roses

I would like to hear if anyone has had luck starting roses from rose hips. I have been trying to read what I can find on the internet.

I was so excited about my winter sowing plants last year and this year someone gave me rose hips from a beautiful rose bush.. I know, I know , they won't come true from seed, but it should be fun to find out.

If you have been successful with winter sowing roses , I would like to know what containers you used, what zone you are in, the variety of rose, and anything else you would like to add.

If I am winter sowing do I need to stratify in the refrigerator first? Or can I just take the seeds out of the hip and plant it directly in my container in Feb?

These are the instructions I received with my rose seeds I got in a seed exchange.

Seeds can be winter sown.

The seed need only be barely covered and not planted very deeply. Firm the soil down after you've planted it so that the covering soil is in contact with the seed. It is important to keep the seed damp.

Leave ungerminated seed in the containers and keep damp and shaded all summer. Allow to stay outdoors a second winter and then germinate the slower second crop of seedlings the second summer. Toss the containers away after two seasons if they haven't germinated.

Non winter sowing instructions.

Put a handfull of barely-damp vermiculite into a baggie. The vermiculite should not be sopping but not dry either. Write the name of the rose and today's date on a label (I can recommend regular pencil on bits of plastic cut from a yogurt tub) and insert it into the baggie. Put the seed into the baggie. Put the baggie into the refrigerator crisper. Mark a date 90 days later on the calendar.

90 days after sowing, take the baggie out of the refrigerator and sow the seed into a flat. You can use pots and sow the seed so it is an inch apart if don't have the space for flats. Label each pot or flat. You'll start seeing germination in a week and it will continue for upwards of a month.

Transplant the seedlings into their own flower pots when they have 4-5 true leaves and grow on until they are ready to be transplanted outdoors. (after all danger of frost).

Note that not all the seed will germinate. In this case, you can either throw away the pots or keep the pots cool and damp all summer to sit outdoors.

Mine are in the crisper now.

Don (DEMinPA)

Hi KathyJo,

I have successfully wintersown roses. I used six packs inside either plastic bags or plastic boxes as containers, and I am in Zone 9. The varieties I've been successful with are 'Bonica' (2004) and 'Scentimental' (2007). I tried sowing 'Ambridge' this year, but nothing has germinated. I will let the container go through another winter, as supposedly roses can sometimes need two cold cycles. Before planting out, I pot up the roses a couple of times; once to a 4 inch when they are about 3 months old, and then to a one gallon where I let them stay until they are pretty big.

It's interesting to see what you end up with; in the case of the Bonica seedling I chose to grow on, it looks and behaves just like its parent, except it is hot pink instead of baby pink. My two baby Scentimental plants are powerfully fragrant but don't look like their parent. One looks just like my 'Carefree Wonder' and the other looks a lot like my 'Ambridge' rose, except with some faint pink striping. (I suspect bee hanky-panky.) Re whether to stratify in the fridge: I don't think that's necessary. I wintersowed directly into containers in January, when the lows here are in the high 30's/low 40's, and got germination in March.



This message was edited Oct 26, 2008 10:09 AM

I found out these are a David Austin Rose.. It is a single rose.. It was just beautiful.

So, I think I will just keep them in a baggy at room temperature until say, February. Then take them out of the rose hips and winter sow outside.. It gets pretty cold here.

Plant them shallow and be very patient.. As in it may take a couple of years? The fact that they may take longer than a year, might inspire me to use something besides my usual plastic milk jug winter sowing containers..

Susan, How much sun were the winter sowing containers getting that you had good luck with? I don't think my containers were getting enough sunshine last year.

Hi KathyJo,

I don't think it would hurt anything to store the rose hips in the refrigerator until you are ready to sow them; Mine were 'fresh off the bush' when I sowed them. Your timing with a February sowing sounds good to me. RE the couple of years thing; you might get germination in a few months, like I did with Bonica and Scentimental, or after 18 months-ish , or not at all. I'm letting my Ambridge seeds go through another winter, and hoping I'll get lucky, but I have a feeling I may be declaring them duds and throwing them out in June. ( Ambridge is also a David Austin Rose, by the way.) In terms of sun, the spot I keep my containers in gets bright indirect light and about 2 hours of direct sun in the late, late afternoon.

Hope that helps,
Susan

ok.. sounds good.. putting the rose hips back in the fridge...

I am very new to raising roses.. so this should be fun.

kj

How does one know when the rose hips are ripe? Can you germinate all rose hips?

Hi Seandor,

Depending on the variety, rose hips turn either orange, brownish-orange or red when ripe. Unfortunately, the seeds of various hybrid roses can have viability problems. However, you can use the "helpmefind" rose site to decide whether your rose's hips are a good bet. -Just search on the rose's name, select the name you want, click on the "lineage" tab, and then click on the "Descendants by Generation" tab, and look at the results in the "First Generation" list at the top of the page. This is a list of all the roses that have your rose as either a pollen or seed parent. By viewing the details for each individual rose descendant, you can tell whether the parent was either the pollen or seed parent; for example, Bonica ® (shrub, Meilland, 1982) × Ballerina (hybrid musk, Bentall, 1937) indicates that Bonica was the seed (hip) parent and Ballerina was the pollent parent.

Anyway, all that said, growing your own rose from seed is a lot of fun, so gather some hips and give it a try...nothing to lose but a little potting soil.

Here is the helpmefind rose search engine: http://helpmefind.com/plant/plants.php?searchNmTyp=2&searchNm=&tab=1

All I can add is that the various species roses are supposed to be easy to germinate. The native roses are fragrant and pretty, too, and tough as nails. Swamp rose, Virginia rose, Carolina rose, etc. I had no problem with swamp rose, lots of seedlings:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/195910/

These detailed germination protocols basically just say they're using cold and damp stratification:

http://www.nativeplantnetwork.org/network/view.asp?protocol_id=1323

http://www.nativeplantnetwork.org/network/view.asp?protocol_id=281,394

Thanks everyone!