This was a productive season - 888 recorded pollenations yielded 282 hips. A lot of these hips were from late to very late pollenations because I wanted to try to establish how far into the season I could go and still get viable seeds (since I’ll be germinating these by embryo culture I’ll at least know if they are alive).
Here is a spreadsheet of my successful crosses. My current goals are 1. to get the winged thorn from Sericea onto a modern rose, and 2. to get a yellow moyesii hybrid. I am also interested in studying mossing and cresting. All the other crosses were surveys just to see if they would take although I tend to favor using strong yellow genes where the opportunity presents itself.
Great crosses! You will have some interesting seedlings to look at.
‘Baby Love’ has been a favorite ancestor for most of my breeding stock, though I no longer use it directly. When I did use it, I settled on using it as a pollen parent as it seemed so much more productive that direction. I wonder what ‘Scarlet Moss’ x ‘Baby Love’ and ‘Ballerina’ X ‘Baby Love’ would yield??? I might have to try that someday!
It’s nice to see another working with Gertrude Jekyll. It’s been said that she doesn’t produce good seedlings, but I have a seedling of it (with Perfume Perfection as the hip parent) that has good growth habit… It’s just taking time to bloom.
I’ve made a few crosses of it with Baby Love as the pollen parent this year.
My goal is to inbreed Gertrude Jekyll seedlings to create a rose with that fragrance, but in a color other than pink.
Thanks for a look into your work, Don. You have some interesting ideas there.
I made the cross of Scarlet Moss X Crested Jewel one year as well, but the seeds didn’t germinate. I bet you can get 'em to germinate though! Ralph told me he believed the cresting trait and the mossing trait were mutually exclusive and it would be an either/or situation. However, I did once get a seedling that had both characteristics in the same plant, so it is possible.
Enrique, I agree that fragrance is a target trait for Gertrude Jeckyl. Gertrude Jeckyl pollen didn’t work on Dragon’s Blood which I tried twice but I’m really hoping there are viable seeds in the late pollenations with Joycie and Scarlet Moss.
Jim, I think the one likely prediction you could make about crossing Baby Love, Ballerina and Scarlet Moss is that some progeny will be a bloom machines but that the petals will be small. I’m hoping to inject some Julia Child genes into that mix by using this OP seedling:
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I’ve got one hip of this so far (with Dragon’s Blood!) though it was a very late pollenation.
Baby Love gave some interesting OP seedlings. One of these has distinctive foliage that reveals it’s davidii heritage. The effect became less pronounced once the seedling got outside but here’s a photo of it while it was still indoors under lights.
There were no hips from a half dozen pollenations of this seedling and I didn’t try its pollen for some reason but I do have some pollen frozen for use with my early spring bloomers.
Ralph told me he believed the cresting trait and the mossing trait were mutually exclusive and it would be an either/or situation. However, I did once get a seedling that had both characteristics in the same plant, so it is possible.
Thanks for this tidbit, Paul. I personally think that mossing and cresting may have their origin in the same genetic element. I think there is a transposon that confers the indeterminate growth patterns that result in both mossing and cresting depending on where it lands on the chromosome so I don’t doubt you can get both characteristics in one plant.
Moreover, I think it’s possible that this transposon (or one like it) may also switch remontancy on and off if it lands in the right spot as well. For these reasons your recommendation of Scarlet Moss as a preferred breeder has great merit.
I haven’t worked with Baby Love much, although I’ve owned it for years. I got very discouraged when all the seedlings looked so alike, and I couldn’t be sure they weren’t self-pollinations.
but I hope that crossing it with extremely petalled roses like Gertrude will increase the petal count for Baby Love seedlings. I’m thinking about crossing it with mossy roses (I got a seedling of Scarlet Moss X Fakir’s Delight that seems like a good candidate. It’s very hip fertile.)
I have a crested seedling (an OP of Crested Jewel) that’s not very cresty. It blooms once. And it doesn’t set hips. But it’s very fertile and liberal with its pollen.
I’ve crossed it back with Crested Jewel. I got my fingers crossed that inbreeding will create very crested seedlings and some repeat blooming.
I would agree with that, in general. However, my plant of HC is 6 years old now and 6 X 6 feet and is still quite unwilling. It gets nothing more than an occasional trimming to define its outline and removal of dead wood, and yet it rarely sets seed, usually declining any/all pollen offered it. Perhaps its a climate issue.
Persistence counts too. Joycie, Mr. Lincoln and Tiffany pollen are highly fertile but it took several attempts with each to get a single hip on Dragon’s Blood.
My Hot Cocoa rarely sets hips, but I have a friend with a very nice bush that I noticed was COVERED in OP hips and they all had many seeds, though he didn’t try to germinate them so I don’t know how good they were.
Ralph Moore shared with me many years ago the fact that even within populations of cultivars thought to be infertile, or less fertile, one can find fertile individuals, for whatever reason.
He used to say, “The rose will find a way”.
I’ve found this to be true. If you find a specimen that sets hips, use it. If you find anthers in a cultivar normally too double to produce pollen, use it.
Roses don’t read. It’s their mission to reproduce. I follow fertility.
If something works for you, whatever the reason, go with it.
There are many factors that affect fertility. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another. I’ve even noted differences in fertility from year to year.
Some years seed from certain parents germinates well and other years they don’t. Some years they set hips. Some years they don’t. Some set hips in Fall here but won’t set in Spring.
Results may vary. It pays to be observant and go with the flow.
Ralph told me he believed the cresting trait and the mossing trait were mutually exclusive and it would be an either/or situation. However, I did once get a seedling that had both characteristics in the same plant, so it is possible.
