Has anyone tried Belle de Crecy aka Meteor in any crosses? If so what were your results? It had good hardiness this past winter, more than my other Gallicas and I might try a few crosses with it this summer.
I did a cross of Belle de Crecy x Red Flower Carpet quite a few years back. Only one of a small number of seedlings was somewhat winter hardy & healthy; less mildew than B de C and kept most of its canes over the worst winters. This plant is only semi-double. A very full sister seedling has absolutely no scent & is not cane hardy, so it rarely flowers. One second generation seedling (non-recurrent) is cane hardy. Another recurrent 2nd generation only keeps some of the cane.
Some flowers of B de C also produce pollen, but you have to pull back the petaloids to get at it. If you’re using it as a female, the task is easier because the stamens are covered & the pistil becomes sticky after the flower has been open for a bit. The seeds germinate easily. I find that my hardy first generation cross is more fragrant than the mother & the scent carries on the air. I think it’s well worth using.
My Cdn zone is about equivalent to yours, but snow cover is not dependable. B. de C also does well in the colder Georgian Bay area of Ontario, but there the snow cover is dependable.
Thanks Lydia,
Our snow cover isn
Hi Paul,
I find Belle de Crecy to be a very fertile parent with seeds that germinate easily. As Lydia mentions above, the pistils are sticky when the flower has aged a bit. It certainly mildews depending on the season.
I have several seedlings of BdC x Morden Sunrise. I have not had a chance to accurately evaluate their hardiness and disease resistance, but hopefully it will happen at some point.
Belle de Crecy does well in areas with reliable snow cover.
Thanks Dee,
That’s encouraging to hear it is very female fertile. Being it’s mildew prone means I’ll have to chose the pollen parent wisely. I’m already planning this year’s crosses even though I won’t be making them for two months.
I can tell that there was better snow cover this past winter as most of my roses have faired better than they have in the past.
Hi Paul
I wouldn’t say B de C is very mildew prone, but it happens occasionally depending on conditions in a particular year. Blackspot is more of a problem here. I don’t spray or protect in any way. I got rid of any diseased seedlings very quickly & anything that stayed was very healthy & completely free of blackspot, mildew or rust. More problematic than disease is the proclivity to produce large plants that are both cane tender & non-recurrent, or tall plants that sucker too much. Bear in mind that the pollen parent was a small shrub that dies to the ground. My original fragrant plant doesn’t sucker, acts like a climber. & it’s offspring are non-suckering. By the second generation there may be no apparent gallica traits. On the other hand, this might be your chance to produce healthy hybrid perpetuals. I think B de C is sufficiently fertile that you could afford to discard a fair portion of seedlings early on & still get something healthy & pretty to work with. There’s also a possibility of getting something hardier & healthier than Austin’s hybrids. I also have Chianti, which I love, in my garden, but it is cane tender here so doesn’t produce blooms every year & its also disease prone. My B de C hybrid is hardier & healthier & it came from a very small number of seeds, so I think B de C can do very well for you, the laws of chance permitting.
I think there may be gallica background in some of the explorers. I have an op seedling from an unnamed explorer that has a distinctive gallica scent.
Hi Lydia,
That
Paul
That sounds like a great combination. I think Belle de Crecy has great potential for use with roses of mixed ancestry as well as with other, healthy OGRs.
I’m getting picture cannot be displayed on preview, but I’ll post it anyway to see what happens.
Link: s984.photobucket.com/albums/ae329/OntRose/?action=view¤t=DSCN0139.jpg
Wow, that’s fascinating Lydia.
Very pretty, I like it.
Thanks guys.