@Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR Wow! Who knew, it's beautiful!!!

Basye's Legacy and Basye's Blueberry can both provide remarkable Fall color. It's actually something I watch for in my seedlings. This is April Mooncrest X Pookah, and its Fall coloring is unusual because it isn't a result of being deciduous as it is evergreen. The colorful photos are all posted here on HMF. https://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.84466&tab=1

@roseseek Gorgeous fall color! Thank you for sharing.

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Those colors are produced in Zones 9b and 10a, BTW.

@roseseek That's very impressive, and what a beautiful treat that must be for someone in such a warm zone. You must get so much pleasure out of making your own crosses and raising them from seed. I want to try! I was inspired by some of the posters on here who do such things, so I nabbed some rose hips from a local park just to see if I could even get them to germinate. If it's successful I will try using roses from my garden with more intentional crosses. Even if it's not successful I'll probably still try again 🙃

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) thank you. There are many methods of germinating them. I'm glad you won't give up. It's actually pretty easy!

@roseseek Do you have a favorite method of germinating? Of course, we are in very different zones, but I'm not sure if that matters when it comes to seed germination. Lots of places state that the seeds need cold stratification, meanwhile another poster on here raises tons of seedlings and does not cold stratify (but she's in California).

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) I'm also in California and I've found I get all the germination I desire without stratifying. When I lived in the hotter areas, I used refrigeration to delay germination until around Thanksgiving because that was when the heat traditionally ended and rains started (back when we HAD rains...). Now, I'm in a cooler area (still 9b but now the chilly Central Coast with few periods of real "heat") and can literally plant whenever I wish and they germinate. I've collected and shelled my seed and hope to have one of the three seed tables emptied in the near future so I can plant them. In 5b, you probably don't want to plant yet, unless you can successfully protect the planted seeds from marauding rodents which will devour every one of them. My issue is thieving birds. They love the seeds and young, tender seedlings, so I use plastic hardware cloth or plastic fencing stapled to 1" X 1" wooden frames over the tables so air, light and rain/dews get through. If you scroll down through this post on my blog, you will see the tables I cobbled from Home Depot supplies. I do it all as inexpensively and "low tech" as possible to keep it "cheap and fun"! http://pushingtheroseenvelope.blogspot.com/2015/03/seedling-tables.html

@roseseek I was kind of thinking I'd start the seeds indoors, like I do with a lot of seeds that I plant out in spring. Do you think that would work? Or do they have to be done outdoors?

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) many who live in colder climates start them indoors. I COULD, but fortunately don't have to. If you're on Face Book, there are several rose breeding pages there with a LOT of activity. The European Breeders page seems to have a lot of cold climate activity. @seil who has long posted here, lives where it's cold and raises them indoors. Hopefully, she'll get the notice she's been mentioned and add her suggestions. There are also articles which may help here on the Rose Hybridizers Association. https://rosebreeders.org/

@roseseek Thank you so much!

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) you're welcome! You're going to have a ball!

Wow! Gorgeous fall color on your rose, Kim…in CA!! ”April Mooncrest x Pookah” gives maples and sweet gums a serious run for 1st place in the autumn foliage race.

Magpie, some Rugosas put on a really lovely autumn show. Do you have Suzy Verrier‘s Rugosa book by any chance? If not, I could look up a couple of good cultivars for you. The straight up R rugosa and R rugosa Alba usually color up nicely in OR. In general, Rugoas turn a luscious gold while shiny red hips simultaneously dangle like holiday ornaments from the ends of the canes. A few also give you splashes of red and purple in the foliage. If you enjoy garden books and haven’t discovered these, S Verrier’s Rugosa book and her Gallica book are informative reads and the photos are pure yummy delicious eye candy! I see them on eBay off and on.

Carol

@portlandmysteryrose thank you, Carol!

Sheila, I commented earlier but Houzz ate my words. Your fall color roses are spectacular! Your garden is magical in every season. Love the Wassagaming! (Did I spell that correctly?) Carol

Wasagaming, Carol. I love this rose. I stumbled into it in Alaska and got it here from Suzy Verrier in Maine who since has died. I'm glad High Country Roses is carrying it, because it is spectacular. Here it reblooms and has this great color. It really fills out my front South oval.

@Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR It really is fantastic. I'll be keeping this one in my mind. Oh, to have room for all the roses I want...

Oh, Sheila! What a great rose and a great story. I was so sad when Suzy V passed away. I never met her but felt I knew part of her through her Gallica and Rugosa books and her Maine garden which was featured in one of Peter Beales’ books. If I ever get another Rugosa and can find Wasagaming (like Finnish crackers + what half of Silicon Valley does in its spare time), Wasagaming will be my choice. I am SO glad this rose lives in your garden!

“Oh, to have room for all the roses I want….” I 100% hear you, Magpie! It’s almost painful, sometimes, knowing that I’ll likely never grow every rose I adore or which sparks my curiosity. Growing a rose is a relationship, a unique and life enhancing experience. I have tended quite a few in pots (and even in my garden beds) just to get to know them personally before gifting them to others. Each one has been amazing in its own way and a living piece of history intertwined with all who have encountered it—intertwined with the breeders who patiently and passionately created it, with every gardener who has ever grown it before me, with every painting or photo that has strived to capture its beauty and with all the events of the world that occurred alongside its presence. If I were Kim or Paul or Tom Carruth, each rose I introduced into commerce (or just shared as a passalong) would feel like a child released into the world!

Carol

@portlandmysteryrose Right? I'd be so attached, if I gifted a rose I bred to someone else I think I'd always be worried about it a bit. Like, what if it is being neglected, what if it's died and now that rose is or is close to extinct? The rose I babied from seed and tenderly grew for years into a beautiful plant? Haha. Such emotional turmoil over plants! I also think about the amount of time it takes a rose to fully mature (what, 5 years? More sometimes.) How many roses will I get to really know in my lifetime?

It's been fun getting to chat with you lately.

You too, Magpie! Carol

Back when I had R. hugonis, before it succumbed to cane girdler, it colored beautifully in the fall. My impression is that roses that like acid soil and water may be those that color best, or they may color best when they get a lot of water. I have R. gallica 'Splendens' by the drainage ditch, too, where R. hugonis was, and it sometimes has notable fall color: plum-colored young canes, and red-orange-yellow foliage (top-shaped hips, too). It's quite a rose. Gallicas often turn reddish-rusty colors in fall, and I seem to remember 'Celestial' turning luminous yellow, but perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me. Roses that want to be evergreen generally don't offer fall color: if cold forces them to drop their leaves, they're mud-colored. However, I do remember my Tea 'Archduke Joseph's evergreen leaves, which are a firm and handsome olive green anyway, turning very dark, polished, in winter, before finally dropping in March before it put on its new foliage.