Hi, everyone,
Went out to the garden recently to collect hips and found, to my astonishment and, I must say, depression, that almost all the hips I had deliberately pollinated have died. In some cases, the entire canes the hips were on have died! Open-pollinated hips are doing just fine.
I can’t imagine what happened here. I did all my hybridising in exactly the same way I always do. It was a humid, but not rainy, summer (very unusual here) but if that were a problem, why are there so many OP hips?
Anyone ever see this before, or have a clue? I’m totally puzzled.
I’ve seen this to some degree in my own work and I believe its a genetic incompatibility issue. Every year I see what appears to be plenty of very healthy hips forming during July and August, and then BAM…September is here and lo and behold, some crosses that spent all Summer forming have dried up and quit. ‘Lilian Austin’ is especially famous for doing this to me. Lots of OP hips, yes…but 90% or more of my intentional crosses have dried up and are likely seedless. Its just what happens sometimes.
That said, how widely divergent were your crosses? Pollen from moderns onto the Old Europeans can do this. Many a time I have put ‘Stanwell Perpetual’ pollen on a wide variety of seed parents only to have the hips quit half-way through forming.
If I had a nickel for every time I got one or two seeds from 200 pollinated blooms…
Hi Fara,
I am so sorry for your loss of the hips.
The puzzeling thing is about the canes dying also?? Perhaps they were not healthy canes when you first started your crosses or you might be having problems with voles.
Good luck with your OP hips!
Fara,
What kind of plants did the hips and canes die on? I see this kind of thing on my species and near species from time to time. The older canes died on my Therese Bugnet, Metis and R.blanda this year. Some of the hips and cane tips have died on my Rugosas as well. I
Yeah, I agree with Paul. I see it both with hips and germinations. Its always thr start of a bad day when that happens 
The hips/canes that died were all OGR/OGR crosses, except a couple which were Alba/Veilchenblau. Even more puzzling when I got tons of beautiful seeds both from a Moss/arkansana cross and a Moss/Persian Yellow cross. 19 seeds in that latter hip.
I don’t know how yor summer was?
In my case, all pollinations, done in the very hot and dry June, failed, still have hips pollinated later and hope they get still time anough to ripe. Some I can keep a little safer in our small greenhouse…
It’s always a ridge walk…
cheers
Bernhard
I was counting on the seedlings here to develop hips, since the good large roses are a little short of hip supply, but there are only a hand full and will be lucky to have ten seeds. This left me with the burning question of what happens to the thousands of hips on roses I seen in a public rose garden two years ago. Checked it out yesterday and seen they where pruning them off for the year, BUT, there was a sign and they needed volunteers to help in the rose beds I assume to finish the pruning. Come monday i’m volunteering to prune American Pride and Living Easy, and really,Judy Garland looks so bad some of them should just be dug up and undoubtedly others also.
Did my civic duty this morning after sign in and sign up and later sign out and log hours? Straight up I said I wanted hips and xxxx xxxx xxxx I got some. 9000 rose bushes and it didn’t take hardly any time to get a crate full of dead heads my way. After awhile a lady said lets go to the next bed that has the hips you want. Pristine with 1&1/4" hips, who could pass on those. The sucker work can wait for Harley boots, Carharts, and fire hardened welding gloves. Only had a few bleeders.
Pristine has produced some nice roses (and some duds, of course). One of my favorite HT’s is from it and is called Catherine Marie. Unfortunately, every copy on this Earth is virused. It is otherwise extremely beautiful and garden friendly for an HT.
I still use my welding gloves for fireworks (think: roman candles). I would love to actually own my own oxy-acetylene welding unit some day. Think of all the useful garden architecture that could be built. I always wanted to make like some sort of metal spire that went up really tall and linear just so that I could fill it with some rose. It could have an effect similar to a Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar …but with blooms instead of blue needles 
Only a few roses can actually do thi though. I know Summer Wine can but the blooms of Summer Wine are not romantic enough in feeling for a spire… I am sure there are a few others. The trick is selecting something that obviously wants to be tall but does not flop all over. Very few roses can pull that off. Some of the Explorers can do this as well, but, again, they lack the desired character needed. I have a seedling from Penny Lane and Salita that is beginning to show its traits. Its going to be a coral pink blend climber with OGR form. That would possibly work. Penny Lane and Salita both look to be quality breeders.
That was quite the tangent
Floppy: had to tie a cord around Strike It Rich at four foot level and now it’s eight feet and finally setting hips. Don’t like the lateral growth on some of these roses. Spent a lot of time on the placement of the new roses for the best effect. Oh yes, back to the rose garden this morning to dead head those nasty hips. The great thing about walking around in the beds is you can actually see the plant markers. Vavoom is nothing like the one I have. Mine is gold and can smell from two feet away.??? And there is a MIDGE problem in a part the next bed. What ever it is I don’t want it. Alert and careful are the words. One of these days i’ll figure out how to space for paragraphs.