Good luck! Keep me posted. Steve
I pulled it out, removed the blamed invasive “ornamental grasses” the City is using everywhere and which blow in to infest the yards. I also knocked off some of the concrete and replaced it with decent potting soil in hopes of its roots finding it and going nuts. Fingers crossed!
Thanks Kim! That does not sound easy. Here’s to hope!
Fyi: I have been talking with folks from the University of New Mexico as well as every native nursery found in AZ, NM and TX. So far no one has the it in stock. Agua Fria nursery in NM said that they would go collecting this summer and begin propagating it. So there is so good new there. In the same vein, my family and I are planning a trip down south of us to visit NM and see if we can collect materials for ourselves. If we are lucky I will happily share whatever we find.
Have an awesome day my friend!
-Douglas
I’m glad at least someone is interested in collecting it.
I am surprised that R. stellata ‘Mirifica’ started flowering already on 13.05.2024 this year and that the heyday has continued nearly uninterrupted until today, with quite a many buds still present. This is why this desert rose bears slightly reddish-colored rose hips so early and additionally fresh blossoms at the same time. Apparently the hot climate increasingly suits their inclination. In any case this is an unusual happening for me with Mirifica.
Due to the already said long flowering period of R. stellata ‘Mirifica’ this year, the rose hips are present in various stages of ripeness. However, it is worth noting that most of them are +/- 1.5 cm in diameter and only one younger hip reaches an actual size of 2.5 cm in diameter. For me this is an exciting fact, which could possibly indicate a natural (perhaps wheather effected) occurrance of chromosome doubling. I very much hope that this particular hip contains any achenes at all and that it will reach to full maturity undamaged.
I hope with you! Unfortunately, too often it means the small ones are empty and the larger ones have a few seeds. That’s what it does here.
Thank you for your comments! It’s always interesting and helpful to hear other observations. I just checked my records again. None of the 23 hips from the last season were empty, apart from two that aborted earlier. Each harvested rose hip contained between 17 and 50 achenes, with the higher numbers even occurring several times.
In total of the season 2023 yielded 28 germinations, mainly with R. foliolosa as pollen parent and 7 x with R. rugosa rubra, 2 x R. hugonis and 1 x R. nitida. One seedling seems to be quite interesting. It has between 7 and 9 leaflets and develops well. I still kept the Mirifica nutlets from last year. Let’s see if anything else comes of it and how the current season is progressing.
For all those who would like R. stellata ‘Mirifica’ for breeding and have not yet found a source for supplying this plant, I happened to come across an online store that sells these seeds in the US and possibly also in Canada. Perhaps this information will meet some interest.