I personally Would leave them for a while. They are adorable. I just planted some seeds for the 1st time today From Bordeaux We'll see what happens

I'm no expert, but I agree with Vapor. I'd wait until more true leaves appear, and then transplant. I hope other weight in on this. What a neat surprise, Magpie. I hope this works out well and you have some great new roses. s

Thank you! It is a neat surprise. The same thing happened to me with some columbine seeds, I stratified them in the fridge and blah blah they never came up. I dumped the soil outside near Morgengruss and what do you know, this spring they came up. For whatever reason, 8 weeks in the fridge just doesn't cut it for me, they only seem to want to stratify outside. For future rose seeds I might sow in some smallish pots and sink them in the ground outside over winter!

I wonder what John Cabot's babies will look like :) I'm lucky to have gotten any seeds at all. I had dreams of beautiful rose hips go admire all fall and winter, but instead the squirrels just eat them all as soon as they start to turn colors 🙄😒

Magpie, I sow lots of seeds outside when it's still pretty cold, though I've never tried rose seeds. I recommend the rose Morden Sunrise, developed in Canada, and hardy to zone 3. I've grow it for years, and Morden Sunrise produces masses of pretty rose hips, which I made an arrangement of and must remember to do again. This rose is tied with Ebb Tide as the first to bloom in my garden on May 7, which is about the earliest I've ever had roses bloom here. We had a lot of extra rain this spring, and that seemed to bring such wonderful green growth. I'm not used to much rain.....Forget the fridge and toss seeds all year long and see what happens. I've done this with orlaya and hollyhocks, wild blue flax, and even poppies.Keep us posted on how the Cabot babies do. This is what makes gardening fun. Diane

I'm too lazy to grow roses from seeds, so I do this.

Don't be nervous to move them. They're tough. If they stay there anything bad can happen, and then what? Just get enough of the root system in tact and have 4" pots with good potting mix ready before the transplant. Shade them just like under the elderberry and graduate to full sun slowly. Don't over water. Those little guys are growing under tough conditions now so coddling too much may be too much for them. Just give them good care. Enjoy the experience most of us never have the chance to. Hope they turn out to be stunners, all of them.

Moses

I decided to dig the 3 babies up yesterday and just in time, too. It's been hailing for some time now and at the first sign of it I was able to grab the pots id transferred them to and bring them in to safety. Can't say the same for my in ground roses though 🥲

After a while of feeling like these little seedlings just aren't growing, I decided to revisit this thread to see what the initial photos looked like before I potted them. I guess they are growing! Just very, very sloooooowly! 🐢

They look great. Well done. Diane

Magpie, that is soooo cool! I wonder if they will all look the same? What a happy surprise.

Thanks! Yes I'm so excited to see (hopefully) what they blooms look like one day. The more I think about it the more I wonder if they ARE from John Cabot or not because I can't remember 100% 😅😅😅 oh well.

They look wonderful. If you start pumping them up with maximum safe liquid feeding, the growth they make may be impressive, but too lush. I would go easy on the fertilizer, 1/2 strength liquid feed of Miracle Gro All Purpose or its equivalent is what I believe would be safest. Do you think that they will bloom next spring? If so, start thinking about names for them!

Moses

Erasmus, it's always a pleasure to hear about your OP seedlings. It's a shame they can't all be winners, I don't know how I'll have the heart to cull any 😭 I appreciate your experience on some roses being consistently bad germinators but not to give up on them.

Moses, I feel like naming is probably difficult! I don't know how I'll decide. I think I have to see them bloom first and then agonize over names for a while haha. I haven't fertilized at all yet, but maybe I should give them something very diluted just to try to get some more root growth going on. They have very weak root systems still and our growing season isn't very long at all so I do worry about that a little.

My suggestion is 1 teaspoon per gallon of water (1/2 teaspoon per 1/2 gallon of water), of the Miracle Gro All Purpose powder, fed every two weeks until September 15. That 's pretty safe as far as a weak strength to not push them into rampant abandonment growth. Figure on where you will keep them this coming winter. Cold enough to make and keep them dormant, but not too cold to kill them, nor too warm to break dormancy prematurely. Hey, who said taking care of babies is easy? Their first winter, they need all the babying you can give them. After that, then they have to prove themselves worthy of residence in your garden. No babying after year 3.

Moses

Hope you have fun with it, Magpie. Yeah, a certain variety might have bad germination one year and good the next. Just don't assume you're doing something wrong if you get bad germination.

I keep intending to do some crosses. I have a mental block against it, assuming it'll be too hard or too much trouble, especially trying to label every crossed hip. But there are some shortcuts I think such as just doing all the same cross between two plants and putting twist ties or something on each crossed bloom. Or if you do label, you could write something like A-1 rather than write out the whole name but keep a record of it in a booklet. I guess it's the tedium of it that daunts me. Also I am not sure I'd do the pollinating right. There are videos. I should watch some. Would rather watch someone do it in person. I think doing crosses would be 10x more fun to see the results. But growing op seedlings is good practice and can have happy surprises too.