Today, it being Canada’s 150th birthday, I thought it would be appropriate to comment a little bit about '‘Canadian Shield’ (RSM Y8 x ‘Frontenac’), which was introduced by the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre this year to honour the country’s sesquicentennial.
I have one shrub of this rose cultivar that is growing well in my garden. The compact shrub has very attractive foliage and double, long lasting, cherry-red, 7.5 cm. diameter flowers, having no fragrance I can detect. It’s very beautiful. If it has good crown cold hardiness for a Zone 3 climate and continues to be disease resistant, ‘Canadian Shield’ will be the best red rose ever developed for this climate.
According to Dr. Parminder Sandhu, the Vineland rose breeder, this rose cultivar isn’t very receptive to foreign pollen. I noted the first flowers of my shrub had very few pistils and stamens, but later flowers seem normal regarding the production of pistils.
I’m trying several staminate parents with it, including ‘Suzanne’, ‘Caroyal’ and ‘John Davis’ to see if this rose will set hips. I think I will also try ‘Morden Centennial’ to see if I can size up the flowers, yet retain a good red or at least a deep pink colour in some of its progeny.
My immediate thought with this rose is its potential to develop bi-colours, using ‘Bill Reid’ as the staminate parent. I should be able to make this cross in a week or so.
I have one plant, purchased this past winter, of this cultivar growing in my zone 8b garden . So far absolutely black spot free. Will follow up on my success with it.
Stephen
Meilland International (France) is the agent and distributor of the Vineland roses for Europe. I imagine ‘Canadian Shield’ will be soon available in European countries.
I did about 30 crosses with ‘Canadian Shield’, further using ‘Morden Centennial’ and ‘Bill Reid’ as staminate parents. I only got one hip to set, but didn’t record its other parent (I rarely label rose crosses, figuring out the parentage when I see selections flowering). Next year I’ll use mixed pollen to see if I can have better success.
This is the most infertile shrub rose cultivar I’ve encountered as a pistillate parent. I wonder why. Is it a triploid?
It’s a little early to tell, but hips seem to be forming on Canadian Shield for me. Maybe about six or eight. They are not large. We’ll have to see about the seed count.
Had no luck using CS as a parent either way. I hope it has some fertility and that I’ll get hips next season. I have to say that it has excellent disease resistance so far.
I checked and counted seventeen set, pollinated hips on two potted plants of Canadian Shield. Many of the unpollinated blossoms in the same clusters have failed.