Thursday, May 7, 2009

First Blooms of the Year


These are the first blooms of the year for me. This plant is an OP seedling of R. sericea. It was sent to me by David Zlesak. The blooms are about an inch and a half across. I just got it from him last year and it was a large plant already. It was too late for it to bloom then so this is the first time I've seen them. It's new basals have the bright red winged thorns of the parent but not as large. I will probably freeze some of its pollen to use later.

I love the pimpinellifoliae class. They are the harbingers of rose season.

5 comments:

  1. Mike,
    Use the sericea as the seed parent. Most crosses made using its pollen on modern hybrids result in a handful of sick looking apomictic seedlings of no value. Most roses reject its pollen outright. Just thought you ought ta know ;-)

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  2. Mike, what a lovely rose! I love the whole form of the plant, so fern-like! Hope it does really well for you.

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  3. Thanks for the advice Paul. I will freeze some pollen for next spring:-)

    Thanks too Fa.

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  4. Let me restate that first comment. I will freeze the pollen of some other varieties to use on the R. sericea next spring :-)

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  5. My experience with speciossima seeds is that they also require much longer stratification periods and when you do sow them they can take a LONG time to germinate! Mine took over a year to germinate. They were from OP Rosa pimpinellifolia hips. So I guess patience is the word with these ;)

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