Miniature and Miniflora Rose Suppliers - American Rose Society

“A Bright Future for the Mini-floras”
By: Mitchie Moe
I needed a new challenge after winning our
share of rose show ribbons, trophies and
awards. At one show we met a gentleman,
the late Dr. Neil Adams who was displaying
his seedlings and promoting amateur hybridizing
as a fun way to continue working
with roses after one tires of exhibiting! He
was very enthusiastic in telling us how thrilling
it was to not only create your own rose,
but to have the opportunity for it to have
those characteristics that we, as exhibitors,
desire in a rose. He went on to say that one
day we would find hybridizing as the challenging
next step in our growing rose world
by having some “babies” of our own.
This challenge came true a short time later
when a group of us met and formed the
PNW Rose Hybridizers Group in 1993 under
the guidance of Steve McCulloch, who at the
time was the President of the International
Plant Propagators Association along with
the expertise of Dr Adams. As a group we
started discussing the basics of hybridizing,
selecting parents, traits and characteristics
that we wanted to bring forward into our
seedlings. The more we discussed, I could
see that it was important to have a goal(s) to
focus on and give me some direction in how
to tackle this new challenge.
I realized from exhibiting that I really loved
to work with the miniatures. I also thought
that with the limited space that we had at
the time, it would be easier to grow miniature
seedlings thus becoming an early goal.
The first few years of my hybridizing were a
disaster as my seeds were not mature and
did not germinate, but after I found out
what I was doing wrong I had some seedlings
(my own babies!) that grew to maturity.
What a thrill!
A main goal was that any rose that I hy-
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bridized had to be better than its parents
and that it had exhibition qualities, so if it
was lacking in those -- out it went! Another
goal is that every hybridizer that I know has,
is that of disease resistance. I know that we
could use more varieties that exhibit well,
and there will always be room for the different
type roses as hybridizers are using all
sizes and types of roses in their breeding
programs. As a result, the miniature rose is
larger now then when I first began to exhibit.
It is a challenge for amateur hybridizers
to come up with exhibition roses that
have eye-catching colors or are different in
some way.
Challenges for which some well known hybridizers
have been quoted include --
Eugene Boerner in his book Papa Floribunda
“.... to presume to have made a masterpiece
is just a little beyond the realm of
reality. But aiming toward the dream rose is
the incentive...” (Boerner 77). And as Gerd
Krussmann writes in The Complete Book of
Roses – “Hybridizers want roses that have
vigorous growth, are fully petaled (at least
30 to 35 petals), have disease-resistant foliage,
stems long enough for cutting, a highpointed
center, and most of all, fragrance”.
(Krussman 164-165) As hybridizers listen to
the top exhibitors these same characteristics
are the most desirable and sought after .
However, a lot of my “babies” were very
small. At that time I didn’t know very
much about micro-minis, so I was
throwing them out, as they were not
what I wanted. Needless to say, I didn’t
have many seedlings that I could keep as
long as I was crossing a miniature with a
miniature. Then I got some advice from
some of the “big guys” which was to use
the larger roses as pollen parents so
when those seedlings matured, they were