[attachment=1]Gemini x rosa wichurana 2014 073.jpg[/attachment][attachment=2]Rosa Wichurana x Dorola 2014 121.jpg[/attachment]
My Dorola x thornless wich has finally bloomed. It opens a bright yellow but fades fast. So far I have only had very pale yellow wiches. The Rosa wich x Pink Drift has almost finished blooming–way to fast, but if the amount of flowers on the first bloom has any relation to total amount of bloom potential, this will be an amazing bloomer. It had approx. 180 blooms, many of which look like they will produce hips. This one is totally thornfree and I think I have made a couple of successful crosses of it with (Cafe Ole x Basyes Legacy) which should prove interesting (I hope). And then another repost of the Gemini x rosa wich, which is very low thorned, and had quite a few gorgeous 3" flowers also first bloom. I never seem to get these in the right order, so the yellow wich is at the end, etc.
Very nice, Jackie! Congratulations! It seems Wichurana is quite adept at bleaching out flower pigments.
I think there must be a little more than just that they are adept at bleaching out pigments. Specifically it seems to be in the yellow range because the Gemini phototropic pigmentation was pretty strongly present. What is really dominant is the “I just want to creep into whatever” -ness of those tentacles called branches.
These are beautiful!! What a great idea to develop some new lines out of R. wichurana!! It seems to be such an important parent for contributing health and those beautiful glossy leaves.
I am only using the thornless wichurana which does have health, vigor, and floriferousness going for it. The thornless trait is not exactly dominant but hopefully if paired with the Basyes’ Legacy which does have a degree of thornless dominance, a healthy vigorous thornless line with glossy leaves can be attained. And if they are primarily shrubby groundcovers, so much the better.
You know Dr. Basye wrote if he were doing it all over, he would have included the Wichurana in the mix with the Legacy line. So, there is, at least, a theoretical basis for your idea. It’s one of the thoughts behind my crosses between Wichurana based minis and the Legacy varieties.
Kim,
What kind of progress have you made with the mini/wich/legacy mixes and have you any/many rebloomers. I think this is a natural from a health point of view, and also should be achievable from the thornless side. Most of my crosses are still on the first generation but I have a few seedlings (no bloom yet) this yr. I am thinking that the non-remontant gene is working here.
Hi Jackie, direct mini X Legacy crosses are usually fraught with rust and extremely soft petals. I’m having much more success using Lynnie and Indian Love Call with minis and other healthy larger roses. Disease resistance, heavy bloom, petal substance and lack of prickles have been quite good. There are quite nice results from Pretty Lady X Lynnie; April Mooncrest X Lynnie; April Mooncrest X Indian Love Call; Cal Poly X Lynnie to name a few. The Cal Poly X Indian Love Call seedling has remained healthy and prickle free with much better petal substance than many. Breaking out of the medium pink tones is also a hurdle, but it’s occurring.
