In March of 2007 I moved again, this time to Salem, Oregon, thus completing the West-coast trifecta of California, Washington, and Oregon. I left all the Seattle roses in place, hoping the next residents would enjoy them. In Salem, I began again to construct a rose garden, but this time growing my own roses from seed. I discovered that one rose bush already existed on the property. Thankfully, it had a tag identifying itself as the hybrid tea rose named 'Voodoo'. Great, I would just let it grow some hips and then have its seeds ready for planting in November, 2007. The next course of business in March was to head over to the local Fred Meyer's and purchase some bagged bare root 'Queen Elizabeth' roses. Promptly planted, they also yielded hips and seeds for late 2007. In the Summer of 2008, I was the recipient of some hips (from 3 unknown rose varieties) sourced from Germany. I planted the seeds from those hips outdoors, in a patch of ground, that Summer. Some of these German seeds germinated in the Fall of 2008, and some the following Spring. { IMPORTANT NOTE: Normally I harvest hips in late November and plant their seeds in small pots for germinating indoors. If you plant your seeds outdoors, you MUST protect your seedlings from slugs and cutworms and such. I do it by potting up the seedlings just a couple of days after they surface and then placing the pots in a protected location. You will find that outdoor-grown seedlings are tougher than indoor-grown seedlings, and can be handled early on; however, be very careful when you pot them up. }
To summarize: all of my rose seedlings have been grown from 'Voodoo' seeds, 'Queen Elizabeth' seeds, and seeds of unknown German roses.
So, here's how the garden looked in October of 2009. Most of the roses were grown from seed. Click on the photos to enlarge them.
And, after growing and adding new seedlings to the garden from 2008 through 2011, here's how the garden looked in late June of 2011. All except 2 roses were grown from seed. Can you identify one of the 'Queen Elizabeth' roses?
As a bonus, here's a video of the grounds that I took in July of 2011. It's also viewable on YouTube under the title: Rose garden panorama(2011).
Note that at the bottom of this blog you will see a live link to "My YouTube Videos". Click on it and you will be directed to, what else, a stack of all of my rose seedling related YouTube videos.
