I find that making baby roses- the mechanics of pollination and germinating and growing- is not terribly difficult. Culling is a challenge, for sure. For me, though, the hard part of rose breeding is getting results: actually ending up with disease-resistant, cold-hardy, beautiful, original roses. Can’t really say I’ve done that once yet. Not once. Part of it is the simple numbers game: I plant about 1500-2000 seeds in the fall and at the end of the following spring I may have many seedlings, but nothing that meets my criteria. And i don’t think I’m being overly harsh- I do keep a number of them. But after the initial euphoria of seeing a nice seedling and saying, “Wow I did THAT” the buzz wears off and you realize it isn’t actually healthier, more beautiful, more original, certainly not more cold-hardy, than what has been done before. Sigh.
I remembered a note from Sam McGredy that seems worth passing along. An abundantly fruitful specimen seems to be less picky about the pollen it accepts.
rec.gardens.roses 12/16/95
A lot of tyros get disappointed when their attempts to cross-pollinate end in failure, as many roses set seed badly and germination is fickle at the best of times.
If you want to have fun, and have enough interesting seedlings to fill your yard - get one plant of Sexy Rexy (Edmunds can supply). It lives up to its name. I often had 400 seed pods from one plant and nearly every seed germinates. Use the pollen of your favourite HTs, the stronger the colour, the better.
One point, be sure to remove every single stamen from the little beast before the bloom opens, as he’s mad keen to fertilize himself!!! You’ll know if that happens because the resulting seedlings will all be duplicates of their Dad.
Good luck!
Sam McGredy.
And a later note on the same topic.
rec.gardens.roses 10/13/98
The operative word is luck. I never could work out why some years I had super germination and other years it was poor to average. And that variation happened even within one seed parent.
There are so many variables - the weather on the day the crosses were made, the condition of the pollen, the condition of the stigmas, the weather immediately after pollinating, how much water, how little sun the plants received once the seed set. How the plant growth was restricted after seed set.
It would take a huge amount of research to sort it all out.
I got around it to a large extent by only using proven germinators as seed parents. The ultimate? Sexy Rexy.
Regards,
Sam.
HelpMeFind does show an impressive list of children from the very fecund ‘Sexy Rexy’.
Thanks for those, Karl. I had forgotten that exchange. If disease and singles aren’t worries, I can add to Sexy Rexy, Orangeade, Lilac Charm, Mrs. Oakley Fisher, Anytime, Rise’n Shine, Joycie, Torch of Liberty, 1-72-1, Cal Poly, Sheri Anne. Those will accept anything you put on them and give you more seedlings than seeds! They can be pollinated with dirt! Lynnie is one, but like Sexy Rexy, she is SO eager to pollinate herself (as all Legacy offspring are), I seldom use her for seed. Fortunately, her pollen works splendidly.
I have not used ‘Orangeade’, but it is a beauty.
Stoddard: Orangeade As A Parent (1980)
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/StoddardOrangeade1980.html
It also has an impressive list of offspring.
I had put Fedtschenkoana on literally hundreds of different roses in my old Newhall garden. NOTHING cooperated until Orangeade. It was because of that success, I chose Dottie Louise as the next recipient. Dottie Louise was Orangeade X Basye’s Legacy. Those results were all documented on HMF as the DLFED seedlings with numbers. Of course, the next direction had to be Lynnie X Fedtschenkoana. Lynnie resulted from Torch of Liberty (Orangeade X Golden Angel), a tremendously fertile tetraploid crossed with a wonderfully fertile triploid, resulting in just as fertile line of triploids. Burlington, by the way, is listing Lynnie, Golden Angel and Golden Horizon, a fertile, healthy triploid from Cal Poly X Strawberry Ice, as available right now.
On the topic of Orangeade:
Stoddard’s article mentions its usefulness in accepting species pollen.
Kim Rupert made the cross Orangeade x R. nitida, which he called Orantida. It was unable to bloom in his climate due to a lack of cooling, so he sent one to me and others (Rob Byrnes, I think). I kept my Orantida in a pot, and the second year it was able to make exactly one blossom, if I remember correctly. I collected the pollen and also pollinated that blossom. (It was a single pale pink blossom.)
I can’t remember the direction of the cross, but I ended up with one seedling of Prairie Joy x Orantida or vice versa. I’ve shown this seedling on my R. nitida video. It has interesting spiral patterning of bristles (prickles?) on some stems. Double pink blossoms. Once blooming. Quite large and healthy.
I have since lost Orantida, and never got it planted in the ground. I had assumed it wouldn’t be cane-hardy at all when you think of a probably tetraploid fully tender rose crossed with the diploid R. nitida. The odd thing is that my x Prairie Joy seedling is even hardier than Prairie Joy itself…as in very hardy. So that one little set of R. nitida genes had a strong influence moving forward, and/or Orangeade can pass on some hardiness.
I haven’t done much breeding with that seedling because Prairie Joy often doesn’t pass on rebloom so this seedling might not even have the potential to pass on reblooming in the next generation.
What I’m saying is that maybe I should get Orangeade and work with it. Try to reproduce Kim’s Orantida, or make a Orangiana or Oranolina. (Orantchenkoana, Oranthina, Orgosa, Oriolosa, lol).
It’s perfect timing, Joe. Burling sent me her latest list yesterday and she HAS Orangeade in stock right now! How clean it will be there, I don’t know, but in the hot, dry, it’s spotless and I love it.
To that list of very cooperative seed parents I would add Bonica. Tremendous hip production, and 80% germination for me. Some interesting very-double babies if you’re willing to weed through them all.
Or Blue For You, multiple people have made Blue For You x Fedtschenkoana and there’s a bunch of other crosses made on these forums like with Carolina