Very early report on some Kordes. I used mixed china/tea pollen because I had it available. As females, Mandarin Ice, Beverly, and Rose of Hope formed a hip on almost every pollinated flower. Dark Desire has only formed hips about a third of the time so far. All young plants. Using several of my regular seed parents, Dark Desire pollen has 100% hip set, so it’s pollen does work. I haven’t tested the pollen of the others yet. I don’t yet know about seeds/hip, germination %, or quality of seedlings for these 4. Beverly has shown a bit of black spot and anthracnose/cercospora leaf spot, but very healthy overall. Mandarin Ice, Rose of Hope, and Dark Desire have shown no black spot, but moderate to heavy leaf spot infection. I very rarely see powdery mildew or rust here, so I can’t comment on those.
Rose PM exists here, but it’s pretty rare. Rose PM seems to prefer aridity and it’s very humid here. I did see it on Granada about 10 years ago and a few years later on Golden Unicorn, but that’s it. Seedlings never have it, so I can’t select against it. I just try to use known resistant parents and hope it transfers enough PM resistance for the US hot humid areas. Kind of like how desert hybridizers do with black spot. Here it’s black spot, leaf spot, downy, cankers, botrytis, nematodes, and various insects that cause problems. Grow anything in the squash family though and it will get covered in squash PM. Go figure.
Thanks, Charles.
Dark Desire was one that was looking pretty good to me in the literature. Have you seen its performance in the heat yet?
Beverly didn’t earn stellar reviews for resistance on Kordes’ German site either. And she’s… Well… She’s pink.
Judith, PM is a pretty rare thing in the gulf coast. There might be a little here and there in cooler weather, but rainy days and hot nights seem to do it in. I didn’t really know what it was, except for having seen it on a china growing in part shade one winter. Then I moved to Central TX. Now I know what it is, but it still is rarely debilitating.
Philip, it’s only been up to the mid 80s F here so far. Dark Desire has been very vigorous. Probably too much vigor for a long growing season like mine, and the flowers have been shattering in about two days. As a garden plant, it is probably best suited to a cooler climate than mine. For hybridizing, I think it has enough quality traits to be useful.
Thanks. I have yet to find a consistently really great, fragrant, dark- and sultry-toned rose. This one sounded intriguing to me. I don’t spray, and a vigorous, resistant plant might be nice.
Nothing is perfect, but there is a lot of potential there. Good health, fragrance, deep color, and vigor in one plant. I plan on frequently using Dark Desire pollen on Reine des Violettes, Chrysler Imperial, and some healthy seedlings of mine that are in it’s color range. I’m sure I’ll end up with too many seeds, so you are welcome to some if you’re feeling lucky.
For those interested, my young Desmond Tutu, a red Kordes Sunbelt rose, has formed a hip on each of it’s first 8 pollinated flowers. One of which split open from the number of seeds inside. It’s still a small, young plant, but it’s probably safe to say it’s going to be a good seed producer. It has 4/4 black spot resistance. Seed germination % unknown.
Yes. Thank you Pierre.
I have been looking at the German site as well, though it requires researching the German names for the cultivars. I have more faith in Kordes than NewFlora when it comes to truth in marketing. NewFlora seems to be a little more liberal with their ratings in general.
I don’t yet own enough newer Kordes to comment on how well those ratings are reflected in my own garden, however, but I’m eyeing a number of them offered by Chamblees, and I intend on swapping out a few cultivars down the road.
It’s interesting that there are discrepancies between the ratings of Newflora and Kordes. I haven’t seen any black spot on mine, but I’ll watch for it. It does get Cercospora/Anthracnose spots with the dead bit in the center. Most of my Kordes roses do get that. I have things to cross them with that should fix that, hopefully. Tutu did win the best shrub rose in Australia trophy, so I’ll probably be happy with it as long as it turns into a shapely, fertile shrub with long lasting flowers, which it should.
I can’t speak to fertility (or anything having to do with first hand experience!) but Fiji (aka Cherry Lady) is an attractive red with purportedly great disease resistance. It, alas, has no fragrance to speak of… http://www.kordes-rosen.com/gartenrose-cherry-lady
Pierre, (or anyone else) have you worked with this one?
BTW, the discrepancies might partly be accounted for by differing strains of disease and climatic variances in the two countries. I think the best thing is to review as many ratings/reviews as possible.
Having said that, if I find a rose that might elicit a “meh” sort of reaction, but has produced a lot of winners as offspring, it probably merits consideration as a parent, IMO. Probably more so than the uber-popular roses. A lot of very famous roses have produced some good offspring, but it seems to reason that they got used a heckuva lot more than the less famous cultivars in breeding programs, so they might in fact be less promising parents from a statistical standpoint.
I sometimes wonder if we don’t focus too much on the phenotype, and not enough on the genotype of our prospective parent roses.
(Just my opinions, not backed up by adequate practical experience to make any broad generalizations, of course!)
For the last decenny I id not work with modern rose. Only species.
Growing an increasing number of Kordes vars that if not perfect deliver a new level of desease resistance I am reconsidering this and this year resumed. Put (species derived) pollen on first Cherry Lady flower just yesterday…
From my observations Kordes BS res 4/5 is at best resistant HT level. Speaking of personnal ratings. Not catalog’s…
I applaud your dedication to the species, Pierre! I should imagine now after a decade, you must have some interesting hybrids begging for a smidgen of modern genes, and some great potential parents.