I had Baby Love in Nebraska but it didnt make it through the winter which leaves me to believe that its not the most hardy rose. The one in Nebraska always seemed a little week to me. Few flowers.
I tried it again last fall. It didnt get planed till late late fall so didnt do anything.
Now, I am seeing a completely different rose that the one I saw in Nebraska. Constant flower. I love the yellow. Since it started blooming it has been going non stop.
This leads me to my current situation. I have a constant supply of Babylove pollen. Its does produce a lot of pollen. As a result, it is getting crossed with numerous roses.
Have people used it more for its pollen? How has it done as a seed parent. I have several aborted attempts already but some look promising.
I have a number of Baby Love x Applejack attempts that seem like they might make it. I also have Baby Love x Golden Glow, Baby Love x Autumn Sunset, Baby Love x Golden Unicorn and Baby Love x Abraham Darby. How does it do as a seed parent? Does it end up loosing its hips in the end? This plant had several OP on it this spring from last year so obviously it can set hips.
Any germination news? Percentage of seeds that germinate. Number of seeds per hip?
Also would not mind talking about disease resistance. I may have trouble finding out how black spot resistant it is. Its not as much of a problem here. PM is definetly a problem. Many posts have mentioned that has superior PM resistance. Have heard mention that its BS resistance isnt 100% or even not all that great in some gardens.
One reason I am crossing it with Applejack is to come up with something that has increased cold tolerance and great disease resistance. Applejack has both and I think it also has the possibility to produce yellow offspring. It would be nice to have something that could be counted on as a good source of PM resistance without having to worry about a decrease in hardiness.
Glenn Dale is about to bloom and its one I really want to use with Baby Love.
I am curious how Baby Love will affect BS resistances when crossed with a very BS resistant rose. Obviously there will be offspring that are weak at get all kinds of disease but I wonder what the BS resistance of BL x something-very-bs-resistant would be like. Would BL drag it way down in the BS catagory or just a little down or not lower the BS resistance at all.
I think it is “hardy” for a miniature, but in relative hardiness, I doubt it much hardier than your average HT like Veterans’ Honor or the such.
I made a few crosses using it as a seed parent last year with Blue Moon. Not sure what I was thinking other than the name Baby Blue sounded kind of cute. Anyway, if your BL is anything like mine, 2 seeds per hip is about normal and no luck regarding germinations. Now to be honest I probably had under 20 seeds. I can not really tell you much about hardiness, as mine spent the winter in a pot in the garage. This winter it is on its own.
It has been a struggle for me to have thrive and grow in size here in zone 4. It dies back severely. It looked best the first couple years and struggled the past few. I had to move it this year and onlyhave a small piece of it alive. It sets op hips nicely, but for me what I crossed onto it didn’t take too well. Perhaps it’s my pollen choices. I have tried to use it a lot as a pollen parent. I have a more vigorous seedling that is similar to it and more dwarf in across onto Rise 'n Shine. I’ve been using that seedling as a pollen parent mainly.
Kathy Zuzek has some good offspring of BL as a female and male. She breeds in the greenhouse and maybe that helps.
Sincerely,
David
Baby Love is a potent pollen parent and a lousy seed parent.
BL is a great pollen parent and confers excellent PM resistance. It behaves like a dominant trait. I think BS resistance seems more like a recessive trait. I used BL as a seed parent, but only 2 to 3 seeds per hip and germination rate is less than 5% - so not worth the effort for me as a seed parent.
I cannot comment on cold hardiness. I would think that it would not be bad combining with other BS resistant varieties. As you may know, ‘Home Run’ has BL and ‘Knock Out’ in its parentage.
For PM resistance in my experience, nothing has been better.
Jim Sproul
Its winter hardiness has been better than a good number of other shrubs and miniatures, in zone 4 Minnesota, anyway. It’s FAR better than any hybrid tea I’ve ever encountered. It tends to be alive above and beyond the mulch line.
I don’t protect my roses at all in the winter* (I’m in zone 6b in SE Pennsylvania). We went as low as 6 F this winter for the first time in a while (and that was after a warm January. Though my Baby Love had severe winter damage, it was better than some of my other roses, and the first time it had signficant damage. I would guess it would be a zone 5 (with protection) and a zone 4 with extreme measures (and some years you might have to be prepared to replace it).
*Note: I do plant my graft union below ground on those roses I have that are grafted.
BL ops had very poor germination, like 1 out of 50 seeds.
Thats dissapointing to hear about the small number of seends and poor germination.
I am finding that I have a more roses that make better pollen parents but poor seed parents. I am ending up with lots of pollen that I have not used. I usually find myself keeping it for several days and re-aplying. I still keep trying crosses on poor seed parents. Not because I have hope that they will work. More because I have nothing better to do with my pollen.
Perhaps that will change when I start getting more seedling of my own to work with.
I will keep using Baby Love a lot as both seed and pollen parent. It will be kind of a ‘default rose’ because mine always seems to have some pollen ready for the taking. Kind of a ‘its the only other thing blooming’ sort of thing.
I would like to see a seedling from it using Hawkeye Belle as a seed parent.