizing”. Literally, blood sweat and tears; not necessarily in that order.
The first two (albeit large) OP hips I cracked held 35 & 47 seeds. The bees are better than me. lol
They simply “hit it” with a more viable combination of pollens than you thought of.
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The first three were LARGE hips, the following three were medium-sized but very well-coloured and ripe. 237 seeds total, and I dont think I’ll need the six remaining hips at this point.
Furthermore, since precocious-blooming plants appeared in both small-seed and large-seed populations grown separately this season, I see no need to separate the sizes next year. But I DO think I’ll devote a whole box to just seed of ‘FJ’, with separate rows of my pollinations, and the OP ones.
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Made use of ‘François Juranville’ POLLEN this year as well, onto repeating shrubs like ‘Danae’ (one hip w/ 38 seeds). Saved some pollen too, for use early next year.
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