Hi everyone!
I was very surprised to see that some of my seeds germinated right from start of the new year. Both some OP seeds, but also seeds from a H
Yes, a few crosses and some ops; nothing exciting.
For me, germination starts about Jan 1 and peaks mid Feb; then a much smaller peak occurs mid Nov.
I have scads of things germinating but this is not unusual for me. Most of my germination occur early to mid-Winter.
I have gotten germination in 6 weeks but that is unusual. 8 weeks is common. A signficant number of germinations occur after 12 weeks.
My seeds spent about 2 months in the fridge and were planted just after boxing day (Dec. 26th). So far only Loving Touch x Home Run are up. Hope to see a few others starting soon.
Liz
Well surely it is just the start of it all, but I was surprise to see germination after only 6 weeks as I expected it would take at least 8 weeks as you mentioned. Anyway it nice to see the small green leaves breaking through.
Also looking forward to see what last year
“Loving Touch x Home Run”
Liz, you beat me to that one! It was on my to do list for 07.
Let us know how those turn out??
Sadly, I didn’t do many crosses last season, so I’ve only got one seedling…
‘Rose de Rescht’ X ‘Hazeldean’
…looks like a vigorous one though.
Why Loving Touch out of curiousity? Isnt something like Sam Trivitt cleaner with better branching?
Jadae, BS was so bad here this year that I decided to cross every decent seed parent with something with excellent BS resistance. William Baffin, Alexander MacKenzie, Home Run, and Baby Love were the cleanest roses that I had in the beds last year. I’m hoping that some of these seedlings are decent enough to be used as future parents. I was pretty generous with the Home Run pollen when I was making crosses hoping to get 2x gametes out-competing the 1x gametes.
Robert, I will definitely keep you posted on the outcome of the seedlings. I was very impressed with the germination rate of this cross. I also have seeds from a few Loving Touch x Alexander MacKenzie crosses, but nothing has come up yet. Patience, patience, patience I guess.
Liz
Oh I understand BS alright, lol. I live in BS country 
I just didnt understand why Loving Touch was chosen when both of it’s parent’s (Rise n Shine, First Prize)are notorious (at least here) for being leggy and blackspot prone.
Loving Touch is EASY!
It’s about as simple as that.
I wish I had Sam Trivitt. I think it’s beautiful. Maybe I’ll pick one up at Sequoua this wekend? I’m going to Ralph Moore’s B-day celebration.
Home Run sets hips on just about anything it seems.
Ah, nice. I liked Sam Trivitt a lot but I gave all my minis away or shovel pruned. It was definitely clean and compact. To be honest, it reminded me of an updated version of Party Girl.
Im going to try Home Run again this year. Last year I wanted to test it as a seed parent (and it failed, which I guessed) but now that it is bigger and I have more ideas I will use it as a pollen parent. I think Raven x Home Run would be a neat F1 parent. Raven is cool because it sets true, uniform clusters. It could use some more resistance, though.
Sam Trivitt, eh?? I’ll have to keep an eye out for it. Is it known to be a good seed parent? Most of my minis were choosen simply because they are known to be good seed parents.
I’m not familiar with Raven, I’ll have to look that one up too.
Liz
I first saw Raven as a climber! in southern Maine. It’s been in my zone 5 garden for 3 years with little winter protection. It stays about 3 feet tall, nice deep red almost black color and heavy repeat bloom but loses all its leaves due to blackspot by midsummer. I do not have a regular spray schedule.
As for germinations, only yesterday I put all seeds in the refrigerator. They will not be sown til mid March due to late May final frost dates. All rosa cinnamomea plena and op rugosa seeds are going to be sown in the ground this year at the end of April in the zone 4 garden.
Lori
Yeah, there are several cultivars breed from Sam Trivitt already although I was mainly curious why Loving Touch over more modern choices. And now I know!
Raven has better bs resistance than it’s parent Lavaglut. I did get Raven to not blackspot all year without spray for 2006 but I used heavy pruning.
Well, I’m running out of room already. This year I tried 3 weeks of room temp before stratifying, and surprisingly, I started getting germinations before cold strat. The other thing I did this year is 3 day soaks in the bromelain. I can’t say for sure, but it seems like last year I had better germination with the longer soaks. Also, no peroxide soak this year, and it doesn’t seem to have made any difference. Serenade spray makes the biggest difference, but I can’t say anything good or bad about whether it affects germination rate yet. I will do some tests considering I have so many hips left to shuck still.
The bad part is that out of the 10,000 or so seeds I prepare every year, this year most of my hips are still in the fridge waiting. I only prepared about 2,000 seeds so far.
As for Loving Touch, I’ve had some nice seedlings from her, and the take and germination rate are excellent.
I’m having good luck using fish emulsion this season. I can’t tell I’ve had any damping off to speak of.
I’ve split my seed into two batches this year and last. One gets chilled and the other doesn’t. I get a surprisingly good take with some varieties sowing seed fresh.
I’m using the data to decide how to use these parents in the future.
I’ve never used bromelain or peroxide.
I have op seedlings of Camara, Avondel, and Show n tell that came up 3 days ago. None of my crosses took this year, still it’s exciting to see these ones come up. Makes me excited to think about planning this year’s crosses.
Liz, ‘Sam Trivitt’ is a good seed parent and has good germination. Also it tends to give good form to its offspring. Robbie Tucker has had several minifloras that have come from it.
Jadae, I like your thought of crossing it with ‘Home Run’ - something I wish I would have tried!
Jim Sproul
You still can! I lay no claim to my ideas