Rooting rose cuttings

I've always had difficulty getting cuttings to root but look at these nicely calloused cuttings. One's already sending out roots. I followed the damp newspaper method described at the Rose Hybridizer's Forum. Thanks for sharing that tip George!
See link below for details.

http://www.rosehybridizers.org/forum/message.php?topid=31884#31884

Viola X cooperrideri F2

Here's that F2 seedling from the cross of Viola striata X Viola walteri that I posted a few weeks back. The picture isn't great, but at least you can see how well it's blooming today (Nov.19) - I'll have to move this one to a better spot and try to collect seed, so I can select for even earlier Fall bloom.

Rosa rugosa X davidii fall foliage

Rosa rugosa X davidii is ablaze in fall colors right now. Pretty good fall color for a rose!

Figs and Violets

Figs: So it would seem that figs can survive AND fruit here. I wasn't sure this lone fruit (on 2 year old 'Hardy Chicago') would ripen soon enough because it stayed green and stayed the size of a grape for what seemed like forever. But within just a few days it ballooned up and changed color. So, I can now say I've tasted a fresh fig (only "newtons" before that). It was tasty just like everyone is always saying. I hope that next year it gets a bunch more.

Violets: Down below is a second generation violet seedling from the first generation hybrid Viola X cooperrideri. The F1 hybrid was from a hand pollination of Viola striata by pollen of Viola walteri. I'm encouraged that a few of the F2 seedlings (like this one) have been blooming fairly well in the Fall too. I'm considering putting a little selective pressure on this population to try to push them toward all summer bloom. Actually all of these violets DO bloom all summer but when the day becomes a certain length, they switch over to producing small (non-showy) cleistogamous flowers. I'll just need to select for longer and longer daylength requirement (for that switch-over) and then they'll have the pretty chasmogamous ones all summer.

Covered (primitive) wheats

The Covered Wheats - More primitive wheats that do NOT thresh free of the glumes/hulls that surround the seed while on the stalk. More modern wheats are all free-threshing. Their seeds fall out completely naked of these coverings. These are four covered wheats that I've been maintaining by growing out a batch every couple of years. This year I also used the Black Emmer and the Spelt in some crosses with some free-threshing wheats. I'll be sure to blog about those next Spring when the hybrids should be heading.

The top two are diploid (2N=14) Einkorn wheats.

Bottom left is a tetraploid (2N=28) emmer wheat - the primitive relative of the durum (macaroni) wheats.

Bottom right is a hexaploid (2N=42) spelt wheat - the primitive version of the common bread wheat.

Teosinte X Corn

The ears are from F1 plants of teosinte X corn. Teosinte and these hybrids wait until the short days of Fall to start setting seed. I forget the number of hours of daylength they want. But to induce earlier bloom and beat the frosts, these plants had their daylength artificially shortened by being covered with an inverted trashcan early each evening (taken off later the next morning).

Rosa glutinosa X palustris

Here's an updated picture of the lone glutinosa X palustris - it's the one with the smooth (non-rugose) and matte, smaller foliage, that has branched extensively and is taking up most of the "pot" on the left. There is one smaller plain glutinosa (veiny/rugose leaves) in that same pot and a couple of bigger

plain glutinosa in the pot on the right for comparison. The hybrid seedling is now in the ground.