Removed Citroncello and Nelson Monfort due to excessive blackspot.

Starting again with roses. Many I had were removed or lost over the years. Most of my new roses now grow in 30-50 liter pots. Started with this last year. It doesn't look pretty, but they are more accessible for hybridizing and trying out new varieties before I plant them in the garden. Let's see how it goes :-)

The summer after that hot and dry spring of 2007 was disappointing. We had a lot of rain and overcast days. It was good weather for the seedlings I planted out though. Many succumbed to blackspot or mildew or both in this humid weather, however some stood out. I hope these will be resistant the following season. Unfortunately, the Westerland x (R. virginiana x R. macrophylla) suffer badly from mildew. I also doubt whether this was really a cross with the species hybrid, because one of the seedlings has flowered yellow. It probably just is Westerland selfed?

I'm now removing the seeds from this years batch of hips. I harvested 109 hips at the end of october and placed them in ziplock bags in the fridge. I remove them from the hips so late, because I don't want them to germinate too soon. I had a bad experience growing seedlings under light and want to have them germinate and grown on in our unheated greenhouse instead.

This year I used Graham Thomas quite extensively as a seed parent. I had good results last year, although I did not yet fully evaluate the quality of the seedlings. I now have hips of Graham Thomas with Rugelda, Postillion and Sangerhauser Jubilaeumsrose. All three roses from Kordes. I also have 4 hips with Ormiston Roy, an apparently repeat-flowering R. spinossisima hybrid. That is an interesting cross!

For hybridizing two years from now I added some Wichuraiana ramblers to my garden. I grew modern climbers on my pergola, but many were to stiff-caned to look beautiful. So I removed them and replaced them with ramblers. Now I plan to combine the characteristics of these ramblers with modern groundcover roses and floribundas with R. wichuraiana in their pedigree. I hope to combine repeat flowering, warm coloured large flowers, disease resistance, vigour and (espcially) lax canes into a nice climbing rose.

Whoa! Wacky weather. This is supposed to be spring, but we have had weeks of summer temperatures now! It's even warmer than in Spain at the moment... Some of my roses are flowering now. They normally start end of May, early June. It hasn't rained for weeks and I don't particularly like watering... so I only water my new roses and the rest has to take care of themselves. They are ok, but their growth has stopped. In a week it is supposed to become somewhat cooler and the rains will come. My seedlings are doing very well (yes, I do water them!) although no flowers yet. I removed the first buds of my seedlings. It's better for them to grow a bit more before they flower. Soon, I hope to post some pictures.