Have you ever wondered how all the wonderful new rose varieties are created? Do you want to see the result of combining your two favorite unpatented rose varieties? All it takes is a little hybridizing!
Rose breeders first strip immature blooms of their outer petals and pollen-laden anthers to avoid self-fertilization.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
After the hybridizer gathers pollen from the desired rose and distributes it to the ripe stigma, the bud gets protected (here, with an envelope) from chance fertilization.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Virtually every commercially available, non-species rose owes its existence to an unpredictable act of nature or the hand of a hybridizer. Many hybridizers – even award-winning ones – are actually amateurs. And you can easily make hybridizing roses your hobby, too.
A few new roses are created naturally when a growing plant spontaneously develops mutations (rosarians call them “sports”) that change their genetic makeup. Rose breeders notice these sports and nurture those that are attractive or bear desirable traits, such as disease resistance.
Of course, many more rose varieties are created when growers carefully cross-pollinate specific parent plants and collect the resulting seed in a process called hybridization. The process isn’t too complex: Immature blooms are stripped of their outer petals and pollen-laden anthers to avoid self-fertilization. Then they’re bagged to block pollen from nearby plants.
When the stigmas ripen and become sticky, pollen is brushed onto them by the breeder, completing fertilization. The rose then is rebagged. In the next 2-3 months, the rose hips swell as seeds develop and ripen. These seeds are harvested and germinated, each growing an entirely new rose variety with never-before-seen blooms. The plants with the best flowers (or other traits) get propagated (or reproduced).
Thousands of new rose varieties are created through hybridization every year, but most are doomed to obscurity. Worldwide, only a few hundred roses are promising enough to be selected for field trials. (This is where they’re grown under a variety of conditions to see how they react to numerous climates, weather conditions, diseases and pests.) Of these, only the best are grown and sold in the market.
By mastering the simple steps needed to hybridize (and respecting patent laws), you can create new roses in your own garden. Harvest the resulting seeds from ripe hips, refrigerate them at 38 degrees F in a sealed container filled with peat for 4-6 weeks, then plant them. With some tender loving care, it won’t be long before new blooms will be on your new rose.
