Wow, those are BEAUTIFUL looking plants, Eric! So healthy and happy. Hope they bloom for you soon!

I had a first bloom from an OP Fara Shimbo seedling the other day. Growing roses from seeds is such a hoot!

Here's my baby:

Fuzzy little bud


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and then it opens up


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Very cool Lucretia! I love how the mossing came through to the baby. How tall is yours? The seedlings that I've seen blooming are these little things, and mine are good size and haven't bloomed. I read that if they're once bloomers, I won't get any at all this year.

Not sure how that trait is passed on. Is it dominant? The seed parent is remontant, but if got once bloomer pollen, would it be a once bloomer?

Eric

Congratulations to you both! See? Not really difficult at all was it? What you've both done is to replicate what "rose breeders" did all over the world until about the 1880s/1890s. They simply collected hips from existing varieties and raised the seed to create "new" varieties. This is exactly why SO many of the OGRs resembled each other so greatly. Old rose books actually broke them down into families or types to categorize them so the buyer would have some idea of what they were getting because nurserymen (of course!) listed each new seedling as the "biggest, best rose ever!" You'll find many of them do resemble the seed parent greatly because the vast majority of open pollinated seed are actually self seedlings of the "mother". Occasionally, you'll find one which varies quite a bit. Those are the ones which you really want to watch as they could well be pollinated by something else.

Now, collect a bunch of baby food jars, 35 mm film cans or some other small, easily cleaned and inexpensive containers so you can start collecting pollen from roses you want to deliberately cross with the good seed parents in your garden. It really isn't any more "difficult" than raising seedling roses and it is a WHOLE LOT OF FUN! Great instructions abound and some very easy, detailed ones are available on the Rose Hybridizers site. Enjoy! Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Rose Hybridizers Association Home Page

Eric,

The plant with the above blossoms is only about knee high, but the seeds were collected in Fall 2009. I planted it in the ground last fall, and it's really starting to take off.

The RHA page has lots of good information. I haven't been paying attention to dominant/recessive traits, just snagging hips an culling things that aren't healthy and vigorous.

Kim, right now I'm at the "rub your finger in pollen as you walk around the yard, and then rub it on roses you like" stage. I mark them with a long blade of grass (plenty of that growing around the roses!) If they resemble the parents it's no bad thing for me.

Another baby bloomed today. A seedling from "Tuscany Superb", it's more blue-red in color than its parent, and has moss.

Moss (and shed aphid skins) on the bud:
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First bloom. The color is actually a little richer than in the photo, and the petals look kind of velvelty. The reverse is paler--I'm really happy with this one! (Again, a 2009 seed, small plant put in last fall.)

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And if you don't want to go to any effort to pollinate/stratify/plant your seedlings, just check the cracks in your driveway...

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When you find such volunteers in such inhospitable places, it really makes you laugh when you read some of the instructions of the rocket science promoted as being necessary to get rose seed to germinate! LOL! If they didn't come up by themselves, there wouldn't be so many roses in the wild. Fun stuff, isn't it? Kim

Which is why it's probably a pipedream -- to hold that all of the "found" roses had a recorded "historic identities." ". . . roses happen." They really do.

Some, clearly, ARE historic roses. Many of those hard-to-I.D. roses, though, may have never had names, other than "Aunt Betsy's Rose."

Jeri

Or "Bird Drop"! LOL! KIM

Recently I found an unplanned souvenir...everytime I walk passed it I get a smile on my face wide as the moon. So far only about 4" high. No blooms. The foliage is wine colored edge and blue centered.
There are no rose bushes within 20 feet so this must be a plant from the birds.
Hope it survives. Such fun.
Jeannie

I get those self-seedlings from time to time. Usually I just pull them. Two years one of them caught my eye; I don't know why. I left it in place to see what it would do. It grew slowly. After a year I potted it up. It is still growing I am curious to see if it will do anything interesting. If I get bored I'll toss it, but who knows? Tiny, tiny leaves of pale green, which is not characteristic of any rose growing near it.

Rosefolly

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:276555}}