I have several seedlings that have come from the cross of The Countryman and Blue For You. Three of the seedlings have really taken off, so this question referring to those three. Seedling A has gone from the funky first leaf after the cotyledons to three leaflet leaves to 5- leaflets to 7- leaflets leaves. The petioles on the three leaflet leaves are reddish, but the 5 and 7 leaflets leaves are not.
Seedling B went from the funky first leaf to 3 leaflet to 5-leaflet leaves. The petioles have remained red from the 3-5 leaflets.
Seedling C has gone from the first to 3 to 5 leaflets leaves. The petioles have been green with no red.
The leaflets on seedlings A and C look more like wild rose leaves, while the leaflets on seedling B look more like a garden rose.
I guess my question is, is this variableness normal for rose seedlings? Sorry if this is a dumb question, the only other time i have grown roses from successfully is last year and that cross was Charles de Mills x Abraham Darby, and the leaflets were pretty consistent amongst the seedlings.
Thank you in advance.
Brandon
2 Likes
Short answer? Yes. You crossed two unrelated roses and obtained a wider variability in the results than you would had you crossed to closely related mates. Plus, The Countryman is likely tetraploid while Blue for You is triploid so you have a greater possibility of weird results than you may have with matching ploidies. I LOVE using fertile triploids as they often produce some very interesting results.
3 Likes
It sounds well within the realm of shrub-rose background breeding to me, Brandon.
Dusty.
2 Likes
Thank you for your answer
2 Likes
The ability to get roses to produce the exact way you want them to is impossible.But through selection of the ones you prefer to keep you can get them to make more similar to what you are looking for. Then maybe one day you will get lucky enough to grow one that you are looking for exactly. If you are even more lucky you might get that rose to produce some very much like the original and be able to either sell them or just enjoy them. But you can also just enjoy the ones that were not exactly perfect too. If you like garden roses though, I would recommend you try cultivating B and see if it will produce seeds for you. B sounds like t is growing as a rose should. A sounds like it is growing as a rose should too. But it may have more of a wild rose look and habits. If you prefer a wild rose look that would be the one you want to grow seeds from. C though…That one might need a little bit more time to tell what it will be like. Just give it some more time and wait for the red leaves to grow on it too. Sometimes a rose can take a while to develop properly. But keep an eye on it more than the other two. Not all seedlings make it into maturity either. And seedlings are very fragile. You have to transplant them with a spoon rather than touch them yourself. It is not easy growing roses from seeds. But it can be done. Just remember that not all rose seeds will germinate. And not all seedlings will make it to maturity all the time. But also keep in mind, if a seedling is not strong and healthy enough to survive it is probably for the best that it did not make it. You do not want to prolong their suffering or produce sickly offspring. It invites a whole host of health problems for them if you do that. But do keep your eye on C. It might be it is just a little bit slower than A and B.