Going back to look at the remaining Bonica OP seedlings I noticed that 2 have blue/grey colored leaves…a very noticeable color change from all the other seedlings. I’ll have to repot these and get them outside to see how the leaf color does in the sun.
Hi Neil,
Only a few cultivars retain that foliage pattern when the leaves mature. My hope is that this leaf pattern on Bonica seedlings implies anything other than white or pink, lol. Two of the seedlings are bolting straight up without a bud, which likely implies theyre Boncia x (Rosa canina x whatever)
anything other than pink or white would be great.
My ‘Bonica’ x ‘Immensee’ is a mildew nightmare. ‘Bonica’ x ‘Mutabilis’ was a mildew nightmare. All my (200+) OP ‘Bonica’ were also mildew nightmares. ‘Bonica’ x ‘Lorraine Lee’ didn’t germinate. I would still like to put some tetraploid species over it to see what happens… esp. glauca. Going to use it as a pollen parent on ‘Dupontii’ next season. Maybe running it through ‘Baby Love’ or ‘Brindabella Bouquet’ would clean up the mildew issues.
Michael, I have dibs on naming a seedling 'What Eva!" 
“I have dibs on naming a seedling 'What Eva!” "
Simon that would make an awsome name to a weird cross.
A few years ago I crossed Moulin Rouge X Bonica, the offspring were Moulin Rouge’s red colouring and cupped bloom form. I then crossed it with Chrysler Imperial as to pull the the bud and bloom form up, As you can see, the red colour of Moulin Rouge is quite dominant even in this F2 cross of it. The white mottling on the leaves is not PM but dust from a nearby wheat field being ploughed and then dampened off from a rain drizzle. This little rose is around 2 1/2 ft high, with an awesome repeat and gets covered in bloom.
[attachment 615 21E12F.jpg]
Warren,
Lovely as always. Thanks,
Jim P
Great color and bloom form Warren.
Ooh. Warren, please tell me it inherited some fragrance as well! (Unfortunately, I would imagine that if it has fragrance, it is also a little disease-prone. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the three qualities of deep red, fragrance, and high BS resistance in one plant.)
Phil it only has a mild perfume, but health wise its very very good.
Hi Simon,
I think that you’re right, ‘Baby Love’ would work well to get rid of pm. It has been amazing for pm resistance in my breeding stock. I only wish that it’s black spot resistance held up and that it had good downy mildew resistance. The last couple of years, I have been pulling more of Bill Radler’s genetics into my seedlings for bs and using ‘First Impression’ for dm.
Hi Warren,
A very beautiful seedling! I wish I could see it in person!
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On that note, something like Teeny Bopper might be useful to exempt mildew and bring out the colors of Picasso.
Jim what we need is 3 dimensional photography similar to what the use in MRI and CT Scan. It looks like this to the eye Jim.
My first impression of my OP Baby Love seedling (Plant Search) was wow! Then that changed to the point where I’m probably going to discard it. It doesn’t have a problem with black spot or mildew but it gets smashed with downy and then it takes forever to recover and never seems to achieve the same degree of lushness that it originally had. The first year I had it I dosed it with Fongarid, a systemic fungicide, to kill off the downy mildew and that did the trick… but I don’t want to have to do that all the time. I’ve used it in crosses and it has almost no pollen fertility (it doesn’t release any - I had to dry it and crush anthers in a mortar and pestle to get anything useable) and only limited seed fertility. I think this seedling, which I had high hopes for, will also be a dead end. I’ll send it further north where it is much warmer and see how it goes there as I think it may relish the warmer weather.
Interestingly, a rose releseased here as ‘Brindabella Bouquet’, which has ‘Baby Love’ as a pollen parent, has proven to be very resistant to pretty much everything including downy mildew. It has its flaws; it’s flowers, for example, do not open fully for me in cooler Tasmania until the weather warms up. Prior to that they basically just ball and go brown. On the whole though it barely has any signs of disease. I also bought Rosa davidii var. elongata in the hope of playing with it a little to make roses similar to ‘Baby Love’ but was quite amazed at how poorly it did in terms of disease resistance. It behaved exactly like my ‘Test Tube Baby Love’… no prizes for working out where BL’s issues come from!
I think if Bonica is to be explored more, to avoid mildew issues which plague it, I think I would be trying a few different things like:
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going back to sempervirens to increase the species compliment more before going forward… the great genes Paul speaks of undoubtedly come from sempervirens and it might be useful to consider Bonica as a near species hybrid instead of a floribunda and that it doesn’t represent a ‘finished product’.
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trying it with ‘Brindabella Bouquet’ or ‘Baby Love’ to introduce mildew resistance.
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Bonica itself is a terrible plant here. It routinely drops its leaves and puts so much energy into its first flush that it seems to die in the bum for the rest of the season. If I was to use Bonica again, I would maybe try to drop the flower production down a little or add something with stronger roots that is more able to feed the demand for resources (strong roots = strong shoots).
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Run it through some of the newer Kordes shrub roses that have incredible growth and disease resistance properties in my area. For example two roses released recently here in Australia called ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Summer Memories’ have been outstanding. ‘Purple Rain’ works well as a pollen parent but does not form hips and ‘Summer Memories’ doesn’t seem to want to release its pollen or form hips yet (maybe it’s a maturity issue). Both are exactly the kind of thing I think we need more of. Actually, thinking of it now, ‘Bonica’ x ‘Purple’ rain would be an awesome cross, however, I’m not going to try it until I’ve had a chance to try and strike ‘Purple Rain’ cuttings to see how well it grows own-root. Given its ‘Bassino’ background (which surprised me given how healthy PR is) it should do just fine on its own roots.
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Run it through some of Jim’s Hulthemia hybrids. Quite honestly, I have never seen roots as strong as I have seen on the seedlings from the seed I received from Jim of his K206 seedling. Again, strong roots = strong roots (and ‘Baby Love’ and other excellent roses already feature strongly in their pedigree… the is MUCH more to Jim’s hybrids than just a blotch). I think we underestimate the importance of strong roots in contributing a significant amount to the overall disease resistance of a rose. Disease is ALWAYS less of an issue where there is a strong life support system underneath it.
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Run it through some of the wichurana based polys. A local Australian breeder has made an excellent hybrid by bringing ‘The Fairy’ and ‘Bonica’ together.
Interesting points, Simon. And your point about strong life support/root is well taken.
I suppose that the house of Meilland has crossed Bonica with any and all of their “drift” (Meideland) roses, Rose Search many of which feature very healthy doses of The Fairy and Wichurana in them. Of course these also demonstrates the stong propensity of those Wich. lines to wash-out colors other than pink and white, and so might not mix up the Bonica pot too much.
The ‘Rote Max Graf’ lines in some of the Drift roses seems to override the usual pale pink. I wonder what RMG and Bonica might offer together? (RMG is a once-bloomer, and all the Drift roses descended from it are F2’s, so I assume RMG does not yield rebloomers in the F1. I’ve never grown RMG, but would ploidy of a Kordesii theoretically be tetraploid?)
I also enjoy the warm tones given to ‘Peach’ and ‘Apricot’ Drift, and it might seem that ‘The Fairy’ is a little more conducive to color variations in her descendants than Bonica. My thought is that R. sempervirens is definitely something of a color-eraser, though some of her descendants are quite pretty: 'Belvédère ' Rose Photo
I hope to look more into the lines including ‘the Fairy’.
Probably belongs in another thread, but I assume that someone on this forum has already crossed a ‘The Fairy’ or descendant thereof with ‘Baby Love’ or descendant, no? I would love to know the outcomes.
Simon,
I am not aware of how vigorous the Bonica root system is, but I think you bring up such an important factor to raising successful seedling roses, and I love the term"Good roots, good shoots". This is the number 1 issue I have with many of the roses currently in commerce, and why I will not even entertain the idea of raising “rootstock” for budding or grafting. If a plant can not thrive and survive on its’ own roots, it probably should not be in commerce. If a seedling hasn’t completely filled its’ starter pot with roots by the time of its’ first bloom, it will probably not ever be a vigorous plant, thus being less likely to survive any threats to its’ survival, be it drought, grazing animals, disease or whatever. Vigorous roots may not be the end goal of a successful hybrid, but it is one of the best places to start. Thank you for bringing up this point, I think it is sometimes overlooked (or taken for granted, and thus under emphasized).
Phillip,
I also grow ‘Coral Drift’. It’s the only one of the drift roses I got and I got it because it has been confirmed diploid by David and because it also has a strong wich pedigree through Rote Max Graf and The Fairy. The thing is, in the ground here on its own roots it also mildews badly. Its flowers are quite nice but I doubt I’m going to use it now due to its propensity to mildew. I also tend to think that washing out of colour is not such a bad thing initially. A friend of mine once told me to build my house first and then paint it, however, I think you are right about The Fairy being able to contribute colour saturation to seedlings. When Ãmmesee was made it was between a wich seedling and The Fairy and from there Flower Carpet Pink was made and I think most would agree that it has lovely colour saturation. If you do a search on a lot of recent Kordes releases you will notice a recurring pattern of The Fairy and Immensee popping up all over the place. This is not a new concept as I remember Michael talking about Immensee being in a lot of the most disease resistant roses years ago on ‘here’. Adding The Fairy to Bonica has been done by George Thomson in Australia to make Flinders. I like this rose but as Paul said… pink, pink, and more pink…
Jackie,
Kim first alerted me yeas ago to the fact that seedlings that experience water stress often show little or no resistance to mildew. He also said that a weak root system results in insufficient water uptake resulting water stress and a tendency to mildew. I started seeing this over and over again in my own seedlings. If I looked at the roots of mildewy seedlings they were almost always weak and the most resistant ones were always the ones to push roots out through the bottom of the pots in no time. Having said that there are examples of roses with strong root systems that mildew badly (like Indica Major) so the water stress:root development issue is clearly not the only factor but I feel it is such an important factor that it has also become one of our (my daughter and I), primary selection criteria. It should also be noted that using mildewy roses in breeding doesn’t automatically mean mildewy seedlings. In my quest for a rootstock I can use around here I crossed Indica Major with Poynton’s Thornless multiflora (I often use budding as a means to secure breeding plants whether they strike easily or not as I can often get more plants out of the cuttings than I can with one cutting alone and I have greater success with the budding than I do with cuttings in some cases), and this seedling does not mildew at all and has a root system like a willow tree. It’s also interesting to note that further evidence to support this is that some roses, like Bonica, mildew here on their own roots but put onto a strong root system they don’t.
Agreed that a weak root system isn’t the only factor in mildew resistance, but lack of roots, just as with lack of water, can induce mildew even when it’s not considered an issue. That’s interesting about Bonica mildewing there own root, but not budded. All of the Bonica I’ve encountered here have been budded and they’ve unanimously been healthy as could be expected. The only diseased leaves I encounter are buried deep within the plants and they are such a small percentage of the total as to be considered “disease free” in most cases. I guess a case could be made that weak roots/lack of roots and mildew proclivity might be a symbiotic relationship. Perhaps, for some other reasons, the seedling just isn’t flourishing, leading to the lack of roots and mildew, but unanimously, if the seedling is mildewy, it doesn’t have decent roots, so culling those with terrible foliage after a sufficient period to test for ability to perform is definitely valuable.
Use Carefree Marvel or Magic Meidiland over Bonica. It worked for me. I only tried Bonica because we had la nina last year and I needed blooms, so I bought a new Bonica for 10 bucks for breeding, and then I gave it away this winter, lol.
Here is the only likely good result from Bonica x mixed pollen from my above mentioned scenario. It is Bonica x Shadow Dancer since the bud shape and leaves match Shadow Dancer. This is pretty much the only seedling Ive ever raised in which it looked exactly like it did in my mind during the conception of the idea, lol.