This is the rose ‘Enjouée’ I grew from seed. It’s about two years old? Germinated spring 2010, planted out that fall. Looks to be a polyantha type as it’s kept a very shapely vase shape, but it might become a climber yet. Compare thumb for blossom size reference. Bloom size and petal count are very unstable, it’s often not this large or double, but I hope this larger petal count is a hint of things to come in maturity, a rose can take a few years for it’s form to really stabilize. It’s coloring, the raspberry staining on the tips of the petals really becomes pronounced in cooler weather. Has a pronounced peach-leaf type leaf.

Disease pressure was a bit nasty this year but it seems it only contracts one type of blackspot that forms mottles on the foliage instead of the more common form that causes, well spots.

Hoping for good things from this.

My rose seedling Enjouée that I bred is blooming. It’s two years old this spring. Sun’s a bit bright here, but you get the idea. It’s a very vigorous, leafy shrub with a nice vase form so far, pretty impressed. 

My own rose seedling, now given the moniker of ‘Enjouée’ which means playful, cheerful, kittenish or gamesome as a pun on one of its presumed parents ‘Plaisanterie’ which means ‘joke’, ‘prank’ or ‘trick’. What does a child do when they’re acting kittenish? They pull pranks. (Hur hur hur)

This rose has somewhat of a bi-color staining and color shift on the outer parts of the petals, which are about an inch in diameter. I attribute this to ‘Plaisanterie’, which starts out with cherry-orange buds, open buff colored and then age to pink with some darker ‘staining’. The color shift in ‘Plaisanterie’ is a trait inherited from and is the hallmark of its own pollen parent, ‘Mutabilis’, a china rose. The other presumed parent to this particular seedling, ‘Sven’ doesn’t have as visible mottling, but will compare flowers next time both are in bloom.

Each flush the flowers are becoming a bit prettier and cooler weather has brought out that raspberry-pink stain even more. I’m thinking this rose hasn’t settled into it’s proper bloom form yet, so I may get an increased petal count next year. Overall, it’s a cute rose, can’t wait to see what it does.

I’ve got a temporary roommate this weekend. We had to clear the porch of all small stuffs to prepare for Irene so that meant my “pot ghetto” of rose seedlings had to move. I think I have about a ten or so seedlings. I solved half the problem by planting out four that show rather good health and vigor out in the yard. The rest are a bit straggly and I’m debating what to do with them. This one is different out of the bunch, it is the strongest, healthiest grower. It shows considerable signs of being a rugosa rose hybrid, which makes sense since most of the seeds I germinated were either from the rose bush ‘Roseraie de L’Hay’ a rugosa rose, or ‘Plaisanterie’ a hybrid musk/china so chances are it came from the former, which is very exciting since the variety is not known for it’s fertility and hip formation, and yet my plant has so far shown itself receptive to other pollen in the garden as it forms hips for me. The seedling is definitely a cross with another rose of a different species origin somewhere in my yard, making it a hybrid. The slight crinkled or rugosed leaves and bright light green new growth on the tips, which is clearer in person as is how healthy it actually looks however hint that at least one of the parents, in this case the mother, was surely a rugosa. So it might end up showing traits of both parents due not completely looking like a pure rugosa. I’m rather excited!

The one problem, however, is that rugosa seedlings can take a while to get established and flower, sometimes not flowering for the first two three years of life. Hybrid rugosas with other species blood means there are variations to that time frame, but I don’t think I’ve seen this flower yet, so chances are it probably will take some time. Nevertheless, this fella is gonna stay in my room until Irene passes over, then probably sometime in Sept. I’ll plant it out in the yard.

For my 1,000 post, I thought I’d put a picture of my assumed to be open pollinated seedling from ‘Sven’ which currently runs under the moniker ‘SvenOP’ until I think of something more creative and witty. It’s my first “pretty” seedling I’ve ever been able to raise and something I’m rather proud of to say “I grew that from seed”. It’s smaller in all regards to its presumed “mother” with flowers sorta being under to about an inch in diameter, and sadly doesn’t have much of a scent, but the petals being darker colored with a distinct paler inner reverse are rather attractive. We’ll see how this one matures and ages. 

I’ve put my first seedling that looks promising enough to be planted into the garden up on HelpMeFind rose cultivar database. That puts me as a rose breeder on the site thus cementing my “status” I guess as I now have documented accounts of any rose seedling growing.

It’s not technically my first surviving seedling, I had one seedling from I think maybe 2007 survive long enough to bloom and be planted outside but it is a sickly and a rather homely, stunted seedling of what I believe to be ‘Queen Elizabeth’. It’s dwarf, single blossom type of white-pink that turns used-tissue ugly. Needle thorns. Defoliates during summer. I keep it out of pity for being the first one I ever grew from seed. Being said my success rate can be implied to be abysmally low until this past winter. Winters 2008 and 2009 were also me growing flats of rose seedlings in my dorm room or tried to keep them at home but they just didn’t work. 2010 I was lucky and had four seedlings that performed well and I stuck with them. Three are “sisters” being that they came from the same batch of seeds and probably from same hip, which I lost identification for but I assumed they were open pollinated seedlings of the small shrub ‘Sven’.Thus this currently goes by ‘Sven OP’ but if I like it enough and it performs well it might be renamed something else.

I’m looking forward to see if there are any improvements. Of the three “sisters” it had the healthiest foliage during the summer as I subjected them to live in their own quart sized pots on the steps of our back porch. Two sisters became afflicted with powdery mildew rather easily, while this one stayed relatively clean in the same conditions. I left the two other sisters in their pots over the winter while the clean one got planted in the fall. If they survived the winter in the pot than I would plant them out as it would mean rather hardy vigor and might be worth a second shot. They both unfortunately died, which was disappointing, as I like second chances or comebacks, and they had interesting flowers, but they weren’t strong enough.

It’s not in bloom yet, so sole picture is of a green blob, but considering how large it was when planted (tiny) and how vigorous it’s showing in terms of spring growth, pretty much doubling in size. It has smaller foliage than ‘Sven’. I’m very curious to see what it will be like and its disease resistance this year while in the ground. It did bloom a few times for me last year, which is good for if a seedling shows remonancy that young it means it probably a rather reliable bloomer. The flower was small, less saturated purple-white sort of lilac colored flower I’m remembering, with a decent scent. Hopefully that too might be improved with age.

My page will continue to fill up, I will add the ‘Plaisanterie’ seedlings that have done extremely well so far, I have over a dozen seedlings of that right now that show no signs of dying on me..yet…but we’ll see. I’ll add them as they age and start to bloom actual flowers.

My mostly ‘Plaisanterie’ open pollinated rose brood. Quite a few have flowered small pseudo first flowers that showed hints of them inheriting their mother and thus the grandmother ‘Mutabilis’ color shift process in their petals, which while found in other roses, most china roses colors deepen with age, but the color shift in ‘Mutabilis’ which goes from creamy yellow-buff buds and flowers that age to a pink and then rose-crimson is relatively exclusive to it and its progeny. 

I’m looking forward to seeing them grow and mature so I can see differences and give them names. I’m very excited about that part. Since the name ‘Plaisanterie’ itself is French for ‘joke’ or ‘jesting’ I’m trying to think of funny, cheeky names for the seedlings that continue the French and or ‘Joke’/’Jest’/’Gag’/ motif for the lot of them. I’d like that to be a thread going throughout my work with roses.  I want to do that with my roses, have interesting names. I will never call something “Heaven Scent” or “Apricot Pillows”, or ‘Pink Dream’.I’d like to be a bit more clever.

For example, I have another rose in my possession named ‘Indian Love Call’ which was named by the breeder after a friend who particularly liked it. I however, associate the name with the 1930’s song, so I anticipate any good seedlings that come from using that rose either in open pollinated hips or direct crossing; they all will have to carry names of obscure jazz and blues, pop standards that I like and fit the plant. Pretty clever right? I think it would be fun.

firstflower firstflower - bud showing off white (?) petal color on one of two ‘Plaisanterie’ open pollinated seedlings with visible flower buds. This made my week 500% better, along with pretty origami.

Speak of the devil, not even over three inches tall or used up their cotyledons, I do believe that is a bud. Two seedlings display this. This is very good. 

Baby rose. ‘Plaisanterie’ seedling. So. damn. happy.

Third of the three sister seedlings to bloom. Probably the prettiest. Blooms are about the size somewhere between a quarter and a nickel.

Sister seedling to the first one has bloomed. Very similar!