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Growing Roses From Seeds

By Sharon Kardos Copyright 2009

There are many ways of growing roses from seed and a great deal of information can be found on line at many web sites including the American Rose Society (www.ars.org) and the Rose Hybridizers Association (www.rosehybridizers.org). I started doing rose seeds in the winter of 2005/2006 with much help from my friends on the Rosarians Corner (www.rosarianscorner.net) rose forum where you can also find a great deal of information about hybridizing roses. I am by no means an expert at this having only done it over the past four winters but in this paper I will explain my methods and hope to give you a basic understanding of the process. With time and practice youll probably make changes to suit your own situation and convenience.

2 The first thing to know is that roses do not propagate true to variety from seed. This means that a Peace rose seed will not grow into a Peace rosebush even if it is pollinated with Peace pollen. The only methods of getting a true to variety rose bush are by bud grafting or rooted cuttings. So every seed you germinate and grow into a bush is a new and unique variety! Thats part of the fun. You never know what that rose will look like until it blooms. To begin the process of growing roses from seeds, you need to pollinate your roses. These can either be pollinations you make yourself or open pollinations (OPs) done by Mother Nature (sometimes with a little help from you). When you are doing the pollinating yourself, you can choose what crosses you would like to make. Perhaps you have a rose you love the color of but not the foliage. Cross it with the rose whose foliage you most like and see if you can get a similar bloom on a plant with nicer foliage, etc. The combinations are endless and up to you. And every seed from that cross will give you a different rose with different qualities. Open pollinations are a guessing game. Whether pollinated by an industrious bee, the wind, or you and a paintbrush, theres no way to know what characteristics may be in the mix. Even if the hip was self-pollinated anything in that roses genetic pool could show up. Thats why if you wish to breed for specific qualities it is a good idea to check the bloodlines of the roses you are using to see what qualities could be present in the gene pool. A good source for parentage information is Help Me Find Roses (www.helpmefind.com/roses). For our purposes we will start with OPs as they are the easiest to do. Because it takes 90 to 120 days for a rose hip to ripen to maturity, and our growing season is very short, it is necessary to do your hips on the first bloom flush of the season, usually June in Michigan. Once your roses begin to bloom decide which ones you would like to have seeds from. Choose a variety of types of roses to experiment with (Hybrid Teas, Floribundas, Minis, Shrubs, etc.) to get a variety of seedlings. You can just let them go and pollinate on their own or you can help things along by pretending to be a busy bee. I usually use a small fine paintbrush to self-pollinate some hips by taking some of the pollen from the anthers at the top of the stamens and brushing it onto the stigma on top of the pistils of the bloom. I also will save some hips that I hope have been naturally pollinated as well. Once you have chosen your blooms to save you can leave them on the bush to finish blooming and then remove only the spent petals, leaving the hips attached to the bush.

3 If you wish to make specific crosses the process is a little more complicated. I will briefly explain the process I use. When youve made your decisions as to which roses you wish to cross you must collect the pollen from the donating rose, then pollinate the seed parent rose; all of this must be done with out allowing the blooms in question to open and be pollinated in any other manner. Here is how I do that. When the pollen parent rose is still in the bud stage remove the petals from the rose, being careful not to damage the stamens inside. I collect the pollen by snipping off the stamens into a clean, dry Dixie cup marked with the pollen donating roses name. I place it in a warm, dry place in the house (the tops of the refrigerator or water heater are good places) and leave it over night. The next day you should see that the pollen dust has dried and fallen from the anthers. Now you can use it to pollinate your seed parent choices. On the seed parent rose you do a similar petal removal on the closed bud; however, this time you must also remove the stamens being careful not to release the pollen from the anthers onto the pistil and stigmas of the bud. Now using a small paintbrush, Q-tip or your finger tip pick up some of the pollen from your cup and gently place it onto the stigmas at the top of the pistils of the seed parent rose. With a little luck youve just cross pollinated a rose! I put a piece of plastic wrap over the pollinated rose for a few days to make sure that no other pollen will contaminate the crosses Ive made. Once Ive done my pollinations (either method) I will tie a bright red ribbon on the stem just below the rose hip to mark it.

I am a diligent dead header and have been known to remove my pollinated hips by accident so the red ribbon helps me remember NOT to do this and makes the hips easier to find on the plant later in the season to keep track of their progress. If you have made specific crosses it is a good idea to add some kind of identifying tag noting the names of the seed and pollen parent, i.e. Peace X Double Delight. The first name is always the seed (hip) parent and the second is the pollen parent. It is also a good idea to note the date you made your pollinations so you can calculate when they should be ripe and ready to harvest.

4 If the pollination has taken successfully the hips will begin to fatten into green fruit like balls in a few weeks.

If the stem dries up and turns brown/black or hip shrivels up instead of getting fatter they have not been successfully pollinated and can be removed.

Now the hard partwaiting! As I said earlier it takes between 90 and 120 days for a rose hip to ripen. During this time your rosebush should continue to grow and bloom as usual. You may also continue to care for them in your usual manner as well. I will make a note here that if you have problems with squirrels, rabbits or deer I would suggest that toward the end of the season, say late August, you cover your ripening hips with some aluminum foil. This will deter the critters from eating them and undoing all your patience and hard work. The foil does not impede the ripening process. Ive lost several hips in late August or early September just as they were beginning to ripen and show some color. Its very frustrating.

5 Late in the season you will begin to see the hips turn color Hips can turn a variety of colors from yellow to red or orange. Some may have only a slight amount of color with a lot of green still showing. Others will turn color completely. They also will be various sizes and shapes.

The longer you can leave the hips in place on the rose the better. Dont worry about a light frost. It will not damage the hips. Once you cut your ripe hips off the bush you can store them in a cool, dry, dark place until you are ready to use them. Some people take the seeds out immediately and begin stratification (the process of inducing germination). Since I usually take the hips off just before the Holidays I wait until January to stratify mine. I store them in the refrigerator during this time to get a jumpstart on the process. They need to spend about 6 to 8 weeks in the cold before the seeds will germinate. If, when you go to take the seeds out and find that the hips have molded, dont worry. It wont hurt the seeds inside at all. It makes for a messy cleaning process but actually I find it makes the seeds easier to extract from the hip. The hips are very hard and difficult to cut open. Youll need the following items to do the stratification process: a sharp knife, a fine sieve, hydrogen peroxide, paper towels, plastic zip bags and a marker.

6 Cut the hip in half. Dont worry about cutting the seeds. Theyre very hard and should not crack.

The seeds are tightly packed inside and you will need to pry them out of the hip with the knife tip or something strong and pointed.

7 The seeds will still have pieces of the hip clinging to them. Put them in the sieve and wash them under water, rubbing them against the sides of the sieve to remove the hip remains. There have been some studies that indicate the material inside the hip has a germination inhibitor in it so you need to scrub off all of the hip matter from the seed coat. Once youve cleaned the seeds thoroughly, soak them in the hydrogen peroxide for a while. Some people will soak for a full 24 hours but I only soak mine for about an hour. There is a belief that any seeds that float will not germinate but this has never been proven so I stratify all my seeds regardless of whether or not they float. The hydrogen peroxide is used to keep down the mold on the seeds during stratification. Dampen a paper towel (not soaking wet) with some of the hydrogen peroxide and wrap the seeds in the towel.

Place the towel in a zip bag and mark the variety name or cross names on the bag.

8 Now the seeds must spend some time in the cold. I place all the zip bags in a larger bag and put them in the crisper drawer in my refrigerator. Remember they should stay in the refrigerator for 6 to 8 weeks so if you havent kept the hips in the cold you will need to do it now with the seeds. Since I usually already have had the hips in the refrigerator for the necessary time I begin to check my seeds for germinations about two weeks after Ive put them in the zip bags.

If you see tiny green tails coming out of the seed coats youve got germinations! I check my seeds weekly for new germinations. If you dont have any at first, dont despair; some seeds just take longer to germinate than others. If you arent having any germinations after 4 or 5 weeks take the bag out of the refrigerator and place it in a warm, dark area for a week and then check again. Sometimes a short warm up will mimic spring weather changes and trigger germination. You can rotate the seeds in and out of the cold several times. If your paper towels begin to mold, change them out. There is some evidence that certain types of mold will actually help in breaking down the seed coat and aid in germination, so a little mold wont hurt but you dont want them black and covered with mold as there is also evidence that some types of molds can retard germination as well.

9 Now your sprout needs to go into the starter tray. Its important to use seed starting mix in your trays. Regular potting soil is too heavy and will not drain well enough. You want to keep the seeds damp but not soggy. Place the seed in the tray with the green sprout pointing downward. The sprout is the root. The seed is covering the first set of leaves (cotyledon). I make a small depression in the soil, place the seed in and sprinkle a little soil over it and gently pat in place.

Place the trays under your lights. You want to get the trays up as close to the lights as possible so the seedlings wont stretch for the light and become thin and gangly. I put mine up on Styrofoam blocks out of packing materials Ive saved. Grow lights, of course, are best but Ive used full spectrum, daylight, and even regular fluorescent bulbs and flood lamps. If youre using regular lamps you will need to water more frequently because they produce more heat.

10 Within a few days your seedlings should begin to grow and put out their first set of leaves. These are the cotyledon or seed leaves and are not true leaves.

If the sprout is growing but the seed coat has not fallen off the seed leaves, you can attempt to remove it. However, this is very dicey and may result in the loss of the seedling if you break off those seed leaves. Keeping the seedlings very moist will help in the seedling being able to shuck off the seed coat on its own. .

The seedlings will stay in the trays for varying lengths of time depending on their growth. I usually pot up a seedling once it gets a second set of leaves (the true leaves) or if it has gotten so tall that it is touching the top of the tray cover. If you do not remove them when they begin to touch the tray lid they will generally stunt and die off. When you are potting up you can use and good quality potting mix. Do not use garden soil as this will also not drain properly. Although roses are thirsty drinkers they do not like wet feet!

11 I use clear plastic drinking cups, with a hole punched in the bottom and marked with the parents name, to pot my seedlings. They are inexpensive and they allow me to see root growth so I can tell when the seedling needs to go into a larger pot. They can usually stay in these cups for quite a long while, sometimes their entire first season. If you begin to see the roots showing around the sides of the cup its time to pot it up to a larger pot.

And they go back under the lights until it is warm enough to start hardening them off to the outside. I usually wait until the beginning of May to do this.

The time it takes to get your first bloom on a seedling can vary a great deal. Some seedlings may bloom in as few as 6 to 8 weeks and others may not bloom at all their first year. As a rule of thumb, seeds from nonrepeating (non-remontant) roses will produce non-repeating seedlings and may take anywhere from 2 to 3 years to have their first bloom. Seedlings from repeating (remontant) roses should bloom in their first year, but it may take as long as 5 to 6 months for them to do so.

12 Here is a rose from an OP seed of What a Peach that germinated the last week of January 2009, was put in a cup the second week of February 2009 and bloomed the third week of March 2009.

I hope you will try your hand at growing some of your own roses from seeds. Its easy, inexpensive and a fun way to pass the long cold Michigan winters while still engaging in your passion for roses!