Seeds from Hybrids

• Plants from seeds won't be the same.rose rose image by trottier samuel from Fotolia.com
  
  Because rose flowers are open to wind and insects, rose seeds from your garden are usually the result of cross-pollination. The parent may be a red rose but some of the seeds will grow pink flowers; the parent may be a bush and the seeds grow into a climber. A number of plants from rose seeds will tend to revert back to wild rose type with simple five-petaled flowers. A few may grow into a new and interesting variation of the parent bushes.
  
  

Old Roses

• Five-petaled species rosesRose image by reises from Fotolia.com
  
  While modern garden roses are almost all hybrids, old roses, heirloom and species roses are sometimes not, and their seed produces plants more like their parent. This is not a hard rule, however, because roses hybridize easily and some heirloom roses are simply very old hybrids or natural mutations, and we only have them today because they have been continuously cloned for centuries.
  
  

Grow From Seed or Cuttings

• Taking rose cuttingsrose cut image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
  
  Rose growers and nurseries almost always reproduce named rose varieties for sale by taking cuttings. By contrast, rose breeders create new rose varieties by growing cross-pollinated seed.
  
  So if you want a new plant which is exactly the same as the parent rose, take cuttings. Cuttings create clones -- new plants which are genetically identical to the parent plant. Growers with climate-controlled grow-houses get a high success rate from cuttings. You can grow rose cuttings in a home kitchen, too, but allow for a higher failure rate: from a half-dozen cuttings you may get two viable plants.
  
  Growing roses from seed is interesting and surprising precisely because the new plants are likely to be different from their parent. Many of the new roses will be nothing special, but occasionally a beautiful unique flowering rose will appear.
  
  

How Roses Propagate in Nature

• Ripe rose hipships image by Kostyantyn Ivanyshen from Fotolia.com
  
  You will have more success growing rose seeds if you observe how the plant reproduces naturally. Rose seeds are in the fruit, called a "hip." To make seeds the rose must to be allowed to develop fruit; do not deadhead the rose after it flowers. Rose hips ripen in the fall, turning red or orange. They either drop to the ground and rot, which frees the seeds, or are eaten by birds and animals which carry the seeds away from the parent plant. The seeds lie dormant during the cold winter and germinate next spring. Many rose growers copy this process.
  
  

Starting Rose Seeds

• Germinating seedsgrowing plants from seeds (sweet pea flowers) image by Tamara Kulikova from Fotolia.com
  
  The simplest way to start rose seeds is to collect the hips in the autumn, put them in a pot or bury them shallowly in a garden bed, then wait till next spring to see if any root. You can accelerate this process indoors: Soak the rose hips for two to three days to soften the fiber and free the seeds, dry the seed and put it in the fridge for two or three weeks, then bring it into the warm to germinate. It is useful to keep a journal to record seed sources, dates and success rates.