Anyone with experience with Captain Samuel Holland? Does it set hips, or is this another of the hardy Canadian triploids that is only good as a male? My small plant is only in it’s second year.
I got lots of large op hips last year from a Lambert Closse that I bought with hips on it, but none germinated. So I hesitate to use it with scarce pollen. I can’t recall if the seeds are outside in a pot, or held over in the fridge for next year.
Henry Kelsey is fertile both ways, but with some partners it tends to produce exceptionally thorny offspring that aren’t worth garden space to grow on.
The much maligned JP Connell (good as male only) has huge yellow buds on it & is looking mighty fine.
I have a very pretty shrub offspring from John Cabot, but it refuses to set hips with seeds.
Hi Lydia,
I don’t have experiance with either Captain Sam Holland or Lambert Close. Though I have wondered about CSH also because from what I’ve read it has been more disease resistant than the other Explorers here in Minnesota.
That’s interesting about the John Cabot seedling not setting hips as I have halve a dozen OP seedlings this year. I had heard that JC wasn’t a good seed parent (I didn’t try it using it as one last year) and I was hoping that a OP seedling would be a better one.
Paul
Hi Lydia and Paul,
My experience with Captain Samuel Holland is that it is best used as a male. It does have good disease resistance but has never been as vigorous (for me) as some of the other Explorer climbers. Lambert Closse is female fertile, but given the very double nature of the blooms it can sometimes be a little tricky to achieve seed set and it seems to cross best under warm conditions. I had better luck with it when I moved it into the greenhouse and kept it in a pot. However, I have never had any particular trouble germinating the seeds that resulted from crosses using LC. John Cabot is best used as a male, but I do have seedlings from John Cabot that are female fertile, so Paul is on the right track in hoping that OP seedlings might have better female fertility.
Prairie Celebration was a new Canadian rose for me last summer. I found it to be fertile in both directions and seeds germinated well. I was a bit disappointed with the winter hardiness as it died back to about 8 inches here this past winter. Does anyone else have experience with the winter hardiness of PC?
Julie
It’s only that particular John Cabot seedling I was concerned about, because it seemed so promising. I’m planning to use JC pollen on OGR hybrids that are not cane hardy, but happily, are in bud this year.
I do have Prairie Celebration, but it didn’t put on cane growth last year so I don’t know what to make of it yet. Getting down to it’s level to pollinate it is not something I’m looking forward to.
I also have a William Booth seedling that produces seeds that germinate easily, but it doesn’t have the nice shrubby growth & general appeal of JC.
We had lots of snow cover & a fairly warm winter in Ontario, so just about everything did well.
Paul
Please post if any of your John Cabot seedlings produce blooms in their first year. I’ve gotten early blooms (6 -8 weeks or so) on seedlings with John Cabot pollen on a floribunda, but seedlings of hybrids with some other explorers didn’t bloom until they had put on some wood. I have some that haven’t bloomed after several years.
Julie
How long was it to first bloom with your JC seedlings. Were they op’s?
Thank you both.
Lydia,
I’ll try to remember to do that. They haven’t bloomed so far, but they were hit with a hard freeze right after I planted them outside. Almost all of my seedlings suffered extensive damage and it has taken 4 or 5 weeks for them to start growing again and it’ll be several more weeks before they’ll be back to where they were before the freeze. All is not lost as I only lost a couple seedlings. Hopefully the rest will recover enough to bloom this year.
I have heard that it is pretty common for seedlings of Explorer roses to not bloom until the second year (William Baffin & Frontenac especially). But if they take more than that I would suspect that they are going to be once blooming.
Paul
Hi Lydia,
I haven’t used John Cabot for several years now–I have been using JC seedlings in my crosses instead, in particular a William Booth x John Cabot seedling. I also have some O.P. seedlings from this cross. I truthfully don’t recall how early the seedlings bloomed. Paul is right, sometimes you may get bloom early on when using floribundas in the cross, but it is not uncommon to wait more than a year or even longer when crossing between Explorer roses. They seem to have a longer juvenile period for some reason.
Julie
Well in that case, I expect that my Lambert Closse x Apothecary seedlings will take forever to bloom.
I also have seedlings from Parkland & Explorer pollen crossed with OGR’s…
Belle de Crecy x Lambert Closse
Belle de Crecy x Morden Sunrise/Morden Blush pollen mix
Indigo x Lambert Closse
Belle Isis x Morden Blush
Belle Isis x Morden Sunrise