I close my eyes and all I see is seeds and more seeds.

I've been spending several hours a day for two weeks now, cleaning and prepping seeds for sowing. I'm starting to dream about cleaning rose seeds!

I have a self-seedling from the Hybrid Rugosa 'Schneezwerg' that I have occasionally used in breeding. It is a compact shrubby plant that closely resembles R. rugosa alba, but more shapely and restrained in growth. 'Schneezwerg' is supposedly R. rugosa X R. beggeriana. The seeds pictured here are a cross of the 'Schneezwerg' F2 X Ralph Moore's "Magseed", and so R. rugosa is represented on both sides of the equation. The idea here is to generate a Rugosa-like shrub with large blooms in a red hue, hopefully with improved repeat and some fragrance.

As a side note, I sorted several seed lots of various crosses in which 'Schneezwerg' served as the seed parent, and curiously, the seed size varied considerably depending on what the other parent was!

More work with Rugosas: 105-04-08

Seedling 105-04-08 is a cross of 'Sequoia Ruby' X "Magseed", the latter being a Ralph Moore rose I have mentioned before.

'Sequoia Ruby' is both a ridiculously easy and troublesome rose to breed with. It makes immense amounts of seed with almost any other parent, the seeds germinate at near 100% and a wide range of colors often result, including the occasional dove grey! However, this is often where the advantages end; 'Sequoia Ruby' has a lot of gravity and it takes a lot of work to escape that gravity. What do I mean by "gravity"? Well, it has the inclination to breed mostly miniatures that look a lot like itself, but in different colors. Most seedlings are upright growers to between 15" and 36", blooming with clusters of loosely HT style blooms that open to double cups of 40 or more petals. The foliage almost always looks the same as well: miniature and semi-matte, in medium green. However....

Occasionally you get lucky. Case in point is this cross. Apparently "Magseed" has a lot of gravity of its own, because I got a number of seedlings that were clearly Rugosa influenced shrubs that grew quite tall and had 3.5" - 4.5" blooms. 105-04-08 is what I consider to be the best of the lot and it just gets better every year. It is fully fertile in both directions (I am using it in breeding extensively this year) and is easy to propagate from cuttings. It has also grown out in the test bed for four years now and is one of very few roses that is almost 100% resistant to Blackspot. Sounds good so far. Criticisms? Well, It is a bit upright and lacking branching as much as I'd like to see, so it takes a while to fill out as a shrub. (Based on the single original plant in the test garden. The large one in a pot in the breeding greenhouse is a lot fuller and shapely for some reason) It isn't quite as generous with bloom as I'd like it to be, but I hope to correct that in a next generation. Neither does it have much scent, but the color....WOW! No photograph shows how rich and velvety the petals really are. Its a magnificent color, starting out a deep garnet red and aging with violet-purple overlay on the outer petals. I expect to cross it back to some of the "purebred" Rugosas to see if the shrub habit can be improved, and maybe cross it with some Hybrid Musks to increase the volume of bloom. 'Trier' is capable of some serious magic so maybe I'll try that.

"Magseed"

I've been talking a few times recently about the results I am getting using Ralph Moore's breeder "Magseed", so I think its time I spoke a bit about it in more detail. This is a sister seedling to 'Linda Campbell', ('Anytime' X 'Rugosa Magnifica') the remarkable Hybrid Rugosa that can be grown to perfection in almost any climate. It is reported to prosper in zones as cold as USDA 4, and is probably good to zone 3 in a protected location. 'Linda Campbell' is however, sterile. Most first generation Rugosa hybrids are. (I regard 'Rugosa Magnifica' as a "pure" Rugosa, and that would make 'Linda Campbell' the first outcrossing into a very different line of breeding) "Magseed" on the other hand is quite fertile. As its name suggests, it does produce seeds, but it is far more fertile as a male (pollen) parent. It tends to make one or two seeds per hip, so unless you have a very large, mature specimen, work with it as a seed bearer is going to be very slow. Better to use it for pollen and work with a generous seed bearer.

I firmly believe that ideally, you should look at no less than 100 seedlings from any one cross to see the full breadth of what that cross can represent. Of course, you don't always get that opportunity; I make some crosses every year that result in hundreds of seeds, and then only five germinate. Bad combination of genes; can't always be avoided. I will make a few crosses using "Magseed" as the seed bearer, but the majority of crosses will employ it as a pollen donor.

What does it offer as a breeder? Well, based on my selections to date, it tends to breed large (6 feet plus) upright shrubs with bold, dense foliage, thick thorny canes, large blooms, good color (including some bicolors with paler reverses or a picotee petal edge coloring) and if you are lucky, a decent fragrance. Some of the hybrids I am currently evaluating have excellent Blackspot resistance as well. (I will describe 105-04-08 and other "Magseed" offspring in upcoming posts)

I think "Magseed" has the potential to breed a new race of hybrids that offer excellent shrub architecture (very important to me), improved Winter hardiness and hopefully, immunity to Blackspot, the bane of Rosedom.

31-06-05: orange Rugosa seedling.

A few days ago I spoke about a seedling I am using in my work called "Joyseed", a cross of 'Joycie' and the Ralph Moore Rugosa hybrid "Magseed". I had mentioned how "Joyseed" was passing on traits like good coloring, attractive growth habit, etc. Well, here is an example of the kind of shrub "Joyseed" is breeding. Meet 31-06-05, a cross of 'Lilian Austin' X "Joyseed".

31-06-05 is still a young plant in a large container and is very early in the evaluation process. It blooms freely in clusters, with medium sized fully double blooms in a blend of yellow, orange and pink, making for a very pleasant color blend. It tends to be more pink when the Summer heat is on. It doesn't have a lot of fragrance unfortunately, but it does have an excellent shrub architecture, making a rounded, balanced shrub that looks like it will remain shapely without the need for a lot of "secateurial intervention". (IE: pruning) I will be using it in breeding this season (Spring 2009) as it showed last year that it sets seed readily.

You can see another photo of 31-06-05 at HelpMeFind.

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"Joyseed"

This seedling I simply refer to as "Joyseed", although it does have a numerical breeders code as well: 55-04-01 (click to view its entry in the HMF database)

Parentage: 'Joycie' X ('Anytime' X 'Rugosa Magnifica')

The Pollen parent, indicated by the contents of the brackets, is a breeder given to me by the accomplished California hybridizer Ralph Moore. It is a sister seedling to 'Linda Campbell', an outstanding Hybrid Rugosa shrub, and unlike 'Linda Campbell' it is fully fertile both as a female or a male. Ralph's nickname for this plant is "Magseed" and that is how I generally refer to it as well. "Magseed'" was released in commerce in Europe by Meilland but was never made available here in the US. Why, I do not know.

"Joyseed" shows little of the Rugosa character in its shrub habit, foliage and bloom, but I have seen evidence that some of the Rugosa traits reappear in its progeny. I have one seedling from 'Lilian Austin' X "Joyseed" that has some Rugosa foliage traits and a branching/flowering habit that is clearly influenced by Rugosa. My work so far with "Joyseed' has been limited but I will be stepping up my use of it this year, since some of the seedlings from '06 and '07 have been very promising.

Traits "Joyseed" passes on:

• Fast rebloom
• Abundant bloom production
• Good color intensity in the orange/yellow blend range.
• Excellent shrub habit; full and rounded, with abundant foilage.
• Attractive foliage
• Excellent vigor
• Some Winter hardiness

There is evidence that it can breed fragrant offspring, but this is not its strong suit. Good scent is likely quite possible with selection of the right parent.

I am willing to distribute pollen of "Joyseed" to breeders who wish to incorporate it in their work.