Just wanted to provide my thoughts on this particular tea rose. I’ve had it in my yard in south carolina for over 3 years now and it’s disease resistance is not good. Plant shape, flowers, color are all gorgeous. It never sets hips and when it seems to have some, it’s always false hips with no seeds in them. That being said, I have an OP hip on my bush, it is currently changing color, all the false hips have been green up to this point. I will let yall know if I actually get seeds. All in all, I wouldn’t recommend it as a parent for either seed or pollen. It’s pollen is finicky, I was able to get some seeds after pollinating my R woodsii, but it wasn’t a lot of seeds. Everything else i have tried it’s pollen on rejects it. Love the look of this rose, just wish it was a healthier plant that was more useful in breeding.
This is the hip on my Amazone it must have set under cold conditions. I took the picture yesterday. It’s been a chilly fall and winter here in charleston.
It looks promising to me!
It’s very strange to hear that it has been so unhealthy for you, given the normally high praise it receives for disease resistance (which it should presumably have inherited from ‘Safrano’)–has your experience with it really changed that much since your 2022 HMF photo comments?
Stefan
HMF only shows one Amazone offspring and that is from its pollen. That should help direct attention in the right direction.
I have difficulty imagining that any rose would inherit any kind of disease resistance from ‘Safrano’! It was one of the sickest roses I ever attempted to grow.
Unfortunately, yes, the plant doesnt seem as good as it was when I first planted it. I compare it to spice, faith whittlesey, and cremoisi superiour which all have become massive plants that are pretty spotless with little care. Albeit cremoisi does get some powdery mildew in the spring that clears up pretty fast. Compared to these, amazone is very wimpy. It’s still just as small as it was when i first planted it, grows slowly and gets black spot pretty bad. If I feed it heavily, it seems to do ok, but I prefer to punish the plants and see how they do.
May indicate some genetic incompatibility that impedes it’s ability to uptake nutrients efficiently and fend off pathogens. My hope is that the woodsii cross will fix the nutrient issue and perhaps be interesting and more fertile. Though reports of species crossed with teas or chinas doesnt lend too much hope in the fertility department… one can dream. I’m hoping that since amazone is fairly sterile already any seedlings may be able to overcome that barrier a little better.
It might have a general problem with conditions on the West Coast, but ‘Safrano’ has very few close rivals here when it comes to disease resistance. I’ve grown multiple plants for over 15 years now (one was propagated from a plant that had been growing well since about 1980) and the only trouble I’ve had with it is Rose Rosette Disease.
Why would you keep trying to use a lousy rose in your breeding?
I breed with it just because I can and I am an amateur! There isn’t really a track record for whether or not the seedlings from amazone tend to increase or decrease health. Because we don’t know one of the parents of amazone, it could just be that the cross was wide and maybe the non-safrano parent has good things to offer in a seedling. I do like the longevity and fullness of the flower, it’s thornless, has redish canes, and is a good shrub size; it has some desirable traits.
In all reality, I used it with woodsii because I was shot gunning it with any chinas and teas I had, just to see if anything would take. I haven’t tried it with anything else. I’ll probably try to grow any amazone seeds if the hip has any just because I don’t have a ton of seedlings right now and I have space to try. Descendants could be crappy, maybe not! They may not even germinate! I’m in it for the fun and adventure 
I like that you are also a fan of red canes. Have you contemplated ‘Isabella Sprunt’?, it has very striking marron canes in many pics, and similar blooms to ‘Amazone’. There’s also ‘Solfatarre’, just in case you may want to venture into alternative sources of babies with that look. 
‘Isabella Sprunt’ is a direct sport of ‘Safrano’, but ‘Solfaterre’ is completely unrelated, although it’s parent, ‘Lamarque’ was quite spotty for me personally. But I know it’s a great rose for many others.
As a disclaimer I have not grown any of the 2 suggestions I give here, they’re only based on similar looks alone.
Happy Holidays!