Joe, thank you for the detailed information. I am looking for at least snow level cane hardiness in zone 5 and eventually zone 4, but that is at the point of attaining good repeat bloom along with beauty and fragrance. A lot will depend (I think) on generations required to reach good repeat bloom and how well cold hardiness can be maintained through those generations. Certainly snowline hardy in zone 3 seems like a great starting point for me in my goals, provided I can work for several generations without becoming much more tender.
Any thoughts on various avenues that could be used to try and accomplish that if it takes a couple more generations to gain the repeat?
By the way, I love that fragrance (thinking Gertude Jeckyl for example, along with many old roses), although I also love Tea rose and a myriad of combinations of scents.
thanks again!
Oh yes, I gathered seed from what I believe to be Rosa woodsi this fall when camping. I also got seed from a rose I found camping up in the North Cascades that was at pretty good elevation, not sure what it was, but figured it might be pretty hardy. Anyone experience with germinating seed from Rosa Woodsi?
Duane
It is likely that your R. woodsii seed could benefit from a warm stratification period prior to the cold stratification.
If you’re in zone 5 that should make your work easier, because the once-blooming seedlings in the first generation of a species-modern cross should be able to have enough live wood to bloom. Then you cross the best of them with another rebloomer and select for juvenile bloom in that F2 generation. In theory, about one in six of the (modern x species) x modern seedlings should bloom (assuming tetraploids). If working with a diploid species, it should be easier to recover rebloom but also the species’ influence will be diluted more quickly.
To be realistic… modern x species cross made in 2020, F1’s germinate spring 2021, F1’s bloom in 2023 and the best are crossed with moderns immediately (in both directions to maximize chances of success). F2’s germinate in 2024. About 1 in 6 of them bloom that spring (juvenile bloom is a reliable predictor of remontancy) and are your first reblooming seedlings with 25% species blood. Maybe your F1’s could bloom in 2022 if you have a longer growing season.
The other option is sib/selfing the F1 for a 1 in 36 juvenile bloom in the F2 (compared to 1 in 6)
Sure the odds are low, you’ll get only approx 27 out of 1000 so would need to harvest a lot of seed but you’d be able to cull very quickly for juvenile bloom so space shouldnt be a huge issue and you’d retain more of the species which is possibly a better breeder/bridge for whatever you’re hoping to get from the species.
I’m trying some outdoor seed plots this year to plant larger quantities of OP seed from the aforementioned modern-species F1’s, planning to scout for those 27 out of 1000.
It’s something that I’m doing myself. Even though the eventual plan is to be mostly diploid there’s a lot of traits from higher ploidies that I’m hoping to move down to diploid which are often attached to once bloomers or older classes without juvenile bloom. Making triploids that are once blooming (and potentially sterile without being able to determine for years) is a space commitment that I don’t have the luxury of. So need to maintain the traits I’m looking for and acquire juvenile blooming, maintaining the traits for the most part requires not moving too far away from the source too quickly as the genes involved seem to generally be quantitative in behaviour…so a lot of sib/selfing F1 is stacking those two goals for the tiny fraction of juvenile bloom and potentially more of the once bloomers other traits than if crossing with a second modern.
The more fun one I’m working on and has unknown (but likely far worse) odds is Rubiginosa x Modern (thornless, because why not). Based on the results of someone with Canina X Spinosissima and the F1 being the expected mostly canina like in appearance but the F2 being an array of ploidies as the meiosis broke down. In theory juvenile (tetra or dip) rebloomer could be possible in the F2 without diluting the foliage scent genes too much, just may take something crazy like a million seedlings to find (hurray for 25+ seeds a hip…)…impossible odds here I come. Have already seen some odd results from Lord Penzance selfs that look mostly spin (and have the spin die back, dead wood grossness) rather than rubiginosa so that’s encouraging (to me).
I remembered a comment that seems to be appropriate here.
Rowley (1960) wrote about triploid roses.
Hip set is undoubtedly affected by environment, especially the weather at the time of anthesis. Ideal conditions may stimulate a “sterile” individual to mature seeds. Thus although Cardinal de Richelieu has never set a hip outdoors in the eight years under observation at Bayfordbury, Sam McGredy tells me it will do so occasionally under glass.
Wulff (1959) also tackled this subject, and reported an odd example.
The ancestry of Schneeschirm, an ornamental rose, is not quite clear. It blooms twice a year. The first flowering period lasts from June to August. The second begins after a short interval, and ends with the first frosts.
It is a very remarkable fact that the flowers of both periods differ in their meiotic behavior; only those produced during the first period are able to produce hips and viable achenes. Their reduction division is characterized by the occurrence of only 0-3 trivalents, with pairing to 7 bivalents and 7 univalents or 1 trivalent, 6 bivalents and 6 univalents. This reduction division proceeds rather regularly. The univalents, splitting twice, are mostly taken up into the young tetrad nuclei. Chromosome elimination is low, and so viable pollen grains and egg cells will contain 14 chromosomes.
The offspring of about 60 plants were tetraploid, each seedling having 28 chromosomes in the root tips.
And a bit further afield, I have another curiosity involving wheat. Lyubimova (1960) discussed environmentally induced variations in pollen viability and content. Fig. 5 is particularly instructive. She wrote,
We are justified in drawing a definite conclusion from the results obtained. In many hybrid forms the processes of micro- and macrosporogenesis are subject to considerable variations, depending on the conditions of the environment in which they take place. Changes of environmental conditions lead principally to modifications in pollen sterility of the hybrids. Under the same conditions no modifications in meiosis and fertility are observed in old species.
It is not difficult to imagine a variety of hypotheses to explain sterility in an excessively double flower, but why would this sterility extend to semi-double and single flowered sports. Then again, I have a report involving petunias. The original double-flowered form was seed sterile and had to be reproduced by pollinating a normal form of the species. Myrtle Francis (1915) worked the strain and produced a beautiful and odd bunch of varieties. She got the seed-fertile doubles that she wanted, along with a single-flowered specimen that was completely sterile. I don’t have a clue how that last one came about. http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/Francis_DoublePetunias/Francis_DoublePetunias.html
I don’t know if it’s the heat wave or the excessive amounts of pollen (ie 2 or 3 times a day for 5 days…seemed easier than looking for pollen that may or may not be found) but I have hip set on Crested Moss that I got this year. A lot of them seem to be phantom pregrancies (ie I can’t imagine seed being in the hips with how small they are) but others have hips as big of Gallica hips that I can’t imagine not having seed in them. Will find out in the next few weeks though when they are ready to harvest.
Helga Brauer is another rose from Crested Moss as seed parent (and took the breeder something like 20 years of attempts…but he’s in a slightly cooler zone) so Crested Moss is clearly not as sterile as thought but also not particularly willing either.
On a side note, also had hip set on Robusta this year (never previously). Stanwell Perpetual still refuses (and branches frequently die) it clearly has some issue with the environment.
I don’t recall ever seeing a hip on ‘Stanwell Perpetual’ growing in Palo Alto. I thought I’d read about its low pollen viability, but couldn’t find anything in my notes. That is one plant that might serve as barbed wire, if one had a need.
If I had lots of time and room, and a more suitable climate, I’d like to cross ‘Doorenbos Selection’ with the Portland Rose to raise a red-flowered companion for Stanwell. Or substitute “Portland from Glendora” for a more doubled version.
Because sterility was discussed about FDY I want tell you two little histories from my rose garden.
The most interesting observation I did about that was with the Pimpinellifolia hybrid ‘Stanwell Perpetual’ (one of my preferred). For a long time after planting it in my rose garden it didn’t produce any hips, but after planting close to it a wild semi-dwarf pimpinellifolia form from the “Péninsule de Quiberon”, it has produced each year a lot of hips, however each one with only one to three achenes in it. These achenes are fertile and gave me some wonderfully perfumed varieties, as ‘Paula Vapelle’ which has a lot in common with the small wild pimpinellifolia above (its perfume is the same but strongly increased by the influence of ‘Stanwell’ ; at first time in cold days, it is close to > Convallaria majalis> , and when the sunny and warmer days come it moves to orange smell). 'Paula Vapelle’is also much more fertile than ‘Stanwell Perpetual’, and like most other ones in those ‘Stanwell’'s seedlings, after a big splash in May-June it produces flowers up to the first autumn frosts. In this case, the intervention of a botanical species already involved into the parentage of the variety was perhaps helpful.
On the other hand, my friend the late Louis Lens gave me a very strange plant he called “Bizarre”. This plant is a seedling from one of his pots but with an unknown origin. The stems have a sculptural irregularly curved growth and the leaves are leathery, irregular and strong like those of some appletrees. The most special is that it produces bark up to the the pedicels and the flowers receptacles and up to the rhachis of the leaves. Its hips don’t develop perhaps only because of a physiological problem, but its pollen has proved to be fertile (one friend tried it) and two natural seedling found in its area have inherited of the “bark” character (probably an hybrid with my variety ‘Ma Basanée’ and another one with ‘Prosternation’) In this case, the varieties which produced the seedlings were of the Synstylae section.
Like some appletrees, it seems that some roses varieties need a particular pollinator.
I just mentioned Stanwell because I recalled that post above from Ivan to some extent (that he got hips and seedlings from it). I figured given it’s one of the commonly “sterile”/doesn’t set hips in similar manner to Crested Moss and Robusta (which have set hips for me this season) that it’s trigger is probably not heat related.
What I didn’t recall was that he had it next to a wild selection of the species something I may be able to test next year should my own root spinosissima decide to grow (it got to about a foot and decided to not do anything above the surface since, possible semi dormancy due to heat…stanwell also seems to dislike the heat, it’s canes often die back and new ones appear when it’s cooler).
I wish Doorenbos Selection was here, but like many things it’s not. It may be useful in one of my goals, purple flowers with black hips…step by step, will get there eventually.
I’m hoping it did well for you. I had a heck of a time trying to find a compatible parent with All A Twitter, because AAT kept on giving downy-prone seedlings. Like really bad. But then a combination clicked (a distant canina hybrid of mine) and I kept it. We’ll see if it was worth it. It’s hard to say no to bright orange roses lol. They’re so rare. I had this same problem with Coffee Bean, its parent, but that was long before I understood how to breed against downy so I have nothing to show for Coffee Bean seedlings. This problem seems to show up in several Santa Claus descendents, but not all.
I don’t seem to have downy mildew here, although I’m not sure I know what it looks like.
I still have AATYAK, now growing in a pot in the greenhouse. I love the foliage. I actually have a few seedlings of it this year, but didn’t make the effort to pollinate with it this year. We’ll see if those seedlings (using AATYAK pollen on Italian Ice and MOTH) show any positives from AATYAK.
A lot like BS. Just usually more dark purple or brown based, not as neat (any shape, very irregular where blackspot is loosely spot shaped) and leaves don’t typically yellow the same way as BS. Also tends to start on newer leaves and eventually gets to the canes, they get lesions all over them too.
Most people here, where both are common can’t tell the difference, visully both are just gross dark marks that spread.
Yeah, it has a tendency to mimic other diseases visually, depending on season and cultivar. It’s REALLY annoying to play the “Is it blackspot, anthracnose, cercospora, or downy?” game. Sometimes anth. can look like cerco. But downy becomes easier to ID once you begin to recognize it in lineages and seasonal pattern. Warm, humid/wet springs tend to bring it out most frequently here.
I quickly realized the clones of Rosa virginiana had some major limitations. Despite its virtues, breeding against downy was not one of them. The same can be said for most North American species. Most synstyle types are quite prone in breeding even if they themself do not display it. Rosa wichurana is a prime example, and this follows through even to Flower Carpet Pink seedlings. I have located a clone of Rosa californica that has been VERY resistant to downy, however. I have also not seen it on local Rosa acicularis. Although I usually see it rusting like an old car Rust is much easier to breed out than downy is, in my personal experience.
I have gone through many Canadian roses to figure out which of them are decent options for increasing hardiness, and let me tell you… most of them are not great for downy! They should test in B.C. too lol. Morden, CAN is a long way from B.C., where downy is likely more common. Canadian Nursery Landscape Association does not state where it has test gardens, but I have even found some from that program with really bad downy. Campfire, however, did not have downy here. It has other issues, but downy wasn’t one of them.
Having worked so hard to incorporate R. virginiana and R. carolina into my seedlings, I’m probably screwed in terms of creating a rose that’s healthy nationwide.
Thank you for the help in identifying downy mildew! It’s probably around, but not super prevalent. We’ve had a somewhat easy year so far for blackspot and cercospora. I’ve seen some rust, but no mildew yet this season.
Always read with interest your mild condrum as to whether your Carolina and Virginian are one in the “ sane “ or mildly distinct at the surface, not genetic level.
I can only see a difference in bloom size in mine - based on nursery label as orinal claim.
Carolina label blooms about 1/3 larger on a consistent comparative basis. Everything else looks same even if Carolina tends to grow “higher” in my garden. Two examples of each about 10 years old.
Both extremely vigorous, but semi “hardy”, though held promise in early days when 6 foot canes survived on Carolina.
That trend did not last over the last couple of winters, both in south and north gardens.
As is the norm for the GOP co-ordinates of the garden, no visible indications of acute, or chronic, or seasonal persistent or rampant disease from 10years of growing … seems this place is an Eden compared to some other spots … l should value it more for rose summer health
All qualitative observational data, or semi-empirical antidotal observational data-as a sarcastic engineering leader once said as he sacrificed a young engineer.
Photo of two roses blooms at nearly same stage of opening from examples of the “same age”. Rose with larger bloom is labelled Carolina.
Do l believe different ? Just a mild variant in the surface expression of the roses in my garden.
Do you know if Goldmarie 82 is hardy where you are? One of its kids… either Ann Hooper or You’re The One… was reported hardy in Maine. It does come from a lineage known for downy resistance.
Rust is much easier to breed out than downy is, in my personal experience.