Oh, I'm glad you're thinking of giving it a try! It's so much fun! In your climate you can probably do it any time of year but for me it's my sanity keeper in the winter when I don't have my roses to tend to. I'm sure other people with more experience will chime in but here are my answers.

1. No it's not frowned upon to use unknown roses or to have open pollinated (OP) seed. But if you do have the right parents names it is appreciated if you list them when you register a rose. Breeders like to have some idea of what roses went into the roses they're using in their breeding programs so they can look for certain traits. Some breeders don't disclose the parents because they don't want other people doing the same work they're doing. But for the most part sharing knowledge and information is encouraged when ever possible. I use a lot of OP seeds because I'm still working on mastering the art of cross pollination. I think I did better this year and have several hips in the fridge right now from crosses I made in June. OP seeds means you don't exactly know where the pollen came from that fertilized the hips. In a lot of cases they could be self pollinated but if there are other roses in the area the pollen could possibly be from those too, spread by the bees and other insects. If you're making your own crosses use labels on the hips and keep good records so you'll know what the parentage is on your seedlings. When labeling always put the seed or hip parent (mother) first then the pollen parent (father) like this (Mom's Rose X Father's Day).

2. I got dozens of germinations the first time I tried it. Depending on the variety of rose hips you have they really aren't very hard to do at all. I found I had no problem getting them to germinate. My problem was in not killing the tiny, tender little things when I transferred them into the growing medium. It takes patience and practice but you'll get some results right away. It got to the point where I had more seedlings than I could handle or had space for!

3. A good hybridizer is anyone! You just need to be creative and patient. Don't be afraid to experiment and try crossing things...everything...and see what happens. Yes, there are a lot of really excellent and professional people out there who have done extensive work toward specific goals. They're good. Very good! But they all started out just trying things first until they came to the path that they wanted to follow to breed that certain rose. And along the way they bred some pretty great things they weren't aiming for too! It's all in the mix of the genes.

4. With the exception of some species roses which do breed true from seed no two seeds will grow the same rose and they will not be the same as the rose they came from. That's because each seed has a new mix of genetic material in it. Oh, OP seeds may breed a lot of roses that look similar to the parent rose in many ways but genetically they will not be the same rose. They can have genes from the pollen parent (father), the seed parent (mother) or any of the roses that went into the make up of those parents back on up their family trees.

5. OY! This ones complicated. Yes, plant all the seeds and see what they'll produce. Look for the ones that you like best, the form, color, health, fragrance, whatever it is you're looking for. And look for surprises. Those two lovely pink roses you crossed may give you 10 pink seedlings but it might also throw in one yellow or red one you didn't expect. Or they may all be 5 petaled singles except for seedling 9 which has 30 petals! As for health, that's hard to say. Some people ditch ones that seem disease prone very quickly. Others will hold on to them for a couple of years to see if they out grow they're weakness. I tend to keep mine for at least a couple of years and let them get some size before I decide to toss any for disease reasons. Once you've found that special one then in order to propagate that one further you'll need to do rooted cuttings or grafting in order to produce more of that exact same rose. Seeds from it will produce new varieties not the same one.

6. Yes, you can have many roses with the same parents patented because each one is a different rose. If you go to HMF and look up the lineages of a lot of roses you'll see that there are a lot of roses that have been used over and over again in breeding programs and have had a lot of offspring registered.

7. HMF gives both the parental tree and the offspring tree of roses This is the lineage page for Peace.
http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.2203&tab=21
You'll see there are both parental and descendant sections.

8. Best advice I can give you is just give it a try, experiment and figure out what works best for you. I do have a pdf paper on how I do mine that I'd be happy to send you if you're interested. Just PM me with your email address and I'll get it right out to you. Or any one else who is interested!

Hi Karen, welcome! You're going to have a ball!

Your questions...

1. Is it Ok to use an unknown as a parent? Is this often done, or frowned upon?

Of course! If the unknown has traits you're interested in, go for it. That's something which is done (or at least reported as having been done) all the time.

2. Interested in other's experiences - what was your initial success/failure ration. Is it possible to get a success in your first group, or can you expect to try hundreds of times before having your first success?

That's hit and miss. Some get great results right away. Others of us take forever but eventually get interesting things. Forty years go, it was reported only one out of ten-thousand seedlings was worth introducing by J&P, but they were traditionally raising HT X HT which resulted in a lot of inbreeding of a very limited gene pool. If you're repeating that trend, those could easily be your expected results. If you're mixing things up, using modern roses with species or some other "out there" direction, you may hit something worth spreading around in your first batch. As I said, it's hit and miss.

3. What makes a good hybridizer. Is it an exercise in patience and persistence, or is there some special artistic "magic" that must be within the individual hybridizer?

"Hybridizer" would be patience, persistence and research. A good "Selector" is someone with a good eye, "artistic magic". You might breed some very good things, but if you're not seeing the good in them, you'll throw away some pretty interesting things. Joe Winchell had some very interesting results, some of which were suitable for florist production, a few for landscape and garden. Ralph Moore offered to put him in touch with people who could promote and market those types, but Joe was so narrowly focused on his exhibition HT, insulin needle, high centered form, he wasn't interested. He probably tossed some decent roses as a result. Even Ralph had to rely upon other peoples' visions for some of his creations. He was so focused on his minis, when he created Pink Powderpuff, his Hulthemias and other larger roses, his most frequent question was, "think someone would buy it?"

4. I have heard that if you plant seeds from a self-pollinated rose, that you won't get children like the parent. Why is that? Because you can't "know" for certain who the father is? or other?

Both. Roses have more genes than humans. The possible traits expressed are much greater than what is possible between two people. Some of the lines imprint themselves heavily on the seedlings and have such characteristic traits, you can often look at the seedling and make a good educated guess who one parent was. Others, give such way out results, who could have guessed? Breed with Little Artist. 99% of its seedlings look very much like it, no matter what you crossed with it. Some roses are chameleons. They take on the other parent's characteristics so readily, they are very useful in getting other traits into "better" lines. Better being healthier, more vigorous, etc. Probably the best answer to that question is, when you raise a seed, it is sexual reproduction, which is never an identical genetic copy of the parent. With all those genetic possibilities behind the seed parent, even if it isn't a cross between two varieties, there are so many possibilities, the seeds can, or might not, look anything like the parent. But, some will. That's something you'll learn as you raise more seedlings. If you keep using some of the same roses each year, you develop a feel for what is possible from that rose and can eventually see it in its offspring.

5. I have read that each seed from a single hybridized hip will produce a different child. So should you plant as seeds from the same hip as possible, then try to find the "best" result. Then - do you just have that single plant to propogate from? Or might you be able to get multiple of a relatively "same" result from the same cross in the same hip? Different hips?

Nope. Each seed is genetically distinct. There are only two instances I've ever read of where two, different roses, raised by different breeders, in different parts of the world have been deemed so similar, they were considered synonymous. That's two out of probably millions of seedlings, many thousands of introduced roses. When you raise a seedling you wish to replicate, you have to go back to that precise seedling to propagate from it. All of its siblings are going to differ from it enough to not be interchangeable. Once you begin researching the breeding lines on HMF, you will see that.

6. Can more than one rose be patented having the same parents? (Like 2 with Father = rose 1 and mother = rose 2)

Absolutely! Each one is distinct, different. There are many instances of that. Oklahoma, Mr. Lincoln, Papa Meilland all have the same parents and all were patented. Each one is different. You're patenting that specific genetic combination, not all the possible combinations from those parents.

7. Rose pedigree research - are there resources that give access to see what children a particular rose has fathered or mothered ? Finding "magic" crosses?

Yes. The laborious route is buying all the Modern Rose editions and then reading them. The fastest, easiest, most fun way is to buy a premium membership for HMF for $24 a year which gives you full access to all of that information on the site. It is INVALUABLE! Not only can you search for all the offspring of a particular rose, but you can easily follow breeding lines and often SEE color images of the results...at the click of a button. All for $2 a month! You'll love it! Reading what created what is fine, but SEEING what created what is so much more educational.

8. Any related advice would be greatly appreciated.

Browse the Rose Hybridizers Association. Read the linked articles. Ask questions there and here. Research the roses which are really good where you are. Research their offspring. Research what is really bad where you are and look for common ancestors. Playboy is an extremely popular breeder. Playboy is addicted to rust in this climate. MOST of its offspring are, too. I avoid Playboy. I don't want to engineer rust into my line. It's virtually identical to breeding animals. If you know a particular 'stud' has health or behavioral issues, you avoid using it or its progeny. If you know strongly multiflora types are going to either be prone to mildew, RRD or chlorosis and any (or all) of those are issues where you are, avoid using those types.

Pay attention to those roses which set their own hips without you. They are likely to be good seed parents. If a rose usually doesn't set seed, it may not be useful for you where you are as a seed parent. Iceberg doesn't set hips at all in the inland hot valleys. It sets hips like a bloody fruit tree where it's cooler and damper. Raise self set seed from the roses in your garden. What benefit is it to you to create seeds if you haven't learned to germinate them where you are? Practice on the freebies your roses provide you. They cost you virtually nothing. That will also help show you which of the hip setters also makes viable seed. Why waste resources pollinating a rose which won't set seed?

Creating your own seed before learning how to germinate and grow them is like waiting to learn how to root or bud when you've finally gotten the material you've really wanted and waited for. Both are very much like waiting until the day of your huge vacation to finally buy the expensive, involved camera you've always wanted. None of them are going to do you much good because you haven't learned how to make them work, nor have you overcome the fear causing you to permit the situations to overwhelm you. Sure, if the stars align perfectly, you might have success, but how much more fun to stack the deck in your favor, learn how to make it all work then succeed in your early attempts? Initial failures can be overwhelming to many people. Fail at what doesn't matter first. Save your "creations" for when you KNOW how to make it work.

Don't give up. Don't let it overwhelm you. Keep it simple, inexpensive and streamlined, unless you're the type of person who loves making the simple, complicated. That's totally valid, but the harder, more complicated and time consuming you make it, the less likely you will be to actually DO it.

If it helps, I put together this entry on pollinating roses to answer questions several friends sent me. I hope the photos help. Please feel free to make use of any of it you desire, or not, your choice.

There are many roads to success with this, just as there are in growing roses. Not all are suitable for each climate, nor individual. Keeping it simple, fun, inexpensive, makes it possible for me to pollinate a ton of things quickly all summer long. Of course, it resulted in far more seed than I can raise, but that affords the luxury of selecting those most important to me. I couldn't have done it had my process taken a lot of prep time. Find what works best with your habits, your logic, your mind and then just explore. You're going to love it! Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Pollinating roses

My rose hybridizing information is at:

http://home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/rosepublicationsindex.htm

AND

http://home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/rosehybridizinglinks.htm

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Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: link for 1st link above

Thank you guys SO much for your very thorough answers. Seil - I didn't even realize we could email one another via Gardenweb - thank you for getting me to look for that link, and yes I'd LOVE your .pdf!!!

The links are awesome. The energy is awesome. Kim, you read my mind on walking before I run. Being an absolute neurotic deadheader, fortunately I have some set hips that have escaped my deadhead efforts, and I'm leaving absolutely every last remaining head, and will spend the winter planting as many seeds as I can, and don't plan on trying to hybridize until I'm successful on that front. As well as trying to root a lot of cuttings, with a myriad of methods.

Both Kim & Seil, I didn't realize helpmefind membership gave the pedigree information I wanted - I'll become a member post haste. Seil, I went to the link you showed, and it brought me to the "this is the pedigree you get if you're a member" on Betty Boop (AQHA used to use Genuine Doc) and it looks just like an AQHA (American Quarter Horse Assoc.) pedigree - go figure. I was pretty heavy into the horse breeding industry over the past decade or so, and published some articles on reining horse breeding and pedigrees, and I really miss the pedigree research. Now that it's pretty darned well ingrained, and since horse breeding is so crazy expensive that ... well ... no more need be said. Rose pedigree research can help fill that void! Color genetics in horses is quite predictable, I'm betting that's not even in the cards for rose breeding.

A question that I hadn't thought to ask, as I just made the assumption in advance that one couldn't hybridize patented roses. But then Kim, you brought up rose sexual reproduction, and I seem to remember seeing over and over again the restriction to not use patented roses in asexual reproduction. Are all roses up for grabs for hybridizing (I know not for cuttings which I'm presuming is asexual reproduction)? Or are there restrictions?

Thanks again. Will try not to bombard this forum with questions (I know there is a lot of very in-depth how-to information out there).

Wow Karen! I didn't know you were that into the breeding of horses! You're going to take to this like a duck to water! There are some threads of color which may make sense, but mostly the "default" is pink. Most of what you cross is going to give you pink in some shade. There is a marvelous article by E.B. LeGrice on breeding funny colors, which I've linked below. (Thank you Paul Barden!) There is a chart for predicting rose colors at this link.

http://www.love-of-roses.com/predict-rose-seedling-color.html

You may breed with patented roses to your heart's content! There is one exception, so far. You can't breed with Cal Gene Pacific's "Applause", the "blue" florist rose, as that 'blue' gene is patented and they can trace it and sue you for using it if it is to their advantage. Otherwise, any rose is fair game to mix it up with. I'm so glad you're one step ahead on trying your own self set hips. It's heart breaking reading an email from someone whom you've encouraged, that they put in all this effort and then nothing germinated because they were planted too deeply or the medium was too wet, or some other issue which could have been discovered before the actual crosses were made.

Yes, breeding is sexual reproduction. Propagation is asexual. Anything patented or whose propagation rights are reserved (PRR) are out of bounds. All others are fair game.

One other propagation method you may really enjoy is Burling Leong's Chip Budding. She's prepared a marvelous article at this address.

http://www.heritagerosefoundation.org/4resources/Rosa%20Mundi/10/RM10_Leong.pdf

It's EASY and it WORKS! Not for everything, but for pushing things to get them going quickly while you observe them, it is great.

If you're more comfortable, come on over to the RHA,

http://www.rosebreeders.org/forum/list.php?2

with your breeding questions. That's what it is there for! Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: LeGrice Unusual Rose Colors on Paul Barden's site