Follow up to this post (Beginner Questions - Rose Hybridizers Association Forum)
Thank you all for the guidance, 2016 was the first year I tried hybridizing and germinating from seed.
Update, a few successful germinations from:
Rosa arkansana x OP (or what I now believe is rosa arkansana, Is this Rosa Acicularis? - Rose Hybridizers Association Forum)
Snow Pavement x OP
Snow Pavement x Marie Bugnet
The above had hips which clearly ripened earlier than others.
Some Snow Pavement seedlings died from having weak roots, or damping off. Attached pic is of a little one which is currently alive which looks promising. The arkansana seedlings are doing great, attached. I burned some leaves by planting them in a potting mix with low fertilizer, it showed signs of burning withing a day, I quickly replanted in Pro-Mix and they have been great since. I am impressed by their vigorously long roots.
I had one germination from an OP Winnipeg Parks happened in January, then died. Most other seeds with crosses from the Parkland/Explorer series have turned black/soft. When opened up, I see white liquid and underdeveloped embryos.
I learned the importance of selecting a good seed parent!
Here are some of my goals for the near future (thanks to the guidance here):
- focus on using Snow Pavement as a seed parent. It’s a great rose, lovely scent, unique pale lilac colour, with occasional repeat bloom. Plus the early ripening hip is a plus in this short climate! Perhaps combining it with Wasagaming, or other rugosas.
- grow some of the more modern roses in containers in my sunroom to help increase hip ripening time.
- add more spinosissima roses to my collection, or collect pollen to use. I have a small plant of Prairie Peace, it has yet to flower, perhaps this is the year.
Rosa arkansana outdoors is looking great this year, I’ll have to remember to save some pollen this time! It’s usually the first to bloom.
I was late with pollination last year, missing the first flush. Hopefully this year will be better now that I’ve made some mistakes and learned what not to do.
Hi Roselynn,
Félicitations, this is a nice Snow Pavement seedling Roselynn! It looks effectively vigorous and healthy. I like also its greyish foliage and the folioles with their deep jagged edges, interesting characteristic. I agree with you that Snow Pavement is a great rose. It is one of my favorite rose for its fragrance and its lavender tint.
In 2015, I have pollinated my Roseraie de l’Haÿ with Snow Pavement. I did this cross with the aim to obtain a rose with more perfume and with shades of lavender mauve and because sometimes, my Roseraie de l’Haÿ shows the mauve tint that reminds me the color of Rhapsody in Blue, as you can see on photo below. But I don’t know what kind of nuances this cross will result?! I just hope that my two seedlings, obtained from this cross, will bloom this summer, but I think that it will be probably in 2018…
I encourage you Roselynn to go on with the roses you have. Already you have some results with Snow Pavement and R. arkansana, it is a good beginning! The most important is to have fun and try all you have in mind. If you have some pollen from your Prairie Peace this summer, maybe you could be try it on rugosa hybrids and R. arkansana. I have two seedlings from a cross with the later and one has flowered last summer (photo below).
If that can help and just for an inspiration, here is a short list of my best seeds parents: Roseraie de l’Haÿ, King J, Ross Rambler #3, Ross Rambler #14, Lac Majeau, Kaitlyn Ainsley, and my pollinators who have a lot of pollen: Hazeldean, Prairie Peace, Jens Munk, Applejack, King J and Roseraie de l’Haÿ. But remember, that the best for somebody is not necessarily the best for another person. (Note: I should have some rugosa and spinosissima suckers, if that interest you, send me a PM.)
André
Hello André, thank you so much for your reply, I truly appreciate your support. This discussion forum and the generous people behind it are what inspire me to give rose breeding a try.
Snow Pavement is by far one of my favourite roses. Thank you for the info on which roses work for you as seed/pollen parents. Does Roseraie de l’Haÿ grow very large for you? Your cross sounds exciting!
I like your suggestions with Prairie Peace. Would a cross of Snow Pavement x Prairie Peace work?
Below are photos from today of two seedling which I am hopeful for, Snow Pavement x Marie Bugnet. I am surprised they are still alive and hanging in there after several weeks. They are slow growing, I wonder if this is because Marie Bugnet is very small and slow growing.
You are welcome Roselynn.
My Roseraie de l’Haÿ is 5 feet tall by 4 feet wide and it probably will grow higher.
My first thought concerning your two seedlings is that they seem etiolated. But one shows his first real leaf and this is good. I don’t think that is because your Marie Bugnet is very small and slow growing. Maybe the problem is genetic, someone else here could respond better than me about these elongated seedlings.
Your idea to cross Snow Pavement x Prairie Peace is very interesting, go for it! I think, I will try this cross also this summer and maybe we could compare our results.
André
Roselynn,
You may be interested to know Dr. Parminderjit Sandhu will be in Calgary on June 13/14 to give a talk to the Master Gardeners Association of Alberta about this institution’s rose breeding program. Here is an opportunity for you to talk to a professional rose breeder. Contact the MGAA for the definite day and time of her talk. Wish I could be there to hear it!
Paul, thank you so much for the tip, I would love to hear her speak! I find it exciting what they are doing at Vineland, and I enjoy all the recent rose introductions from them. I did not know there is a MGAA, I will email them.
I purchased yesterday ‘Canadian Shield’ at Superstore. Excellent to see efforts reach the markets.
Update, I’ve done 150+ crosses since June 9, compared to only about 20 or so last year. A few more of the seedlings died off, mostly due to inconsistent watering, I only have one tiny Snow Pavement x Marie Bugnet left out of my crosses from last year. Saw Dr. Sandhu’s excellent presentation, one big take away for me was sometimes it’s a numbers game. I’ve been refining my breeding goals, inspired by the breeders from from the prairies; fun reading about their correspondence with each other on HMF. I’ve adjusted my goals to focus on fragrance, larger size, repeat bloom, and hardiness to the tips for zone 3. I find a tall/large rose in full bloom is most impactful, it’s also nice to not have to bend down. Right now, the roses I am most inspired by are Therese Bugnet, Prairie Peace, Suzanne, Hazeldean, Snow Pavement and Wasagaming. Being in my thirties, hopefully I can create something like these in my lifetime.
André, Roseraie de l’Haÿ sounds like a lovely seed parent, she reminds me of a taller version of Hansa, which is very common around here. Do you find the blooms of Roseraie de l’Haÿ to have any differences from Hansa?
Roselynn,
If one of your goals is to develop fragrant roses, I highly recommend using ‘Minette’, likely a Rosa damascena cultivar, in your breeding programs. Although a Zone 4 rose, this cultivar will survive and grow well in a Zone 3 climate (last year it was fully cold hardy in mine) and produce flowers. It has outstanding fragrance. The relatively tall shrub (1. 5 metres) suckers profusely and has attractive foliage. It flowers later than Rugosa cultivars, for example. The flowers produce a copious amount of pollen, which I can send you if you like. Plants available next spring, too. Email address is paulolsen305atgmail.com.
If you don’t have it, I recommend having Percy Wright’s ‘Aylsham’ in your rose collection. I believe it’s in the pedigree of ‘Frontenac’ and therefore also in the new ‘Canadian Shield’. It can be exploited in breeding programs much more than it has been.
I think I’ll cross ‘Aylsham’ with ‘Minette’ this year. Thanks for initiating this idea.
Ah to be in my thirties and keenly interested in rose breeding. Lucky you! We need people of young generations like yours to keep the excellence of Canadian rose breeding continuing.
Thank you for the suggestions. I want a rose dripping in fragrance, the kind of fragrance which fills the surrounding area and makes one stop in their tracks, reminding one what the essence of a rose is. There have been numerous times I’ve bent down to smell a rose and have been disappointed by the lack of fragrance.
It’s been real challenge breeding here, I’ve had to run out a few times and cover my crosses to stop the rain from washing away the pollen. Along with a late spring start (most modern varieties are just starting to bloom), wicked wind storms, hail, and a frost warning on June 22nd (a day after the summer solstice). I’m strongly considering building a greenhouse just for rose breeding as suggested in the RHA next steps manual.
This is what I grow right now: 'My Garden' plant lists (hope this link works…). Will send a PM/email to yourself & separately André once I get a chance.
Millenials/self-proclaimed ‘hipsters’ like myself are slowly starting to infiltrate the gardening world. It’s interesting to see the popularity of things swing back and forth in various generations. I’m convinced homesteading and anything DIY/handcrafted will gain in popularity in the next 10-20+ years as technology replaces jobs. I teach at a college and it’s interesting to observe the younger generation, there appears to be a growing value in slowing down and all things nature.
Hi- if you’re after fragrance, consider adding one of the Albas to your program.
Roselynn,
One of the most fragrant roses cold hardy to a Zone 3 climate is my Rugosa ‘Pacific Pearls’ (‘Hansa’ x ‘Charles Albanel’. It has a completely different scent than the clove-like one of ‘Hansa’. Flower form can be somewhat erratic though, and so it will likely never become a popularly grown Rugosa.
I have a small Rosa moschata shrub, which I planted in my garden last year. I thought I had it protected well for the winter, but it winter killed to ground level. It’s a very tender rose! I’ll have to dig it up in the fall and put it in cold storage for the winters. Anyway, my idea is to cross it with Rosa woodsii (both diploids) and use this hybrid in a breeding program to develop cold hardy (Zone 3), fragrant roses.
By the way, I recently crossed a deep pink Rosa woodsii with Rosa chinensis ‘Mutabilis’ (the latter also a diploid), which may be the first time this has been done.
Later today I’ll be crossing ‘Carlos Dawn’ (‘Hansa’ x Rosa woodsii) with ‘MInette’. It’s likely the progeny will have good fragrance. Both cultivars though are once flowering.
Bonjour Roselyn,
I wish you a good harvest and much germination with your crosses! I have Roseraie de l’Haÿ and Hansa but I prefer the first one for his intense mauve nuances and the form of the petals (I have added a new photo of it in full sun and one of my Hansa to compare, below). It is also a good seeds parent for me, as Hansa probably. But this latter is more reddish and I never used it in my crosses. I know that it is use by many people with success and if I did not have had Roseraie de l’Haÿ, I will have certainly used Hansa in my breeding work.
André.
Thank you André for the comparison, this is very helpful. Yes, Roseraie de l’Haÿ does appear deeper and less red compared to Hansa.
Paul, your crosses sounds very exciting!
Attached is a photo of my crosses (and ideas). The checkmarks indicate crosses which have been completed. the ‘double yellow scotch’ is one I am unsure of the ID, if anyone could confirm, it would be greatly appreciated. After scouring many photos, the one which was closest is ‘Scotch Yellow’: 'Old Yellow Scotch' rose photos
I have been working a lot with Wasagaming because of it’s abundance of blooms, hardiness to the tips, vigor, health, strong fragrance (both heady and clove like) and bloom shape. It’s funny to work with, the pistils do not extend well beyond the hip and they are packed very close - pieces of petals and stamens are usually stuck in the pistils. After removing the stamens early enough to prevent the release of pollen, it still another 2-3 days for the pistils to grow outward slightly and become sticky.
I am testing out this method of labelling, a slit is cut in the tag to attach it to the stem, the number is marked using a graphite pencil. I tend to reapply pollen to all crosses the day after (read a study linked through the forum about how this helps, can’t find it now), the stapled piece of paper gives me an idea of where it is the next day and helps protect the exposed pistils from my unpredictable wind/sun/rain/hail/frost, etc. Sometimes I used different coloured pieces of paper to help.
In the future I would love to move towards ‘loop lock’/self looping labels, preferably different colours.
Donald, good suggestion on adding one of the Albas. I agree.
To prevent the rain from washing away the pollen, I am giving this a try, garbage bags and tarps. It doesn’t look pretty but it works most of the time.
