rose recommendations

**"* F* M* <m*@sympatico.ca>**

Sheri--

Re your search for seeds and sources for old roses: I recently attended a 
lecture by Wilhelm Kordes, of Kordes rose hybridizers in Germany, so I have 
roses fresh on my mind.

>From what he said about breeding roses, I think it would be hard to find 
Gallica and Damascena seed. The parent plant would have to be kept isolated 
from other kinds of roses or the seeds would produce some kind of hybrid. I 
doubt any business would make that effort -- and I suspect the cost of the 
seed would be enormous!

Long ago, I grew a rose from seed I collected. It turned out totally 
different from the mother plant that bore the hips, which supports my theory 
about weird offspring.

For plants, try Pickering Nurseries (http://pickeringnurseries.com) here in 
Canada. They're an old family-run business with a good reputation that 
carries all kinds of roses, including lots of the antique ones. They've 
shipped to Martha Stewart (a gossipy local rosarian told me), so they can 
probably ship to you. If you order now thru winter, they ship bare-root in 
spring.

You can also try Richters Herbs, another local family-run business. Their 
whole operation is US Agriculture-approved, so they're very experienced in 
serving US customers. I haven't had time to check their catalogue, but they 
have an excellent website and should have some of the antique roses and 
possibly seeds.

If you want several plants cheaply, you could try growing them from cuttings 
of the original plant. I haven't done this myself, but 
http://texasroserustlers.com has how-to's.

I don't have wide experience in growing roses, but I've been interested in 
rose history and antique roses for a long time. Maybe some others here can 
comment on growing roses from seed. Since no one else talked about this, I 
thought I'd share what info I've come across over the years.

Mary Fran
Toronto, Canada
US zone 5

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