How to Make Rose Cultivars

Cross Pollinating

• 1

  Select two parent roses with characteristics that you wish to combine to create a new cultivar. Choose roses with nice color, fragrance, hardiness or growth habit.

• 2

  Collect pollen from one of the parent plants in the early morning hours. Select a flower that is not quite fully open. Cut the selected flower's stem, 2 inches below the bloom with a pair of pruning shears.

• 3

  Pull the flower's petals gently from the flower and discard. Place the stem upside down in a glass jar. Place a piece of masking tape on the outside of the jar and write the rose variety on it with a marker. Store the jar at room temperature for 24 hours to allow the stamens to release the pollen. Use the pollen within four days of harvest.

• 4

  Select a bloom from the second parent plant to pollinate. Choose a bloom that is almost fully mature. Grasp the stem of the rose to steady the bloom and pull off all of the petals.

• 5

  Identify the hair-like stamens surrounding the stigmas. Use a small pair of scissors to cut off all of the stamens. Dip a small paintbrush into your jar of pollen to coat the bristles with the yellow powder. Brush the pollen onto the stigmas in the center of the rose. Re-apply the pollen to the stigmas every 12 hours or so until the stigma dries up.

• 6

  Write the variety of the parent plant that produced the pollen and the date of pollination on a strip of masking tape. Wrap the tape around the stem of the pollinated flower. Record the varieties crossed and the date in a small notebook.

Harvest Seeds

• 7

  Observe the pollinated flower for two to three months. Harvest the rose hip when it turns an orange to red color or when the peduncle, or top of the stem, turns brown and becomes dry. Cut the rose hip off its stem with pruning shears.

• 8

  Cut into the rose hip with a knife. Remove any seeds from inside the rose hip. Wash the seeds in water to remove any clinging bits of pulp.

• 9

  Fill a jar with 1 pint of water and add 1 teaspoon of a 50 percent solution of Captan fungicide. Mix the fungicide into the water. Dip a piece of paper towel into the fungicide solution. Wrap the seeds in the paper towel and place them in the back of a refrigerator. Leave the seeds overnight.

Grow Seeds

• 10

  Fill a plastic flat with damp potting soil. Tamp the soil down in the flat to compact it. Ensure that the soil level is at least 1/2 inch below the lip of the flat. Label the flat with a piece of tape containing the names of the crossed roses and the date of planting.

• 11

  Spread the rose seeds over the surface of the soil. Cover the seeds with 1/4 to 1/2 inches of potting soil. Place the flat in a greenhouse or warm room with a constant temperature of at least 65 degrees. Water the seeds only when the top layer of soil has begun to dry. Continue this for four to six weeks.

• 12

  Transplant the rose seedlings into 4-inch plastic pots once they develop their third or fourth set of leaves. Water the seedlings only when the top layer of soil becomes dry. Apply a water soluble fertilizer once a week at a rate of 1/2 teaspoon per quart of water.