2023 Rose Toddlers
We decided that to further eliminate our rose seedlings from this batch (generation 1), we would overwinter them in 1 gallon pots with only their own soil to insulate them from the elements. Only the fittest were meant to survive and we had many more (67) than the 24 spots we had shovel pruned for this batch. Oddly enough, we had an snow/ ice storm while our family was in Mexico during the first half of January this year that saw temperatures getting into the low teens. If we had been home, I would have put these in the greenhouse and turned the heat on for them. Mother Nature quickly eliminated those that couldn’t survive the cold and we chose 24 candidates from that remaining bunch to plant. We are excited to catalogue their growth habits this year to see if any one will continue its campaign to being our first rose plant.
2024 Rose Seedlings
This late winter/ early spring has started off slow. This is because I decided to run a test to see if the seedlings would grow in the greenhouse during this period with no provided heat. Effectively, I was trying to see how the temperature fluctuated in the late evenings inside of the greenhouse.. The real question I had in mind was, “will the vapor barrier, R7.7 insulation and rock floor keep the greenhouse warm enough during the late evenings to not have to run heat. I finished planting 4,032 seedlings on Friday, February 16th, 2024. This was nines days earlier than the previous year when I had finished planting 2,088 seedlings on February 25th, 2023. I saw NO growth for eighteen days before I decided to give in and turn on the heater.
Our greenhouse is not caulked and the wind and rain flex the ceiling and wall panels to let air and water inside. That’s not to say I did not try to caulk it, but I made an absolute mess of it (it was raining during the application – learn from me, don’t try to caulk a greenhouse while it is pouring rain) and nearly ruined a drainage gutter clip in the process. All this to say, the insulation and rock did nothing retain heat overnight during this time period. Thus, I kicked on the heater on March 5th, 2024, and I set it to about medium. Within five days I had four sprouts. It’s amazing what a little heat will do to a tiny seed. Today, we are at 505 seedlings. This number includes several many that have died off to to damping-off. In other words, I overwatered several trays and the soil is retaining too much moisture for the delicate seedlings.
This year, we are being more meticulous in controlling significant temperature variations in the greenhouse. In 2022, we finally decided to use shade cloth because being in a 132 degree F greenhouse can become very unpleasant, very quickly. This new shade cloth brought the temperatures on a hot day to within +-10 F over the ambient outdoor temperature. When the sun is shining and its 72 F outside, keeping the greenhouse from getting wild swings away from the 60-70 degree F desired sweet spot can be challenging. On those days, turning off the heat, kicking on the fans and opening the roof windows keeps the temperature similar to the outdoor temperatures. I am hoping the nice weather starting this Saturday will see a sharp increase in germination rates of our remaining seedlings. I planted 4,032 seeds and have 505 live ones as of today. I was very excited that I had again achieved and surpassed a 12.5% successful germination rate. That was until I read an article that stated that researchers were able to achieve between a 49.2% – 65.9% germination rate. What in tarnation? I set a seriously low bar of success for myself. When I first read about rose seed germination rates I saw that they can vary from between 8-12%. I thought we were doing very well with our germination rates. It now looks like we have a lot of catching up to do.