Elakazal, One time several of us on a rose group assembled a list of 'Paul's Scarlet' progeny. Most of them are reblooming Floribundas, and all are distinctly different from PS. Some, at least, are tetraploid. Fertility of triploids is at least partly related to crossover frequency. In some cases of rose triploids most gametes have 10 or 11 chromosomes, which doesn't work well. Remember, egg sacs and pollen tubes are multicellular organisms that rely on the "genes" contained in the chromosomes to function. Weird chromosome numbers can harm them. In other cases rose triploids give chromosome numbers approximating a multiple of 7, then discard the one or two extras. === I am not keen on Mendelism because it tells us nothing useful about what happens in wide crosses -- until after the fact. And then only to "explain". It lacks predictive power. There are instances of crosses within species, between geographical "races" that do not differ appreciably, that give considerable variation among the offspring. I won't run on about that just now -- it's 4:30AM. Besides, I'm continually annoyed by the dogma that Mendel discovered something by analyzing his data. This is nonsense. He was not a statistician. If he understood probability at all he would have raised more than 10 seedlings when he was trying to determine whether a plant was heterozygous for a recessive trait. This means that while his numbers look good, they actually contradict his assumption. He was getting too many heterozygotes and misidentifying some of them as homozygous dominants. Or he was very, very, very lucky. In the real world one must raise 24 seedlings in order to identify 999 heterozygotes out of 1000. === Fertile is as fertile does. You're quite right about the relativity involved. A rose hip might contain 100 seeds. But if a hybrid produces only 1-3 seeds per hip we call it weakly fertile or nearly sterile even though it is doing at least as well as a peach with its one seed per flower. 'Penelope' and 'Paul's Lemon Pillar' are a couple of fertile triploids that produce only one or a few seeds per hip. But the hips of 'Penelope' are a beatiful coral pink while those of 'PLP" are very large and yellow -- so conspicuous that we tend to think of the plants as fertile even before we start counting seeds. I got hooked on old journals back in my college days. They were there so I started reading them. Often there is a cummulative index covering a year or a decade, which helps a lot. But time and again I've looked up a specific article only to find something even more interesting in the same issue. The thrill of discovery offsets the drudgery and old book dust. When I visit a library I take a pocket full of change to make copies. Often I have something in mind, then find references in the articles that lead me off in a different direction. Then I walk out with half a ream of copied articles. It is important to look to the old stuff for what has been overlooked. Just last year, or the year before, someone discovered a "new" mechanism to insure crossing within a species. A ginger was found to have two morphs, each with perfect flowers. One morph released its pollen in the morning while keeping its style curved upwards and out of the way. In the afternoon the style bends downwards and the stigma became receptive. The other morph reverses the sequence, functioning as female in the morning, male in the afternoon. Pretty exciting stuff! Soon it was found that the same mechanism had been reported for an unrelated plant (filbert?) in the late 19th century, but no one paid attention to the discovery. These details have to be observed in living plants, by the way, because the differences wouldn't be noticed in herbarium specimens. And in the early 19th century a French hybridist was counting the male and female plants that came from gourd seeds, and noted that males and females had fairly definite locations within the fruit. Correns rediscovered the phenomenon in Lychnis (Melandrium) in the early 20th century, and DeVries discussed something similar in regards to double-flowered Stocks. By the way, DeVries and Correns were not as excited about Mendelism as one might assume, and Tschermak was only interested in the segregation -- not the magic numbers. In fact, Tschermak visited DeVries while both were conducting their experiments but neither brought up the subject. DeVries was far more interested in his studies of "mutations" and eversporting varieties. Correns then began studying "segregation distortion" while academics around the world were finding ways to doctor their data to get "good numbers". It's this magic number business that I regard as pointless. And the independent segregation doesn't always work out due to linkage -- something Mendel could not conceive. Thus, the ratios of segregation cannot be calculated in advance. When you get right down to it, there isn't much originality in Mendel's work after you sort out what he got from Naudin. And what was genuinely original is not very helpful to a practical breeder. Karl

"Propagation: Rosa Damascena is propagated through one year old stem cuttings. It can also be propagated through the divisions of old plant, lateral sprouts with roots and seeds. Stem cuttings are collected at the time of pruning in mid October to end of December; 20 cm long, 0.75-1.50 cm thick cuttings are planted in nursery; 2/3 of the stem length is inserted into soil. IB A @ 200-250 ppm is given to induce rooting. These cuttings are ready after one year for transplanting into main field." http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.2478/V10133-010-0032-4 ---------------------------------------------- " The cultivars and ecotype of Rosa damascena Mill. have been grown by using cutting or two old-suckers for many years" "Stem cuttings are collected at the time of pruning in mid October to end of December; 20 cm long, 0.75-1.50 cm thick cuttings are planted in nursery; 2/3 of the stem length is inserted into soil. IB A @ 200-250 ppm is given to induce rooting. These cuttings are ready after one year for transplanting into main field." "Rooted stem cuttings are taken out from nursery and put in the pits." "The best time of transplanting of rooted cuttings in the field is mid of November to mid January. " http://www.plantsrescue.com/tag/damask-rose/

Laceyvail, thanks for that bit, but I wonder.......having seen numerous examples of the straight American species, and this in SW Florida, that were in fact reasonably compact, in situations where for certain nobody ever prunes them.......that you might be overstating just a bit, as far as the trouble this fine shrub would cause the OP in his/her spot? Not saying you are, mind you. Just wondering about all that. Plus, who knows....maybe the coppicing treatment you're using-a great idea BTW-is actually resulting in more vigorous growth within any single growing season, if that makes any sense. As far as that goes, I've pondered using this shrub (beauty berry) here in Wisconsin. You really basically never see it around here, yet its hardiness rating suggests that it should work, especially if handled the way you (Lacey) are. I could see it being a great one. But I digress...........

I know, Dee. I wasn't even planning to go but I was in the area because I had to do some work at the wood. There are various societies such as National Plant Heritage, Hardy Plant Society, Plant Conservation. I know of Nargs over your way (North American Rock Gardening Soc. so I am sure there are others, but anyway, gardening is massively popular in the UK, with a long history and a forgiving climate, so every week of the year, there are meetings, talks and plant fairs, which are organised by members and attended by plant nurseries. Best of all, there is usually a stall where you can find plants from members own gardens so there will always be some gems...and incredibly cheap too. I am a member of the Hardy Plant Society - mostly for the annual seed exchange - over 2000 species, for annual subscription costs of less than £20. I was pretty restrained too. Apart from the tetrapanax (£2!!) and the nicotiana glauca, I do have a plan for all the others. This year has been the absolute worst year in the entire existence of my allotment. Apart from some potatoes, I have not harvested a single vegetable, despite 5, 6, 7 attempts at salad leaves, beans, curcubits,root veg, fruit (apart from apples). NOTHING. The absolute last straw was seeing my Uchiki Kuri squash stolen and eaten by rats or squirrels (not sure what but I know it isn't pigeons because all that was left was gnawed skins). Between pests and diseases (the molluscs have been apocalyptic and there are always intense, untended disease pressures on allotments), I have called a halt to any more futile vegetable growing and am turning the plots ( about 1/4 acre) into flower beds (although I grow tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse over summer). So I will have space to do my dry gardens and cultivated chaos experiment. 14 or so plants is only the smallest proportion of what I am planning to raise for this coming year (hoping for several hundred) so I didn't feel I was too greedy. And the prices!