This thread is for asking questions about roses.

Alan, I remember a photo you posted of a rose you grew from seed. Do you mind doing a little tutorial on how-to? These are seeds from my old, old shrub rose and I'd love to start some new bushes.

Ok...you know those seeds may not even look remotely close to like the bush they came from, right? You must be aware that the you can start many, many, many seeds, and only come up with a 1 nice rose. Is this worth all the time you put into it? When I did mine, I must have had 200 seeds started. Only about 12 made it through the first summer, and the pink one I mentioned was the only one I kept. And it is not a superb rose. it only has two flushes a year. One in the spring, and one in the fall, Th rest the year it has a rose here and a rose there. So I would not consider it a rose that would make it on the market. I just kept it because I like it, and it did end up thornless of all things...so you should prepare yourself to expect that. Also, how old are those rose seeds Alma. The best time to collect your rose seeds is as the hips are ripening. It looks like those hips were already dried out and so the pulp around the seed has dried out around the seed and may be harder to get off. You can try them, but I'm not sure how viable they will be. Again, I've only done seeds once, so my experience is extremely limited. Here is a link to how I did my rose seeds.

http://www.rdrop.com/~paul/man...

Alan

Thanks, Alan. The hips in the photo are not the same as I took the seeds from. Those are really old. The rose is setting a lot of huge hips right now, so I could get some fresher ones.

If I take cuttings from this rose, I should get a clone, right? I love this rose and even if growing it from seed doesn't turn out well, I'd like to get something as close to the original as possible.

No. The seeds will be whatever rose pollen the bee spread around from another rose with your plant. They are never true to their parent. If you want true to parent, you should start a cutting.

Alan

That's what I meant when I asked if a cutting would be a 'clone'. It would bloom like the parent plant, right?

Yes, a cutting would be like the parent plant.

Alam

Alan,
I'm finding that my rose blossoms are drying out really fast. On Baronne Prevost, for instance, the roses formed buds that never opened. At first I'm pretty sure it was the thrips which were visible and caused visible damage. But I think now the thrips are gone. And it's Hermosa that's just sitting there with buds that don't open. Some roses like Marie Pavie and Europeana seem to be fine. But some of the roses that have opened such as ZD have fried petals inside a day.

I don't think it's due to water because I'm watering 4 or 5 times a week and the temperature is not hitting 90F. I do know I need mulch.

Any ideas?

Steve

Can you take some photo's of the affected blooms and put them on here?

I have some roses that ball quite often this time of year, as you said, it is mostly caused by thrips. They should stop balling now that it's heating up. As the thrips seem to disappear, also as you noted, during the hottest time of the year, and I generally don't have problems with thrips in the fall. Generally the first flush on some of my roses ball, but after that first flush they return to blooming beautifully. My worst roses for balling on first bloom are Ginger Hill and Clotilde Soupert.

Alan

Alan,

I have a courtyard area at the front of my home that gets direct sunlight from late morning to early afternoon, I think about 4 hours. The cordyline that I planted in this area croaked and I want to replace it with something that will provide color, texture and fragrance. I'm thinking maybe a rose or two might be an option. Any suggestions?

I suspect that in the winter it gets almost no sun, correct?

The courtyard is open to the south so it does get sun everyday year round.

If you are going to try roses with only 4 hours of sun, you will want to go with lighter colored roses. White, pastel colors, pink, peach, yellow. I've read that they do best in area's with less than 6 hours of sun. It's still not a premium spot for roses...but the lighter colors will do you best.

This sounds like the perfect spot for Arabian Jasmine to me, it would make your courtyard smell nice as well. AJ can handle the hottest part of the day without burning, and would provide awesome evening fragrance. Just a thought :)

alan

Arabian Jasmine would be a nice plant except it would be right in front of a window that I don't want to block from sunlight. Here's a pic I took this morning about 8:30. In the patch of sunlight is the cordyline that I want to replace.

Here is another I took about 2 this afternoon. That spot gets about 5 hours of direct sunlight now, probably not a lot of variation from other times of the year.

Dan, this plant is not a vine; it's a shrub and doesn't seem to get too outrageous as far as height goes. The one I had (that died) sprawled out over the ground and never achieved much height at all. It may be just what you're looking for there.
http://mgonline.com/media/Imag...

Right, Arabian Jasmine is more a bush than a vine, and mine mounds at about 3 to 4 feet, freezes back a little in the winter, but pretty much stays the same size. It's more of a moundy bush. Doesn't get tall at all.

Alan

A 3' to 4' shrub would be just about right. I read that the AJ was a 6 to 10' tall plant which is far to big for that space. Where do recommend I purchase and when is the right tome to plant it?

Dan, how does that sound? At least once a year you could get drunk on the fragrance!

Oops, we cross-posted. Where to get it? I've seen it just about everywhere, HD and Target included. Avocado that lonediver may be close to you (?) and may have better advice than HD or Target. How about A & P?