My climate is fairly mild, compared to the previous one. My house remains in the high sixties to low seventies, usually, unless the heat spikes to the upper eighties and into the nineties, then it warms to the mid seventies, but evenings cool off quite a bit and I have windows open frequently, so it cools off the house.

I collect the anthers and dry them on a piece of printer paper, where they remain (in the guest bedroom, which has virtually no traffic and no open windows so there are no breezes to blow it around) until I use them. When I'm ready, I pour all the dried material into a glass baby food jar so I can shake the jar and the pollen adheres to the clean jar sides. I simply swipe a finger through it and apply it to the seed parent. I don't use any fungicides or pesticides, so when I need to clean my finger, I simply suck it then dry it on my pant leg.

I have used some pollen this year that was two or three months old. Hips and seeds formed. Could they be selfs or the results of "foreign pollen"? Of course. Only germinations will make that determination. Could my friend be "mistaken"? Certainly, but he's been at this for MUCH longer than I have and he has no motive for mis representing his results.

Some roses begin releasing their pollen long before the sepals begin to fall. Others have required almost a week of drying before anything began releasing. Some pollen has felt quite "greasy", like graphite. Some has been quite talc-like, while others have felt quite granular, like a finer corn meal. Basye's Legacy and its offspring will begin shedding pollen before you see petal color between the sepals. When collected from buds whose sepals haven't begun separating, much pollen can be "coaxed" from the freshly harvested anthers by vigorously shaking them in a glass baby food jar. When I've left the jar for a day or longer, the bright golden pollen looks oxidized, "tarnished". It darkens with age, but giving the jar a couple of more shakes coats the darker pollen with a layer of fresh, bright golden pollen. Is the oxidized pollen still viable? I don't know, but hips and seeds have resulted from its use. Ralph Moore felt greater success resulted from flooding the stigmas with a great deal of pollen and repeating the process over the course of several days to insure fertilization. That could well be. When allowed to self pollinate, the more successful seed parents fold their stamen over the stigma where pollen rains down on them until it's either all used or something limits their ability to continue releasing it.

Must pollen always be "fresh" to succeed? How much of the pollen a bee carries on its body is always "fresh"? How much of their pollination might be due to days old material?

Is it logical to presume that fertilization requires perfect conditions to always occur? I don't think so. I believe we make those presumptions based upon our observed results. "Natural selection" presumes the "least fussy" members of a genus are the most successful in the "Nature" in which they survive. Most roses are successful in many widely varying conditions and climates. Some are more climate specific, but most aren't. What makes the most sense to me is fertilization depends more upon the compatibility of the parents, the amount of pollen used and how well it is worked into the stigma of the seed parent. Some crosses simply will not take, whether it's due to the inability of the two types to mate, or the inability of the seed parent to accept and use pollen. Some seem to work better when a great deal of pollen is well worked in to the receiving stigma. Bees really work it in to the seed parent. I'm careful not to damage the stigma by being rough with it, but I definitely "work it in", taking my cues from the bees. And, I definitely apply as much as possible in hopes of some of it taking, particularly when making the "weird" crosses such as between species and modern roses. It's probably not as necessary when you're crossing roses more closely related, such as two moderns. It seems much more beneficial when crossing a species and a modern or those from different families. I didn't get many seeds from using Minutifolia pollen until I could collect many flowers, hence much more pollen, and began using it over a longer period. It appeared as if Minutifolia required a longer period to shed all of its pollen. I apparently had been disposing of it long before it had given what it had.

Could I be completely wrong? Absolutely, but crosses which are definite results of the selected parents were never as plentiful as they have been since I've begun relaxing my "rules" about pollen use.