I am 47 years old and a hobby-Rosehybridizer. I did go to the horticulture scool and after that I studied biologie, but I am working in human healthcare for 20 years.
This is a story about rosebreeding for hobby. Whole my life I like roses. I think it’s a love about the fragrance and about the mysteries, the fairytales around them. That’s a contrast with a world that’s getting more and more well organised and civilized. I like wild roses very much, especcially the wild specimen and culturevariëties of the pimpinellifolia-group (Rosa spinosissima, R. sericea, R. hugonis, R. kokanica…) . Outside that rosegroup I like the flowers of the teehybrids. But… I don’t like their bushes. That teehybrid-bushes looks like florist-roses with long, one meter straight-on canes and the green leaves are too big and too glossy to be loved by me. Teehybrid flowers are looking better on their climbing-mutations, as example Crimson Glory Climbing, that is a much nicer bush compared with the original Crimson Glory. I do grow this rose like a leading fruittree, with two meters hight and wide. But a delicious fragranced rose as Étoile de Hollande Climbing is not a nice looking bush and this rose doesn’t want to be leaded like the Crimson Glory Climbing in my garden. And even a leaded Crimson Glory Climbing doesn’t have the glorious elegance as a pure teerose like Lady Hillingdon Climbing. Should it be possible to get that lovely flowers on a bush like a wild specimen of the pimpinellifoliagroup? For me that was the start of trying to seed roses at home by myselfes.
I am working for almost 20 years with roseseedlings and the first ones germinated after 3 years of being patient. Now I am much faster: the Rosa sericea-crossings I made at spring 2018 did have colored fruits at juli 2018 and after 10 weeks in the fridge the first 3 germinated septembre 2018. For me there is no need to make safe crossings, becouse it is just a hobby and not my job to be paid for. As a hobby-hybridizer I can make very rare crossings. I do not have a lot of seedlings, so most of them are not a success. I did have nice crossings with Pteracantha, but they where not strong and not healthy. They died. But I will try again and again. The chance of making a great rose is very low, but if there is a healthy rose, it will be a special one. I do not want to make red rose number 321 that will never stand out between all the other look-a-likes at the roseshops.
All those years there was just one rose that became promoted to grow on the testingfield at Rosenursery De Bierkreek. That is a mossed rugosa, called ‘Rugged Moss’ and that name gots exactly the characteristics of this Rose. It’s a healthy, summerflowering loversrose for a hard climat. It survived the cold winter of februar 2012 outside in a pot without cover here. I will go further with with the spinosissima-hybrid seedlings I got, but I did not yet have the one who gives the ‘Wow!’, but I am proud to have a seedling with Mon Amie Claire as a hip-parent becouse it is very hard to got seeds from this plant and with so little numbers of seed it is hard to get one germinated. What’s the ideal combination for me? I think a healthy rose with the elegance of an old Scots Rose, with their well branched canes and thiny, fern-like leaves and the reflowering and fragrance of the early Pemberton moschata roses. I do like half-filled rich roseflowers, as if they where waterpaint-colored, especcially apricot, coral and salmon shades. I am not a lover of hard, primary colors. I do like roseflowers that shows eye-catching filaments and stames like Basye’s Purple, Sweet Pretty, Odyssey, Golden Showers and Jacqueline du Pré.
