I just wanted to share a picture of a seedling I’ve got blooming. I’ve only got two seedlings this year - one from ‘Spice’ (Bermuda rose) X rugosa and one from ‘Shocking Blue’ X ‘Reine des Violettes’. I may get some more seedlings from some outdoor planted seeds, but only time will tell with those. In the mean time, I’ve been patiently watching this seedling slowly go from bud to bloom. It’s not “an earthquaking breakthrough” or anything, but I think it’ll make a nice stepping stone on the way to bluer roses. In addition to having purple highlights and being a presumed rebloomer, it has the bonus of a fairly strong “old rose” fragrance like ‘Reine des Violettes’. Hopefully it will grow well and be a good breeder too. I’ll be crossing my fingers.
I couldn’t see the picture, but I’m excited to see the RdV hybrid. I am working with it, since two years. It is a fertile rose but with limited pollen. It takes about 12 flowers to get a decent amount of pollen. I’ve always crossed it with Prospero (which makes very weak seedlings) and so I never got anything that got to blooming stage. But this year I’m going to cross it with my mauve hybrid teas and floribundas such as Fragrant Plum, Love Potion, and perhaps my Queen Elizabeth. I hope the best for you…
For some reason, my RdV is producing quite a bit of pollen so far this year. I tried to use it last year, but got negligible pollen from it, and no hips.
Thanks guys. Sorry about that image problem; it worked at first but I guess that was only temporary. And yes I’ll be sure to post a picture again when it’s fully opened.
I was glad to see the relatively purple color, because like I mentioned, this was the only seed (out of about a dozen) that even germinated. And like Enrique mentioned, I had to use quite a few flowers to get enough pollen to work with.
What’s been working best for me so far is: I pull all of the petals off of the not quite mature flowers leaving what few anthers there are, still attached. I let these sit for a day, to give the anthers a chance to dehisce. Then I just use them as they are, to brush pollen on the prepared seed parent stigmatic pads. I find that this way, I don’t lose too much of the scarce pollen on mirrors/razor blades/brushes. I often need three or more of these “pollen wands” to pollinate one bloom.
Of course, it helps to use a relatively fertile seed parent too.