Blue For You

General Discussion
21

Kim, BFY was one that didn’t take for me, and one that I was really intrigued about. :frowning:

I may have to try again at a later time. As I say, it reminds me a lot more of a double Eustoma grandiflorum (lisianthus) cultivar Eustoma grandiflorum Rosina Lavender | Yutaka Shirakawa | Flickr than a rose.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by the pink seedlings given the pedigree. I was actually wondering where the blue came from when looking up BFY’s pedigree earlier this week. (Unless the Natural Beauty ascribed to it is actually the one from Scrivens?)

What, in a plant’s genotype, forms the color blue (err… mauve)? There are some species that seem to play into the pedigrees of several of the mauve roses, but I haven’t really noted a consistent source. I had thought that foliar color might give an indication as to whether flowers might have cooler colors, but I’m wrong on that. (Mr. Bluebird’s foliage is practically chartreuse next to other roses in my garden.) Having said that, R. californica has a rather silvery-blue look to its foliage (though not quite as silver as my recollection of R. fedtschenkoana) and my R. setigera serena has a cooler colored foliage, and I believe both of those are in the pedigrees of some good blue-violet roses…

(I should say that Mr. Bluebird’s first bloom wasn’t really much more mauve than, say, Pink Pet, but the chartreusey foliage sure made it look bluer, and that could be soil ammendment issues too.)

I have many pinks which veer towards a mauve tone which I assume would be good candidates to cross…

I know I’ve heard that a clear yellow can clean a pink to create a mauve, and for whatever reason, I tend to assume a cooler yellow such as "St. Patrick would be a good one to use. Any thoughts on S.P.?

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Where St. Patrick thrives, it is good. It is cold-sensitive to winters and it sulks in overcast weather. When it is hot, the plant grows well and the blooms open well. It gets a lot of these nasty traits from Brandy. Marilyn Monrose was bred from St. Patrick, and it does better in more diverse climates. However, it is really thorny. Aperitif is a lot healthier and similar in color pattern (bright color tho) to St. Patrick. I never got anything from it as a pollen parent tho. Summer Love is a decent, well-rounded HT. It is nothing special, but it doesnt have any glaring faults. Limelight is also similar to St. Patrick, but it is easier to grow.

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I saw that one before and got a good laugh from it. :slight_smile:

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Imagine being one of a group in a huge old yellow Chevy station wagon being aimed by a “little old man” in his nineties! LOL! Macular degeneration, nearly profoundly deaf, preoccupied with his traditional lunch at “Ryan’s” where he’d eaten for decades. Then, imagine not being able to tell anyone else in the car why you’re laughing your fool head off until later. Carolyn forced it out of me and punched me for it!

I don’t know much about St. Patrick, Philip, as I have never given it much attention. Limelight was tremendous at the beach. Your description of Mr. Bluebird indicates it’s terribly chlorotic. Acidify the soil and it will green up and get nicely purple. In this case, pure China is as sensitive to alkalinity as multiflora.

25

Ohh… now I know what I like about BFY, it must be that color, when it gets right!.

I think the patent sates it may fade to a slate blue, whatever that is!

One of its many shades of mauve that it shows when the gods shine on it is a complete diversion away from the pink tones to become some sort of grey+ a hint of “light violet” combo…I can’t describe it better (it looks like in Kim’s fantastic shots in his intro to this thread…if only it always kept that color!).

Combining BFY with a yellow like St Patrick is something I also have thought to do as well…how funny is that!!! (actually, I have no clue why that combo came to me, must have to do with my St Pat obsession to combine it with most any rose!!!)…anyways I have not done a BFY x St Pat cross yet (dunno if I actually ever will).

I also own a small specimen of BFY which I purchased bare rooted about 10 months ago. I bought it from these folks, it was T-budded.

For severe lack of “garden space” in this house I rent, I temporarily planted it in a big pot untill I decided on when to plonk it in dirt literally in-between concrete slabs in the back yard…that was done a few days ago, after it had been living in the pot for ten months. I figured growing a row of beans in that same spot in the garden was more important during the “growing season” which has just passed us!

Yes, you guessed it, by 10 months of it sitting in the pot, it looked like some sad panda (stunted height, little flower repeat), but it surprisingly had kept a lot of healthy green leaves (not too much BS) something I do like about it here in “BS hell”.

During the pot-to-ground transfer of it, I chopped a good 25% off the bottom layer of its root ball to accommodate it into the rather shallow hole I had made (the dirt was hard and a bit on the clay side and I had a spade without a handle, so I was not going to bust my arms making a bigger hole).

I am pretty sure it will just thumb its nose and become a monster in a few months time, given this warm/hot climate I live in.

Knowing me, I’ll prolly just kill it anyways, in time!

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Perhaps St. Patrick might make something interesting with it, George. You probably have a better chance of success than with anything I’ve boinked it with. In addition to the BFY X Clinobract seeds, which I couldn’t check to see if germinated today due to the inch-plus rain we had in about six hours, I’ve already hit it with 86-3, Lutescens, 1-72-1Hugonis, Fedtschenkoana, Hugonis and DLFED 3.

27

Kim,

You are using very unusual “rose-dads”, certainly not much “stirring of the old pot” going on there, to be sure!!

Good luck!

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Yeahhh… ummm…90% pinks, maybe?

Maybe a russet / tan, if the gods shine on the day a cross is done?

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Definitely pinks! LOL! Pink IS the “default”, isn’t it? Thanks, I’m trying to use weird “dads” as often as possible. I’m really hoping for something special from the 86-3 cross and on Maytime. Dr. Lammerts proclaimed Maytime “immune to powdery mildew”. Perhaps, by crossing it by a Banksiae hybrid, the seedlings may at least RESIST mildew? Can you imagine anything approaching BFY on Fedtschenkoana foliage? Wow!

30

Don’t be surprised if you do get a whole bunch of hips out of those sorts of “high risk crosses” using BFY as the “bridging mom” rose.

Errr…take another look at the number and size of them orange OP hips it makes freely, further up here.

I would not be surprised if it thumbed its nose at outlandish rose genes thrown at it in breeding, and weird ploidies, and set hips anyways (just my non-evidence-based hunch!).

:O)