This past weekend I went through accumulated baggies of rose seed in moist peat at room temp. to take inventory and then get them into the refrigerator for their cold treatment. Most have been sitting for between a month and two months now for a warm stratification treatment before cold. There typically are some precocious germinating seedlings to pull out and pot up. There is one parent that routinely has precocious seedlings and it did as expected. One really surprised me though. The seeds came from an open pollinated Above and Beyond seed that looks like one of the R. eglanteria hybrids near it was the male. There were 3 R. eg hybrids near it that have R. eg. as a direct female parent and various males and all strongly resemble R. eg. This seedling has flowered the past few years as it grew in size and it has the stray fall bloom of R. laxa, which is in A&B and A&B shares this trait. Usually R. eglanteria hybrids and A&B seed really need a long warm stratification and then cold to germinate well. This A&B x R. eg seedling hybrid had no op hips until this year and it’s pollen didn’t work on other things, so I suspected it was going to be a dead end. The hips it produced this year just had a seed or two in each for the most part. It was really fun to see several seedlings germinating precociously!! Hopefully they will be a good bridge to more fertile roses that bring along the nice qualities in the background. The R. eg influence comes through a lot in the size of the foliage and flower bud shape of the A&B x R. eg cross hybrid.
What are some of the precocious germinators others are finding and are excited about? There are two baggies of op seed from this female parent and the precocious germination is interestingly only happening in one baggie.
Trier did it to me this year. I tend to a long hip-collection here on Vancouver Island, with a Mediterranean climate. The long growing season and mild, wet winters mean I can collect hips from late flowers right into December. Hooray!
So I pulled out the baggie for Trier from the fridge (it had just gone in a week/10 days before, beginnings of mold noticed) to add the newly collected & cleaned seed, and having done so, rinsed the entire batch again, sterilized the bag, and gave a little squirt of peroxide for good measure. Put the bag down on the counter to keep an eye on for contamination.
Mild breakout of fungus. Another squirt of H2O2.
Couple days later: pale green. Wait, green? Cotylodons broke out and root already over 1cm long!
Found eight precocious lil bastards, and now they’re sharing space with Orchids for winter.
I snagged a few hips off what I assume was a groundcover rose at the zoo in October. I put them in a mix of peroxide and water and then promptly forgot about them before I left town. So they wound up soaking for four days until I planted them in a wooden box covered in a trash bag outside. I figured they’d get about a month of warm stratification before winter and hoped to get some seedlings in the fall.
Just one week later two sprouts popped up, then three more. I’ve now got 10 precocious seedlings from the zoo rose under lights in my grow room, then just yesterday I found a sprout from a yellow hybrid tea rose that I planted about 4-5 weeks ago.
Christmas came early. I wasn’t expecting to have some many seedlings to nurse and obsessively stare at through the winter!
David, regarding your original post:
I’ve enjoyed Above & Beyond for a few years, but never got hips out of it. Wondering how to do better. It’s in full sun. What kind of care does yours get?
FWIW, my still young Above and Beyond flowered beautifully this year, and set several OP hips. They were pitiful for seed-count though; I think six fertile seeds total.
there are about 7-10 10-12’ tall above and beyonds at the lyndale park rose garden. i observed a hip or two on each of them this fall, and on mine at home, and on my neighbors, there were only about two each. i have about 8 op seeds waiting to germinate now. it doesn’t seem to set op hips readily. the pollen on the other hand seems pretty strong.
Well, six out of eight OP Trier have arisen, and so far are doing well. The Coelogyne Linda Buckley flowers above them have lasted almost 3 weeks thus far!
Hi Heather, It makes an easier male parent (very fertile pollen). My plants don’t get special care and get kind of big. The hips don’t have many seeds in them. It is fun to raise some of them. I think it is a bit self incompatible and a bit tricky for what male parents it accepts (good thing using it as a male is easier). I think that with a lot of species hybrids around it that also have some R. laxa and other Cinnamomeae section species that may help a bit with the bees bringing some pollen to it that it accepts a bit better. Once in awhile something unusual pops up among the seedlings like that hybrid it seems with the neighboring R. eglanteria hybrid. Hopefully using it as a male parent will be possible. Many of the seedlings are large and robust. Most aren’t everblooming, but a small fraction are. It may take an extra generation working with some of your favorite first generation hybrids with it to get a stronger ratio of rebloomers.
It really is a beauty, Professor! I was blown away by its summer repeat this year, too. I am sending a dear friend in Alberta all the seeds I collected from it this fall. There were only six, and I mentioned statistically “1 in 6” could repeat, and we laughed about how big that number could be to get to that average of one in six, but she’s game to try and lives where it’s hardiness is needed.
