First Crosses?

[jrichardson]

Yesterday I made 8 crosses, the first of the year. Today I will make 8 more if the south wind will die a bit this evening. This the earliest crosses I have made since 2012 and that was a pretty good year for me. For this farmer's daughter hope springs eternal. Hubby asked me recently how many more years I planned to make crosses. My response, "till I die".

Joan Richardson
Deep in the Heart of Texas

[jbergeson]

Come on, people. There is still snow on the ground and I haven't even sown my seeds yet for this spring. Hmph. I'd love to fast forward to pollination season.

[roseseek]

Hear, hear! I've been harvesting the pollens I want to use, but waiting on actually using them. I'm hoping the rains will slow down SOON and the temps will warm a bit to push the seed parents into bloom.

[Guest]

Yesterday I managed to collect pollen and make 8 crosses. It took some acrobatics to accomplish the task in 45 mph wind gusts.

Joan Richardson
Deep in the Heart of Texas

[philip_la]

Joan, it's good to be in the south, no? ;-) For those who are envying our warm weather, remember you can dish it back to us when *our* temperatures hit triple digits here in Central TX. (Joan, have you been enjoying wonderful wildflower displays in your neck of the woods?)

[jrichardson]

Philip, I've been so busy in my own yard that I haven't done much driving around. Will probably see some Saturday when we drive down to Victoria. Have the hummingbird feeder out but haven't seen any yet.

Joan Richardson
Deep in the Heart of Texas

[philip_la]

Joan, I am hoping to get out to view some this weekend as well. I think the area SE of San Antonio was supposed to have some spectacular displays a week or two ago. I hope you still get to see a lot of color. Happy hybridizing!

[Macros]

Yesterday I managed to collect pollen and make 8 crosses. It took some acrobatics to accomplish the task in 45 mph wind gusts.
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[jriekstins]

I got out today to accomplish a few more crosses. Great weather for such a task but not all the roses are blooming with equal enthusiasm. Grandmothers Hat finally got enough water this winter to be completely happy and is a site to behold. But I have given up on using the pollen because she has produced way to many once bloomers---although the one that I have kept(a once blooming climber that is a much prettier pink) is just spectacular this spring, and maybe less water dependent than Grandmothers Hat is and with the same knock your socks off fragrance.

[jriekstins]

The roses here are blooming with too much enthusiasm,now. It had to be all that winter rain. Now my concern is "Am I going to keep up this pace and then regret that I have more seedlings than I have room for?" or am I going to miss an opportunity for making a cross that I woulda, coulda, shoulda, but didn"t because I already made more than I should have that day?

[roseseek]

Just do it. I did and my germination rate has been low enough that I still have far too many seedlings, but not so many there won't physically be room. They'll be crammed, but they will have yard space. I got one interesting one from Jim's L56-1 X Grandmother's Hat.

The appropriate parts are scented as they are with Grandmother's Hat and the bloom is well scented. So far, the health is good, but too early to tell about repeat. It's four feet tall in a five gallon can.

[jriekstins]

Grandmothers Hat does produce some pretty full bodied flowers with beautiful fragrance, so far all in various shades of pink, here. Then you go on to say "too early to tell about repeat". How big, how old, how established do they have to get? I only have one that did a little repeat last year (two or three flowers) and all the rest (down to 3) bloomed this yr-one very rampantly and definitely in the mode of a climber, with a 3+" flower (most have been smaller) and it started so abruptly and ended the same, so I assumed that it must be a one time early blooming rose. The others have pretty small flowers (but fragrant) so they will get deleted. But for someone who wants to introduce fragrance into their line(s), GH seems like a an easy way to do it. But how do you avoid the ubiquitous pink? (And I am not anti pink, just not all the time.)

[roseseek]

There is no easy trick to know how to avoid the "default pink". The same cross can give varying results. The other from this cross with decent blooms is this.

This is an arching, mounding plant. The very upright one flowered less acceptably. Lots of blooms, but they all came like this.

This one is destined to be culled.

[Judith Singer]

[quote="roseseek"]There is no easy trick to know how to avoid the "default pink". The same cross can give varying results. The other from this cross with decent blooms is this.[attachment=3]l56 x grandmothers hat (3).JPG[/attachment][attachment=2]l56 x grandmothers hat (5).JPG[/attachment][attachment=1]l56 x grandmothers hat (10).JPG[/attachment] This is an arching, mounding plant. The very upright one flowered less acceptably. Lots of blooms, but they all came like this.[attachment=0]l56-1 x grandmothers hat (2).JPG[/attachment] This one is destined to be culled.[/quote]

Love the color!

[Judith Singer]

The hips on the first of my crosses are getting nice and fat (or not, lol). I've done some strange ones this year. One of the ones I'm really looking forward to is Imposter x Paul Ecke, Jr. Can't wait to see if the color combinations turn out interesting. I also used r. Tunquinensis pollen on several mother plants (god knows why). I guess I just wanted to see what it would produce.

I also used Watercolors Home Run a lot. I'd like to see the mottled coloring show up in the seedlings, but we'll see. I mean, Paul Ecke, Jr x Watercolors Home Run? Imagine the possibilities?

Jude

[Rob Byrnes]

Still waiting for first blooms here...

[jbergeson]

Still waiting for the blankety-blank snow to melt here...

[jriekstins]

Joe,
I knew there was something I did not miss about Minnesota (and Wisconsin)-used to live there (in both) in another life.