Robert, yes we are back from India. It was a great trip, but I like being home! The roses made it fine except that I should have sprayed for spider mites in the greenhouse before I left. They were just beginning to show then, now they are all over the greenhouse! I will be spraying tomorrow.
I had hoped to see roses there, but we were on the tropical south eastern coast, very hot and humid - I was told that roses didn’t grow there - they would just die whenever you planted them…
Jim Sproul
Thanks for the info Henry. To be honest I don’t like ordering roses from Canada as most are budded on multiflora. Multiflora is a poor doer in my climate. We actually consider it a dwarfing rootstock and it suffers from chlorosis here.
Some of the yellows both you and Jadae mention seem only available out of Canada. I have to consider whether it is worthwhile to pursue these till I can get them own-root or budded onto something more desireable for my uses.
Jim, have you tried Spinosad yet? It’s a new biological for spider mites that is purportedly very effective according to Kim Rupert. I refuse to use anything even slightly carcinogenic or mutagenic but I would consider a biological.
We have mite problems here as a matter of course due to our very dry climate. I don’t think I will consider for my own use yet as it also kills predatory mites but it might be a less toxic choice for those who already spray routinely. Welcome home. Thanks, Robert
I was thinking about your issue today. I got a pretty seedling from Daybreaker x Josie Whitley. It is golden edged salmon. Perhaps you could try Daybreaker x Baby Love. Im betting that it would be a good way to get a propriety yellow seed parent. Livin Easy x Baby Love may work well, too.
Good suggestions Jadae. Thank you.
I just thought of 3 more.
Honey Perfume and Honey Bouquet are sister seedlings. They are Amber Queen x … the same rose used to make Midas Touch…I forgot the name. It was some yellow shrub in a foreign name. Anyways, their parentage is mainly yellow. HB is more yellow than HP.
Whisper produces a lot of yellow. For example, Whisper x Freedom produced a dark butter gold. Whisper x Veterans’ Honor produced a peach (like Apricot Nectar).
Some more food for though for you. I may get Honey Bouquet now thanks to you =P It might be a decent yellow addition being that a lot of yellows are subpar.
I have Honey Bouquet. It mildews here.
Really? Good to know. Thanks.
Yep, we had a bad mildew season out here this Spring. I was surprised too. Otherwise it’s a great rose.
Jim, let us know how Julia Child offspring turn out. I had heard some good things about JC, but don’t recall if what I heard involved any actual offspring, or was speculative.
Wondering if anyone knows if Ty prodcess good pollen or sets hips. It seems a very rich color of yellow.
Robert, Im gonna order Toprose for 2007. It is related to Solitaire. I’ll try to remember and report how well it works as a parent. I am betting that it does really well here.
Too bad Sunbright is such a crappy plant (with nice flowers). What I like about it is that even the reproductive parts are bright yellow. Supposedly this is a good sign because it is likely repressing red while not repressing all other colors, too. It sets seed, though. I feel that Henry Fonda is probably a descendant of it due to various plant characteristics.
Thanks for this insight Jadae. I am reticent to use roses that don’t have a posted lineage, not that it totally prevents me from using them, especially if I like what they produce.
I finally got ‘Cal Poly’ yesterday. A rose friend asked if I’d like to have it and since it’s my Alma Mater, what the heck!
I remember Ralph Moore asking me what I thought about it as a seedling. Gosh, that’s getting close to 20 years ago. Mr. Moore and I discussed schooling a lot.
You’ll note he also named a rose for 'Westmont’College before I was born in 1958. You’ll find it in many lineages.
I was just about to ask about folk’s experiences with Cal Poly. I did a HMF search under disease-resistant deep yellows and it came up. Cal Poly was one I had heard good stuff about a few years back, and I think Sequoia still calls it the best advance in minis to date… I gather that for a yellow mini, it has relatively decent cold hardiness too.
I assume it is quite fertile. It was another, Robert, that I had wondered about crossing with Banksia lines.
In most of its listed descendants it served as the seed parent, I believe.
I hope it gives you some good stuff!
-P
I believe this is is because it is a close deescentant of Allgold. Le Grice sure knew what he was doing when it came to colors.
The specimen of ‘Cal Poly’ I received is covered in OP hips. I’m going to sow them unchilled as an experiment.
I had the opportunity to visit Ralph Moore this past spring and asked if he had any advice for a novice rose breeder. When it came to seed parents his advice was Cal Poly, Sheri Anne and Golden Gardens. Unfortunately my attempts to find SA and GG in Canada have failed, but I tracked down Cal Poly this spring and have made quite a few crosses with it. It has accepted pollen from William Baffin, Home Run, Morden Sunrise, and John Cabot. My 2 Cal Polys have stayed relatively free of black spot until late July or early August. All the other minis with the exception of Baby Love were nailed by it in late June. So it is by no means disease free, but looks to have some tolerance. The hips are fairly good size compared to the other minis. I’m hoping that this means more seeds, we’ll see. I do remember seeing something about Cal Poly in one of the recent newsletters cautioning about having too many hips on it resulting in abortion of hips.
Liz
Thanks Liz, to be honest I’m not trying to breed minis. I realize they bring some good things to the table but I prefer to breed large flowered roses. I’m trying to keep just a handful of minis. They seem to breed like rabbits.
Hi Robert, like you I’m not all that interested in minis, although if a mini-flora pops out I would hang onto it. My interest in good mini seed parents comes from something George Mander posted somewhere regarding making sure your hips mature for those of us that are stuck up here in the great white north without greenhouses. George mentioned that he switched to using minis as females because he could move them indoors in the fall for the hips to mature. I’m also hoping that the mini stature helps “tame” some of my explorer roses that are rather LARGE.
Liz
Hi Liz, yes, minis have much to offer. I totally agree.
One of the things I’m encountering currently is a tendency for my banksia hybrids to have smaller blossoms than I would prefer.
Considering banksia blossoms are tiny to begin with, I suppose this tendency should come as no surprise. Still I’d like to be conscious when selecting parents to select those that can also impart larger blossom size as one of my breeding criteria.