My seeds have been in the fridge for 6 weeks. Most are OP seeds and are not showing any signs of germinating. My (R.blanda x R.arkansana)x OP seeds have seedcoats that are opening but I don’t see any activety from them yet. When I was warm stratifying the seed some of them were getting moldy. I don’t mind some mold but if it gets to bad I normally use peroxide to kill it, but I ran out and used alcohol instead. I must not have rinsed them well enough. Now I fear I may have killed them.
I have some op seedlings of Yellow Brick Road that seem to be acting like one time bloomers. These seedlings came from some precocious germinators that germinated in baggies while I was giving them warm stratification before I put the baggies in the fridge. This reminds me of a few years ago when the same thing happened with some crosses involving miniatures. I suspect these seedlings should be repeat bloomers as YBR. The pollination happened at the nursery before the rose was brought home. I don’t remember any one time bloomers nearby blooming at the nursery. All 8 or so seedlings are acting like one time bloomers. YBR has Carefree Sunshine and Yellow Flower Carpet in it and blooms regularly and well. Other precocious seedlings are blooming just fine. I wonder if the lack of a cold stratification period for some roses before they germinate somehow messes up their hormonal balance and would make them behave like one time bloomers. Have anyone else experienced this? Years ago those minis eventually started flowering (after over 20 leaves!). Their siblings which germinated after cold stratification started flowering after only 5-8 leaves.
David
I had to look up Yellow Brick Road:
Neat! It is probably a vast improvement over both YFC and CS.
Do you mind adding the parentage to HMF? I’d do it myself but I dont have the references.
Finally got all of my seeds planted this past weekend. Some of the seedling lots had germinations, but not much after 6 weeks cold stratification.
David, your observation is interesting about delayed blooming on seedlings germinating before cold stratification. Perhaps the cold “weather” prepares them for blooming. It would be interesting repeating.
Jim Sproul
I’ve never had any problem with flowering when sowing seed without chill.
Exciting reading all of you. It seems like germination had started well most places.
From reading your posts it seems like you give the seeds about 8 weeks in the refrigerator and then sow them all afterwards.
I usually only sow the germinating seeds, right from the fridge, and leave the rest there for some month if necessary. Maybe it will lower the overall germination rate, I do not know, but surely I won’t need as much planting space, as if I had sow them all 
Regards
Bo
It feels strange to be so far behind everyone, considering that my meager few seeds started coming in at the end of August - but I stored the hips in the fridge until Christmas and they hadn’t even slightly decayed. Now when the seeds were freshly shelled, they didn’t look any older than they might have the day they were harvested, and I imagine it could be some time before they’ve accumulated enough actual moist stratification time to germinate. I guess I’ve learned my lesson! Heck, maybe stratifcation of any kind was overkill with the kind of summer heat we had. It’s nice to read about other people getting seedlings going, though.
The Loving Touch x Home Run germinations have slowed down for now, but Cal Poly x Home Run are now starting to come up as well!! Same sort of reasoning behind this cross, good seed parent and a yellow. Hoping to get some promising seedlings with resistance that I can use as future parents.
Liz
Those were both crosses I had slated for the coming Season Liz. Great minds! lol
I’ve only just acquired Cal Poly but I’ve put her to work already.
Spring is around the corner. It should be a fun one.
Bo,
My procedure is same as yours: only the seeds that sprout are taken out of frig and planted; overall, this is about 25% of total.
My germinations to date are only: Lloyd Center Supreme x Sheer Elegance (ho-hum), Henry’s Amphidiploid seeds (yay!).
I also wait for germination to occur in the fridge. Mine were put up between 12/1 and 12/15 with no germination so far. The majority of the seeds were crosses/OPs from 2001-2003. I did the ‘sink’ test and those that sank were put up in the fridge. This should be a good experiment testing old seeds. The OPs from this season haven’t germinated yet either.
Bo, I prefer 8 weeks in the refrigerator too, but had the opportunity to get them planted this past weekend at just six weeks. With the big chill that we are experiencing here in southern California, they will continue to be chilled even though they are in the greenhouse!
I just tried to cover the avocado tree, but I don’t know if it will help…burrrrr
Jim Sproul
Dave, I also plant the seeds in small pots in door, at once they have sprout in the fridge, sorry if I were misunderstood.
I live in zone 7 in Denmark, down to 0-5F in normal winters. This winter though, is record warm and we have not have temperatures below 30F yet, so maybe I should try an avocado tree in the future also Jim
With no frost, but temperatures about 40-50F through the autumn, I kept my hips on the roses until November-December, before they came in the fridge.
Maybe the long cooling period outside in the hips through the autumn could be the reason why they are so quickly to germinate in the fridge now!?
Robert, this is pretty weird… of all of the roses to cross to one another…I guess great minds, eh? I have 2 fairly good sized Cal Polys and they readily set hips with a reasonable number of seeds/hip for a mini. I think that Wendy White in one of RHA newsletters did caution about allowing CP to set too many hips.
Jadae, I’ve decided to try and track down a Sam Trivett this spring, which might be a bit tricky in Canada. Our selection of miniatures up here is not all that great.
Jim, good luck with the winter blast and your avocado tree!!
Liz
‘Sam Trivitt’ is a gorgeous thing. I’d love to acquire ‘Michelle Cholet’ too.
I still haven’t ordered ‘Baby Love’ and I really should get around to it.
What was the word of caution regarding letting ‘Cal Poly’ set too many hips?
When I got mine it was an older established plant in a big pot and covered in hips. I’m getting OP germinations now sown unchilled.
I’ll bet Jim’s Avocado isn’t liking life right now. We even got frost here. I’m sure his area saw the mid to low 20’s which is un-avocado-like weather indeed.
Okay Robert, I’ve got another cross starting to come up and I’ll bet that this one is not on your to do list - Morden Sunrise x Purple Heart.
On Paul Barden’s web site I came across a comment regarding Loving Touch as tending to throw lighter colored seedlings. Which also makes the Home Run cross interesting.
As for the word of caution regarding Cal Poly I believe that Wendy warned against letting it set too many because in her experience it would then just start dropping them prematurely. I have not had a chance to dig out the newsletter, but I think that it was in the past years worth of them.
I do have Baby Love and I have used it in a few crosses last year. I understand that it works better as a pollen parent, but I did try a few crosses with it as the seed parent, with Blue Moon believe it or not.
While it is tempting to try to track down Sam Trivitt, I’m trying to limit my new purchases, because I need to sort through the potential parents that I have AND I need to save some space for my seedlings. Having said that I do have about a dozen or so roses on order for spring delivery.
Liz
Thanks Liz. No, Morden Sunrise x Purple Heart is not on my list but it’s interesting we often think alike.
Purple Heart is not a great rose for me in this climate.
This is my first year with Loving Touch. I did reciprocal crosses with Cardinal Hume with this one last season for a lark.
Jim Sproul and I got to do a little trading and I got another of his Baby Love descendants so I’ll probably not acquire Baby Love this season.
Jim also gave me ‘Sam Trivitt’ with hips!
I have a single germination of Cotillion X Gertrude Jeckyll.
Although Paul claims he hasn’t raised a healty Gertrude Jeckyll seedling, I wanted to use her last year although I never planned this cross. It just happened.
Originally, I wanted to create a Gertrude Jecyll X Baby Love.
I thought that perhaps with Gertrude’s heavy petal count would some how counter-act with Baby Love’s single petals…
And that the Baby Love health will come through.
After this, I’m not seeing anything else. HOwever, I did get a germination of an openly pollinated Robusta seedling after a year of germination on Thanksgiving. That seedling however didn’t survive because after I planted, it never sprouted out.
Okay, Im happy this year. Belle Epoque x Rosa primula are finally germinating as of this morning.