From Mathew’s Roses, I see some decent possibilities and some to probably stray away from.
I generally avoid Sweet Dream, Flower Power and Top Marks. Theyre blackspot traps. Also, they dont seem to reproductive friendly from what I have seen. The related Dusky Dancer is not even a miniature!
Wanaka is something I would try if I could buy it here. It is from Anytime and Trumpeter. Trumpeter’s unknown half is supposedly Maxi, a kordesii and coryana derivitive. I would choose it over Kaikoura, which is bred from Mantangi. Mantangi relations are generally blackspot prone.
Dinky Pinky looks great. It looks to be bred from a good line of the better miniatures from the UK area.
At any rate, I hope that helps maybe give more ideas. I do not specifically forsee any of these two roses being problematic in a miniature breeding program.
Southern Roses has Dorola, which is an older yellow with great color retention. I think it would be worth the gamble to try to breed with it due to the color intensity.
My Sister would be a good way to get true mauve into miniature down there if it is crossed with something like, for example, Royal Amethyst, Rhapsody in Blue or Dignity.
So, I guess my ultimate point is that if youre creative then I think you can make up for the lack of miniature resources there. If anything, you also have resources of roses not found here. The other thing I noticed while browsing sources for that area is that a lot of things are bred from Sexy Rexy. Sexy Rexy seems to have a polarizing effect on roses in most of its descendants (Singin in the Rain is the only one that seems to be excluded here). Sexy Rexy seems to breed mildew resistance and an extreme pronesness to blackspot. Both are still huge issues in miniatures. Go figure.
Oh, by the way, if I lived down there, I think I would try Playboy x Wanaka. But I’m into roses that require sunglasses, lol. I have Playgold here, which is similar in idea. I love it – no blackspot 
Thanks for your spin Jadae.
I might be able to source budwood for Party Girl, lets see…
\
Also, Southern Roses is New Zealand based, I can’t order from New Zealand.
Oh, really? =( That’s lame 
Hi Jadae,
I also love firey colors like you do.
Anyway, as you say Jadae, there are plenty of mini roses to muck around with here in Aus.
One of my major obstacles is not so much finding some mini roses, but actually finding ones that can take the blackspot pressure in my climate. All the 3 minis I have recently acquired (see above) have been badly blackspotting for me already, and we have barely finished spring. Almost enough to strike them off the list of useful moms in this climate…too bad, as you would say!
We in the Portland metro also have a nasty blackspot climate. I often suggest against using minis in the landscape. There are some, though, that do just fine. The best so far have been minis like Playgold, Rose Gilardi and Scarlet Moss. Playboy and kordesii roses seem to mix well with minis, as some hybridizers have shown.
As some miniature hybridizers have done, you could try using a larger rose as the female parent.
True enough Jadae…
I was hoping to use the minis as moms due to space considerations, but if this means blackspot-compromised plants, I better discard them, and start all over again,(which I plan on doing now).
Now, I have no idea which minis do well here in terms of disease resistance, I am just going to keep looking till I find one that is clean, and use it as a pollen parent if it is not known to be a good mom. This is probably a better approach I guess if I want to use minis in a line of breeding.
Can pollen be sent there from USA?
I don’t know for this country…maybe Simon has looked into this, Simon?
Nope pollen can’t… but seed usually can.
George, for brighter colors, I have used ‘Hot Tamale’, but I suspect that it may get too much blackspot in your climate. I have a seedling of it crossed with ‘Roller Coaster’ that lacks stripes, but blooms like crazy and has great color - it seems cleaner than ‘Hot Tamale’. It sets too many hips, however.
Would be happy to send you seeds of it if I were instructed on how to do it!
Jim Sproul
Hi Jim.
Australian Quarantine have asked me to give the botanical name of the seed. I gave them the following name, I hope it is correct:
Rosa hybrida(JACpoy) X Rosa hybrida(MACminmo).
Anyway, your thought is very kind whatever the outcome, cheers!
I hate to say this, George, but 98% of the miniatures I have ever grown can not be grown to any degree of cultural satisfaction without fungicides to control disease. (I currently archive about 450 unique miniature varieties, so I have tested many for Blackspot resistance) My very cleanest varieties have been Playgold, Rose Gilardi, Apricot Twist, Magic Wand and Cal Poly.
I’m certain that if you approached the right people, you could find someone who is willing to jump through the right hoops to export live plants to you. It can be done.
Paul
Hi Paul!
I hear what you say about importing live plants into this country. I advised Jadae earlier on in this thread that I could not order from New Zealand… to qualify this, I meant without quarantine importation procedures, which I imagine are a big turn-off. Still, I might enquire about this also? It would be a lot of fun to have such great plants to play with, to be sure!
The statistics are worse than I had guessed regarding fungus affliction rates in miniatures. I personally ceased using sprays on roses many years ago.
Thank you for the list you offered of your cleaner minis. This is very very valuable information.
"I hate to say this, George, but 98% of the miniatures I have ever grown can not be grown to any degree of cultural satisfaction without fungicides to control disease. "
I think this is my main point of contention with most minis (or roses for that matter). I did a load of crosses this morning with ‘Figurine’ & ‘Orange Honey’ x Rosa longicuspis to see if that works towards resolving this issue.
Paul, how does ‘Sweet Chariot’ grow for you? It’s beginning to defoliate here, which is a PITB as I was hoping to use it later.
Going to put a nice unknown gallica I have here onto ‘Benerdella’s Pearl’ today too (if I can dry the pollen enough after the storms we’ve had).
Hmmm… ‘Benerdella’s Pearl’ → ‘Benardella’s Pearl’…
One thing I was thinking about, George, was not to restrict yourself to minis as the seed parent if your intention is to breed minis. In a previous correspondance with David Zlesak, he said that miniature stature was (usually), a dominant trait so theoretically you could use mini pollen on standard sized roses and obtain miniatures as well (carrying standard sized genes - I’m referring to this post back in 2007: http://rosehybridizers.org/forum/message.php?topid=12857#12857). I have found this to be true as well though many minis also carry standard size genes and so will throw full size roses even when crossed mini-to-mini… I was checking my seedlings this morning and noticed that some lovely wrinkled mini rugosa-like foliage was appearing on my ‘Scabrosa’ x ‘Gold Coin’ and ‘Scabrosa’ x ‘Magic Carrousel’ (the later is particularly healthy and strong though there are two of teh former cross that stand out too). ‘Scabrosa’ x ‘Black Jade’ has also produced some mini seedlings with rugose foliage too though most a very weak… only one (see pic) stands out as being strong enough to warrant keeping on a little longer. No flowers yet (as expected) but nice leaves so far. Crossing out to standard sized roses and wichurana is probably going to be the way to go to improve minis here I reckon.
Hi Simon.
I have space considerations, hence the derise to have mini moms, and get whatever comes out of them when crossed with mini, species and everything else put on them.
BUT…then I realised the mini moms I had purchased were not clean enough for me. So now I have abandoned these early crosses, got rid of the plants (as I have little space for too many of them), and I am keeping an eye out for one or two minis that catch my eye in terms of clean foliage. This may take the whole season or longer, given Paul Barden’s very valuable statistics/observations.
That pretty much summarises the journey I have taken since I started all of this rose breeding thinking in earnest about 6 months ago. I am still very much in the early path of this journey, but it is a fascinating one.
Lots of fun!
By the way, I am really very interested in the rugosa/mini crosses you have done. It will be very interesting to see what traits come through in any of the hybrids, and how these hybrids evolve as plants.
Simon, is ‘Sweet Chariot’ defoliating from blackspot, or any other reason, in your area? How bad is the problem? I was thinking about using it, however now I am worried it may not be a good idea to use after all…
Hi Jim.
Thanks again for the offer of the seed, but I have to decline, read on to see why…
To summarise what was explained to me, quarantine officers are required to identify the complete species derivation of the seed. If it is hybrid seed (as in your case), such seed can be deemed permissible for entry only if all the species mixed in its lineage are themselves each a permissible species.
Marking your hybrid seed as ‘Rosa Hybrida’ along with the code names of both parents, was insufficent information for them. The parentage of ‘Hot Tamale’ is not known, and likely will create some problem with accurate identification of the species that ultimately make up this hybrid. This is the sort of information they are expecting.
Another example is where a hybrid rose seed is known to be derived from say three allowable species, and one other species which is not on the ‘allowed’ list…such a hybrid is then deemed a prohibited hybrid.
Here is a link with a table near the top showing currently allowable species.
Link: www.aqis.gov.au/icon32/asp/ex_casecontent.asp?intNodeId=8609179&intCommodityId=25375&Types=none&WhichQuery=Go+to+full+text&intSearch=1&LogSessionID=0