@Willinator I just realized I had a new member sign hanging around my neck! Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm a rose addict as well. Currently at 67 with probably half of those acquired by propagating cuttings. I just tonight put up some new cuttings of Niles Cochet, another Pink Pet (as my first baby met it's demise by spider mite, )and a Quicksilver.
I've been wanting to learn hybridizing for so long and this post was so inspiring I joined garden.org on the spot to finally start to learn! What are some of your favorite roses?

I use the clear cups so I can see the root development. When I can see the roots around the sides of the cups I know I have enough root ball to pot up into a 1 gallon nursery pot. I also use the clear cups to root cuttings for the same reason. If you place them in opaque pots you can't tell if there are roots growing or not. Because of that some people resort to the old tugging method. Tugging on a seedling or cutting to see if it has roots is a sure way to kill it!

Cherie, I don't have favorites really. I like to use all different types of roses for my seedlings. Sometimes I try to think of which two roses would be the most different and then cross them just to see what happens. The weirder the combo the better, lol! That's how you get new things!

Mozartsmom said:@Willinator I just realized I had a new member sign hanging around my neck! Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm a rose addict as well. Currently at 67 with probably half of those acquired by propagating cuttings. I just tonight put up some new cuttings of Niles Cochet, another Pink Pet (as my first baby met it's demise by spider mite, )and a Quicksilver.
I've been wanting to learn hybridizing for so long and this post was so inspiring I joined garden.org on the spot to finally start to learn! What are some of your favorite roses?

Well I am a really big fan of OGR's and I had lots of bourbons, Teas, and Chinas, when we had our own house and I was growing over 50 varieties of
roses. I really loved having 'Mrs. B. R. Cant' and 'Duchesse de Brabant' and the China 'Cramoisi Superieur' and 'Maggie' (a bourbon) as well as 'Souvenir
de la Malmaison' I did like a couple of wonderful shrub roses including 'Belinda's Dream' and 'Katy Road Pink' and my favorite Noisette was 'Jaune De
Prez' as well as 'Reve D'Or' Of course, now we live in a rental home and so I currently have only two roses a China 'Rouletii' and an old floribunda
'Gruss an Aachen' And here are pictures of the bud on 'Gruss an Aachen'

seilMI said:I use the clear cups so I can see the root development. When I can see the roots around the sides of the cups I know I have enough root ball to pot up into a 1 gallon nursery pot. I also use the clear cups to root cuttings for the same reason. If you place them in opaque pots you can't tell if there are roots growing or not. Because of that some people resort to the old tugging method. Tugging on a seedling or cutting to see if it has roots is a sure way to kill it!

Alright, gotcha.

Seil, do you find that a seedling's flower changes much as it ages? Like does its color deepen, the flower form get more complex... etc?

SunnyinMichigan said:Seil, do you find that a seedling's flower changes much as it ages? Like does its color deepen, the flower form get more complex... etc?

Oh, great question.

@seilMI thank you so much for the pdf. It's my starting point and I've begun researching at some of the other sites you suggested as well. Hopefully by springs first bloom I'll be ready. That's my goal anyway.
@willinator I agree on OGR ! So many beauties! I'm really working my way to as much of a sprayfree rose garden as possible. Researching heavily and replacing the sicker time hounds.

Yes, Sunny and Paleo, the blooms do change some as the plant matures. Usually what changes most often is the petal count and bloom size. First bloom on a seedling is always very small because the plants are very small. As the plant matures the blooms will get larger with the plant and can add some petals. There may be some color change but it's not a great change. Usually the color is the color right from the start. But so many other things can affect the color anyway. Weather and soil conditions probably have more to do with color change than maturity.

Enjoy, Cherie, and let me know if you have questions.

@SeilMI, I've been following your steps...I've just more or less finished cold storing my seeds of....
(well 100 different cultivars) I've lost count of how many actual seeds are in the fridge.Maybe over 2000. It all started in May.( the lockdown was a very goog excuse... ) I harvested plump bright red hips of 'Rosa rugosa Scabrosa'
.
They were so appealing that I harvested them all ( about 15 hips) and since it was already rainy outside I emptied the hips and stored the seeds in the veggie crisper box. I almost forgot about them. Four months later....
I discovered that the seeds had started to germinate inside the fridge! Out they went onto my window sill. Now I've got plenty... Every morning a new one pops up!
Next,
I had left all my roses to set hips. No deadheading this past season. Reason one, I'm not planning crosses with a seed parent until I know that it sets hips here and they reach maturity. After my first success with RrS I dilligently harvested every hip around and found many interesting traits.
Not all rose hips contain the same quantity of seeds. Some are single seeded others can have as many as 20. Some bushes have plenty of hips. Others have a single plump well seeded hip. Since I've got more or less 4 more months to go before warm weather sets outside, I'm stratifying them now and will start to watch any root tip showing about 10 weeks from now. I'm also making detailed notes of how each of my known seed parent fares. Then I can start to imagine crosses with a wider array of pollen donors. Reason two is that I found that not all roses set seedfull hips every year. So this coming season I'll watch specially those that had set hips the year before so that my options are widened. Of about 300 cultivars of my collection I only harvested 100. So that means that there are more that do not set hips than those that do. Its a good consideration for your intended crosses Seth @Weluvroses., Of course this caveat is in my personal conditions , with very cool summer but very long growing conditions. The hips that I recently harvested looked great, still green and plump just a few days ago!
If the rest of my seeds sprout like my RrS then I'm heading to a lot ( a LOT) of work...
Arturo

That's fabulous, Arturo! Keep us updated on how things are going. I will be expecting to see baby pics!!