‘Rose Gilardi’ is capable of passing on both the mossing trait (and the striping), but is not nearly as capable as some others. I liked some of the offspring I got from ‘Rose Gilardi’ but found it didn’t take pollen easily and I never ended up with more than a handful of seedlings. I prefer working with plants that give at least 100 seedlings of any one cross. I occasionally toss pollen on it when the mood strikes me, but thats rare.
Paul, how is your ‘Unconditional Love’ for passing along soft moss? That is a beautiful rose, and my favorite of yours that I grow.
Jim Sproul
Thanks, Jim, glad you like it. Its definitely a standout rose in my garden. You know, I know nada about its breeding ability, I have never used it! No real reason, I just have SO many roses to choose from and it has not yet made it onto the schedule. I seem to recall someone has used it as a seed parent and gotten something nice from it, but I have no recollection of who.
Paul
Paul, did you ever try Rose Gilardi as a pollen parent, though? That would be the avenue I would choose.
Paul, have you done any breeding yet with the rose you and Ralph selected for me? It’s a whale of a lot better rose for me than Rose Gilardi ever was. 'Kim Rupert' Rose
The plant is stronger, cleaner, flowers more heavily and more often, larger flowers, cleaner stripes and colors and it does set seed. I’m headed in the opposite direction, trying to eliminate the prickles or I would jump on it. Though, it might be interesting to see what Kim Rupert and Rainforest would do together. Perverse, huh?
Kim,
It seems to me that I did use your namesake a few times in breeding and I don’t remember a single thing about any of the resulting seedlings. That likely means there wasn’t anything noteworthy. However, odds are that I gave up on it too fast and should revisit it. I would mate it with very different things nowadays, whereas I would have crossed it with other Moore mosses back then; not an ideal approach. I found that inbreeding the Moore mosses usually resulted in lots of weak, mildewy plants with unremarkable blooms.
Maybe ‘Kim Rupert’ X ‘Commander Gillette’ would do some nice tricks? Or ‘Kim Rupert’ X ‘Scharlachglut’?! I oughtta be using that huge ‘Orangeade’ X ‘Schoener’s Nutkana’ shrub of Ralphs as well; surely that thing will add some vigor to any breeding line 
You know the plant I mean, Kim?
Yup, sure do, Paul! Ralph got so many different things from that cross, from pure white all the way through that saturated red with the color usually running all the way to the base of the petals. I would think that would lend an extra dose of “vigor” to just about anything! I love Nutkana and I think my feelings about Orangeade should be pretty much known by now. I’ve had problems with Nutkana hybrids here due to rust. Schoener’s Nutkana is great here, but every seedling I’ve raised rusted like an old nail. I know some of that is due to Paul Neyron’s defective genes in it, but even that Orangeade X Schoener’s Nutkana seedling rusted for me. Hybrid Rugosas, with very few exceptions, did the same as did Canadian roses like Morden Ruby and Buck’s Wandrin Wind. I can live with mildew because it goes away quickly here, but rust and blackspot are forever.
Your thought about KR X Commander Gillette is right up the alley of what I used to tease Ralph about…creating a thornless moss or thornless crested rose. One with smooth canes but mossy or crested sepals. He seemed to enjoy the whimsy of that because we’d be exploring the new things and he’d start to chuckle and bring something to my attention how this or that looked as if it may be a step in that direction.
A thought about the Schoener’s Nutkana just came to me, I used to be able to encourage repeat bloom with it. Let every hip which wants to, set. Strip it of all hips, fertilize and water it well and it explodes in bloom a second time, even in the desert heat I grew it in. Lovely rose!
Kim,
The “Moore’s Red Nutkana” (lets give it a study name, shall we?) doesn’t rust here, but then rust if rare in my garden. ‘My Stars’ rusted somewhat, and things like ‘Rose a Parfum de l’Hay’ was nothing but rust from the moment it leafed out, but I haven’t seen it on the “Moore’s Red Nutkana”. I used it a wee bit last year, putting pollen from my best Magseed hybrid on it. (Se link below) I have not sown my seeds yet, so no idea what will come of this cross. I hope it is just the dreaded ‘Paul Neyron’ death genes that are the problem and they can be overcome with another generation of crossing. ‘Paul Neyron’ is the only Hybrid Perpetual that ever died of “the dwindles” in my garden (although that horrible ‘Empereur du Maroc’ is trying real hard) and I would never use it in breeding.
Both ‘Schoener’s Nutkana’ and “Moore’s Red Nutkana” rebloom in my garden without removal of the (copious) hips or any other special treatment. Climate difference.
‘Henri Martin’ sets abundant OP hips but the seeds don’t germinate well for me and when they do the resulting seedlings are not strong. I’ve kept one so far but think it is destined for the compost heap in the near future… either that or I might plant it in some back corner of a garden and forget about it for a while and come back to it in a few years time. I haven’t tried it as a pollen parent because its seedlings were so weak. This could also be environmental as it is quite warm here. Maybe it will show its goods in Autumn. I would also choose ‘William Lobb’ over ‘Henri Martin’ though I think ‘William Lobb’ needs some time in the ground before it is useful as either a seed parent as mine has set no OP hips in its first season here.
Another mossing question… I have one of Mr Moore’s small minis here called ‘Galaxy’. Its seed parent is ‘Fairy Moss’ (the pollen parent being ‘Fairy Princess’. ‘Galaxy’ shows no mossing and has a normal distribution of normal looking thorns. Is it likely to produce mossed seedlings if it was selfed, or used in a cross with another non-mossed plant, or is it true that once the trait is not expressed it is gone?
Your Magseed seedling is beautiful, Paul! Absolutely, climate makes all the difference. Rose a Parfum de la Hay rusted at Limberlost, as did Roserie de la Hay, or however it’s spelled. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer was the absolute worst. Sir Thomas Lipton was pretty awful, too. Do you have and have you used Rose Gilardi X Rugosa Magnifica?
Simon:
I have two Henri Martin bushes. They are both fairly new to my garden but produced lots of blooms. No seeds though. In a thread a few months back I think Paul said that HM doesn’t produce hips or seed. There are a few hips that are still hanging on from our summer and I cut them open today. No seeds in any of them. I’m not sure your climate is to blame so much as it is the plant. I’m in Oregon which I assume is different from your climate.
It would be interesting to know what its parentage is.
Jeff, it turns out that Simon is not the only one that has gotten seedlings out of ‘Henri Martin’, see link. That said, it doesn’t seem to be a super stud of a seed parent either LOL.
Simon, maybe part of the reason your HM seedlings lack vigor, is to do with inbreeding depression coming out (if they are sefs)…maybe if you use it as a pollen parent, it could produce better quality stuff, if you want to experiment with it… shrugs
shrugs… only reason I tried it is because the bush, in its first season last in 2008, set a truck-load of OP hips and I was curious to see whether the seedlings would also moss (note… the mossing on ‘Henri Martin’ is wishful thinking and a nice way to say it’s bloody thorny!!!)… I do have another seedling I grew from an unknown moss I found growing in an old garden that is much stringer and is showing some tendency to moss at the moment. I don’t think it has much to offer breeding roses for warm climates, USDA zones 9 and above. It grows wonderfully here and also produced a mountain of OP hips again this year but I’ve dead-headed it pretty hard this year and tossed out all the hips. Fara got some seedlings out of ‘Henri Martin’ a while back… and maybe had more luck. I believe her climate is far more favourable for growing such roses. We’ve had a run of days up to the low 40C’s here (~104F) and old Henri has yellowed off and dropped all its leaves in protest. I do have plans to use ‘William Lobb’ with more heat tolerant roses, for the colour only really, but think this will be quite a long term project.
so many typos sighs need an edit button 
Yeah, thorny type mossing is not to everyone’s taste, I persoanlly like prickleLESS roses LOL. I must say I haven’t really “acquired the taste” for mossing of any type yet, but in time I may fall in love with it, who knows?
Mossing is beautiful but the prickle factor turned me off long ago. I do love to see Mosses in other people’s gardens.
The idea of creating a smooth crested rose has intrigued me for some time. I really think it could be done.
I’ve been intrigued by mossing from nearly the beginning, which is why I collected all of the Moore mosses early on. Deuil de Paul Fontaine blooms like a floribunda and the Roses of Yesterday and Today condemnation that it “lost some of its vigor” definitely didn’t hold true in my garden. Waldtraut Nielsen was a huge, thorny thing but it grew and bloomed in early summer. Gabriel Noyelle blooms all the time here and has created some fine, repeat blooming mosses like Lady Moss. 7-58-1 performed quite well and could provide flowers any time a Hybrid Tea could. J&P sold a modern yellow moss HT type for a few years. I used to have it, but it sunburned too easily and flat headed apple borers took care of that.
I enjoy seeing and smelling mossy roses, I just can’t endure maintaining them them with the associated blood loss. The greater the prickle count, the more places for mildew spores to flourish. Has anyone played with Heidi? Fairy Moss with Iceberg, that could be interesting to explore. It grew well in my old garden, I just never got around to doing anything with it.
Heidi is the ancestor of a whole bunch of J/P minis and shrubs and floribundas via Pink Pollyanna. The whole clan is mostly blackspot prone, but I am unsure if that is from Iceberg, Zorina, Fairy Moss or a combination thereof. I am guessing Iceberg and Zorina, personally. Fairy Moss seems to pass on mostly positive traits – not that minis are blackspot saints tho. I am guessing the russet tones of Kaleidoscope came from Zorina. It seems to have a lot of russet descendants.
I used to sell ‘Heidi’ wholesale in 2 gallon containers. It was a cute little thing, unusual looking.
A few years back, I experimented using ‘Scarlet Moss’ and “Bayses Thornless” in crosses in both directions. It seemed to me that the mossing and thorns (prickles) were directly related. I ended up with a spectrum of nearly thornless to very prickly seedlings. What I didn’t do, but wish I would have done, was to cross the first generation seedlings with each other to see if there could be independent sorting of mossing and prickling. I doubt that that would happen, but it would be interesting to check.
Robert, I agree with you that a smooth crested could be done, and is probably somewhere in the future!
Jim Sproul