Last year and this year all my crosses with ‘Betty Prior’ has aborted, with on exception of one pollination with ‘Queen Elizabeth’. I have never seen hips on the plant, and the pollen isn’t good. I need to know if anyone has had similar results because I’m getting fraustrated with her.
Enrique
I have also never had success with her as a parent. The plant is so dependable that I keep it as a plant. It has a place of honor at the corner of my lot.
There is one offspring of Betty listed in MR XI:
‘Chatter’ - World’s Fair X Betty Prior.
I did not look at who the hybridizer of Chatter was so this is not to be taken as applying to him/her; but at an ARS banquet, a famous hybridizer (who was well lubricated with liquid refreshment) told me that often a hybridizer will “guess” as to who the parents were, often the choice was influenced by which roses were “hot” at that time. For example, some (many?) of the roses that stated that Peace was one of the parents (in the 50s) may not actually have Peace in their parentage.
Thanks for the info. If what Mr. Henry Kuska has told us is true, I’ll will be eyeing on that pollination of Betty Prior on Queen Elizabeth real close. The hip isn’t swelling now, hopefully it won’t abort. This rose I think I will keep because it is beautiful in its own right. Thanks,
Enrique
I have gotten a germination of an open pollinated Betty Prior seed. I had 12 seeds I had picked from a park with mass plantings of Betty Prior in the background of other roses.
I feel happy-- this was a rose that’s hard to break. I hope that it will do good this OP seedling.
I have noticed that Pillow Fight doesn’t set OP hips but when I found three, I noticed that the one resulting seedling was especially disease resistant. (It may have Lynnie as a parent-- the leaves and reddish growth makes me suspect it.)
I hope that a decrease of fertility means an increase of health.
Betty Prior is rose that makes me think of the country side. But tempremental. It didn’t like my garden but man, it’s doing very well in others.