Years ago I bought the Charles Fitch book on Miniature Roses. In the chapter on hybridizing he mentions some of the miniature roses that easily set seed and mentions ‘Magic Wand’. I’ve had ‘Magic Wand’ for 4 years now and have never been able to get it to seed with pollen from another rose and have never seen it set seed on its own. Has anyone else used this rose?
I was having the same problem with ‘Little Chief’ a couple years ago until someone suggested that I try another plant. I called Sequoia Nursery and asked Caroline to send me a plant that already had hips on it so I would know it was fertile. This rose sets hips very easily, so I’m wondering if I just need to get a different ‘Magic Wand’.
(Glad to see the forum is back up, I’ve been out of touch.)
I’ve never known if roses could differ in the way of setting hips or not, unless it was a sport. Why don’t you get ‘Golden Angel’? I read a few times that it is very fertile as a seed parent.
I’ve been using ‘Orange Ruffels’ as a parent with micro-minis this year.f Infact, with everything this year: Basye’s Legacy, species, English Roses, etc,. That rose is extreamly fertile, and all the seeds germinate. I haven’t used it long enough to see all the traits it could pass. But it passes on beautifully formed holly like foilage to offspring when using offspring of New Dawn such as ‘Aloha’. And it makes many bicolors too. Hopefully it makes good minis.
‘Magic Wand’ has been used extensively as a pollen parent (about 22 times, by my records), but only once as a seed parent. My plant will set self pollinated seeds if I let it, but I don’t try to use it for a seed parent intentionally. It will be much more useful to you as a pollen parent if you can locate the right seed parents.
Have you read Ralph Moore’s comments about ‘Magic Wand’ in his book, “All About Miniature Roses”?
Regards,
Paul
Thanks for the feedback! I had noticed that Moore used Magic Want more as a pollen parent. Perhaps Fitch was mixed up when he recommended it as a seed parent.
Brian,
Ralph Moore used ‘Magic Wand’ as a pollen parent because it produced too few seeds per hip; it makes tiny hips with only one or two seeds in it. Ralph’s policy is to use seed parents that are as highly productive as possible, so as to make progress as fast as possible. ‘Magic Wand’ may work quite well as a seed parent, but compared to others that produce more seeds it isn’t worth using on a commercial production scale.
Paul