Harvesting Rose Seeds

With all the heat this Summer I haven't had too many good flower pictures to share.  One interesting note from the garden is that I have decided to try collecting a few rose hips this year.  With all the focus on rose flowers, it is easy to forget that roses actually produce a fruit filled with seeds.  Some people make a rose hip tea which I've never tried but maybe some day.  This year my interest is in collecting some seeds to sow in the Spring.  When I get into the Fall I will be building a cold frame for a few Winter cuttings and to sow the seeds I collect this year in the Spring.  If you have advice on cold frames I would love to hear it.   

Pictured above and below are hips from the moss rose Unconditional Love which has readily produces hips for me each year.  As the mossing matures it can make handling the hips a bit prickly, though they usually brush off easily.  None of the hips I'm collecting are the product of intentional crosses but instead are open pollinated and most likely being self pollinated (which should reveal some of the plants genetic potential).  It is also possible that bees, other insects, or even the wind could have carried pollen from one plant to another thus producing a cross without much chance of knowing the plant which contributed the pollen.

The seeds are easily collected from the rose hips by simply cutting them in half and shelling the seeds.  The number of seeds in a rose hip can vary quite a bit.  I have opened a large hip to find one seed or as many as six or seven.

So far this year I have collected open pollinated seeds from Unconditional Love, Tattooed Lady, Vineyard Song, Climbing Rainbow's End, Scentsational, Lavender Lassie, Graham Thomas, Heritage, and Gertrude Jekyll.  We will probably end up with others before the year is over.  While I hope to germinate seeds from each of these roses, I am trying to not have many expectations beyond successfully growing a few roses from seed.  If I can successfully get a few seedlings to mature I will feel like I have learned something new.  Anything beyond that in terms of quality or revealed genotype through a self-pollinated seedling will be a bonus.  Wish me luck.  

Carlin's Rhythm and Dragon's Blood

As yesterday's delivery from Rogue Vally Roses arrived the temperature was reaching 110 degrees for the 4th time this year.  Not my most well thought out plan but I can easily get these small roses full of potential to survive until they are ready to be planted in September.

The flower in the above photo is what was waiting to surprise me upon my opening the package which had just traveled halfway across the country.  Carlin's Rhythm is one of Kim Rupert's creations.  Kim runs the rose blog Pushing the Rose Envelope and has been an encourager of my budding interesting in growing a few roses from seed this coming year.  I'll tell you more about that later.  Carlin's Rhythm is a lavender single floribunda or shrub rose and is very fragrant, at least the one flower I have enjoyed.  The breeding behind Carlin's Rhythm holds some interesting possibilities as it brings several species roses in through its parents Lilac Charm x Basye's Legacy.

I will just have to dream of the other rose's flowers for now.  It is Paul Barden's dramatically colored shrub rose Dragon's Blood which I have almost ordered several times before.  You can follow the link in the previous sentence to see a few pictures of the flowers but let me also tempt you by saying that its flowers can be a smoldering fire orange/red.  You can find out more about Dragon's Blood and Paul Barden through this link. 

For now they are potted up and in the widow sill waiting for the promise of Wednesday's projected high of 98, a cool 10 degrees cooler than today.  They will live in the shade until they are ready to make their next move.  I think today makes 44 days now of 100 degrees or higher this Summer.  When we hit 50 it will be the hottest Summer on record for Oklahoma.

Dragonfly Visitors

I was inspired by Cat at The Whimsical Gardener to try and capture some dragonfly photos.  Here is the first one I was able to capture.  Can't tell you anything about its species but it did give me a couple of different angles to get its best side.

Green Ice Cooling the Heat

It has been so hot I thought maybe a few pictures of Green Ice might help cool things off.  My small plant of Green Ice has just been covered with blooms.  As you can tell this Ralph Moore miniature gets it name from the green tint its old fashion form blooms take on as they mature.  The plant architecture is nicely spreading and is always a healthy bush in my garden.  It is nearly Wednesday so let me stop here and let it be a Nearly Wordless, Nearly Wednesday.

A New Hybrid Musk Rose - Jeri Jennings

Having enjoyed growing Hybrid Musk roses for some time, had success with several of Paul Barden's roses, and enjoyed Jeri Jennings comments on the GardenWeb Antique Rose forum I felt like I had to grow Jeri's namesake which was introduced in 2007 and is now growing in its second year.  Jeri has been a help to me and many, many other people as they have sought to learn about and grow antique and shrub roses.  This rose is a wonderful tribute to her sunny disposition and friendly greeting to those with even the most simple questions.  It opens with a cheerful yellow then fades to a warm buttery color.  Jeri Jennings' fragrance is a strong tea scent with both sweet and musk overtones.  Very pleasing.

Jeri Jennings' graceful habit is very typical of the Hybrid Musk class growing wider than tall but maybe just a bit smaller than many.  Its long pointed leaves have a refined elegance.  I think that in many ways Hybrid Musk roses represent a near perfect ideal of graceful repeat blooming shrub roses.  My own selfish desires would simply add size to the flowers which typically are about 2 inches in size.  I personally think that might be the image David Austin has had in mind working with the English Roses.

The Hybrid Musk group was created by Rev. Joseph Pemberton, an Anglican Priest, from 1912-1939.  He was assisted in his work by John and Ann Bentall, who continued the work after his passing.  There are a large number of roses in this class that it is hard to say who of the three was the actual breeder.  Record keeping was not at the top of their "To Do List", and maybe that type of credit was relatively unimportant to them.  In any case, the group draws upon a wide variety of lines while at the same time finding a unity that holds the class together.  To my eye, Jeri Jennings would have (and does) easily fit in with the early roses in the class. 

Maybe it is Rev. Pemberton's vocation as a pastor and avocation as a rosarian that draws me to the Hybrid Musk roses or maybe this gives me a deeper appreciation for these roses, but I find a special joy in these lovely, graceful, refined roses.  Jeri Jennings is a very welcome addition to the group.

Hot Days in the Garden

We just finished the hottest June in recorded history here in Oklahoma.  Today we hit 110 degrees and our 20th day of triple digit temps.  When it gets this hot there are few roses that can stand up to the heat.

This morning I took a few photos in the garden.  Here is Graham Thomas with a few roses fried by the sun and one that opened over night. Below is the same cluster of roses just eight hours later.

While many of my roses enter a summer semi-dormancy, usually this comes a month later than it has this year.  When you see how the Summer heat affects the flowers you understand why.  Still others seem to flourish in this heat.  Here are a few others that got caught in the sun today. 

 This is Braveheart and it actually holds up somewhat better than many other red roses.

Here is St. Swithun surviving the day.

This flower of Twister made it through unscathed.

The heat turned out to be too much for Tradescant.  I'm praying for rain and cooler days - the forecast has 107 for tomorrow but we will cool off to 101 on Tuesday. 

Today we are treated to a fully opened blossom of Moore's Striped Rugosa.  This rose is the third striped rose in our current garden.  I have grown several others over the years.  Compared to Twister's precise petal formation and Scentimental's rounded and cupped blooms, Moore's Striped Rugosa's flowers are loose and carefree in form but no less beautiful.