Unlikely that it will have any kind of repeat bloom, but still a fun seedling to watch grow.
Kim Rupert, I thought you might especially enjoy seeing it since you’ve had so much experience working with ‘Commander Gillette’ (aka “Basye’s Legacy”).
I tried attaching a fourth picture showing the pedigree tree, but there must be a limit.
I’ll try to add that to a follow-up…
pedigree of that seedling
Nice, Tom. I think Commander is fun to work with. So fun to have no fear at all of encountering a thorn or prickle.
I’ve got some seed this year from Commander Gillette x Prairie Peace and x Ross Rambler #4.
Thanks Joe, and I agree!
As much as I appreciate thornlessness, I almost NEED thorns here to protect against deer and rabbit browsing, but the Commander still has so much good to contribute. I used it some more this season, inspired by this 2017 seedling from the yellow Hybrid Tea, ‘Winter Sun’.
It hasn’t been too accepting of pollen and it blackspotted quite a bit later in the season, but even so it was an eager bloomer and relatively vigorous. Oh and only has little thorns on the leafstalk (rachis), so practically thornless.
Interesting to note that you used it as a female, which is supposed to be difficult due to early pollen release and weak seedlings from selfs. (As noted on this forum by Kim Rupert citing Paul Barden and perhaps his own experience.)
I had some seedlings of Commander this spring, can’t remember the pollen parent, which seemed to grow normally. No other way to assess hybridity, as they seemed a lot like Commander itself. Anyways, I took courage from that to use Commander more as a seed parent this season. I peeled open the buds when they were barely showing color and if possible re-pollinated them in a day or two.
Not a super high percentage of Commander Gillette seedlings will be rebloomers, but when they do rebloom they can do so heavily.
Attached is a pic of Belle Poitevine x Commander Gillette which blooms all summer and has a nice fragrance. Unfortunately it’s essentially pollen sterile and sets just a few hips each year of which I’ve gotten no seedlings yet. I’ve thought of potting up a chunk of it in hopes of better hip set.
I also have a reblooming R. foliolosa x Commander that is pretty cute. Will look for pic.
Here is FOLIOCOM, R. foliolosa x Commander Gillette. Reblooms. Sets hips. I might have some cuttings of this one to share in the spring.
Sorry, found another picture of FOLIOCOM that I liked better.
Joe, your Belle Poitevine x Commander Gillette and FOLIOCOM are both really nice!
I have seedlings of Darts Dash X Commander Gillette that are two years old but I still haven’t gotten them in the ground yet. You’ve encouraged me
to get that done now. I’ve also got foliolosa now (just planted Spring 2018) and am really looking forward to working with it. I’m hoping maybe to get at least a few blooms in 2019. It’s good to see an F1 from it can have such good rebloom. Did FOLIOCOM bloom as a small seedling, or did it wait until more mature to start repeating?
Hi Tom,
I remember that POITECOM bloomed in its first season, but I can’t remember if FOLIOCOM did. I don’t think I noticed FOLIOCOM until its second season, but it could easily have bloomed the first year…I just can’t remember. It was one of maybe 20 seedlings of that cross.
I got my R. foliolosa from Rogue Valley Roses. I wonder if that would be a seedling or a cutting? It is odd that it was able to throw a small percentage of reblooming F1’s, and I don’t know if that is a characteristic of the species or just my specimen. (Which, unfortunately, no longer exists.) What I liked about R. foliolosa is that it seemed very amenable to pollen of different roses. It also bloomed quite late, during a time when I had more time to pollinate. I ended up with way too many R. foliolosa seedlings and had to make myself quit pollinating it.
Fun to combine Commander with rugosas…to get the elusive thornless rugosa? From my results with Belle Poitevine and Rugosa #3 I think it is actually quite possible. Sterility in the likely triploid F1’s is an issue, and it might be easier to get hips than pollen.
As roses distributed as Commander Gillette and Legacy are purportedly the same rose now, and since the real Legacy purportedly was an offspring of Com.Gil., crossed with Basye’s Probable Amphidiploid (having abyssinica and rugosa rubra in its line) do we assume that the actual pedigree is, as Tom suggests, that of C.G., or that it in fact contains the Amphidiploid? 'Basye's Amphidiploid' Rose I was kinda hoping the amphidiploid might be in its lineage.
Joe, I love the concept of your Foliocom. (It was actually a theoretical cross I wondered about in the past.) I know of several foliolosa F1 that purportedly rebloom (crosses with rugosas, for example) but never was convinced as to whether the parent was pure species. Foliocom might offer potential for purple offspring, particularly if rugosa is in its “blood.” Foliolosa is one that I would like to play with as well, in part because I’m wanting to try for some wine/mauve colors, and she seems to factor into several such roses. How is the thorn situation on your seedling?
Tom, as always, cool crosses!
Joe;
I really like your foliolosa offspring. Perhaps I could do a feature in an upcoming issue of Singularly Beautiful Roses.
Stephen
Cool and beautiful crosses! Congratulations!
Please put me on the waiting list Joe! Excellent cross and it’s great that the F1 reblooms and sets hips. Nice job!
Hi Joe,
Have any of these crosses yield any thornless seedlings?
How long did you have to wait to get blooms on these hybrid seedlings?
chuckp
‘Commander Gillette’ X “3/4 Native” has got a few buds, so if the predicted cold snap doesn’t bother them Saturday morning, we should get to see what the blooms look like soon.
Murphy’s law - single pink! It’s fun that you’re reinforcing the species blood.
My reblooming POITECOM (Belle Poitevine x Commander Gilette) has terrible pollen and rarely sets hips, but last fall I found a few and I’m psyched to have four germinations. I’m hoping that these will be tetraploid selfs that will retain rebloom but have more fertility than the parent. It would be fun to have something hardier than Commander Gilette and fully reblooming to use in breeding. Maybe I’ll backcross them with Commander, trying to recover thornlessness and select for reblooming…essentially creating a reblooming Commander.
That made me think of what the seed parent of 3/4 native looked like given Fragrant Cloud, then noticed it was bred by Tom so secret stalked his blog.
Not single but pink (warm pink, but pink). I wonder if selfing may have strengthened the warmer colour, then again MR1 ((Fragrant Cloud x Carolina) x Carefree Sunshine) also sort of looks like a deeper warm pink when open (but blog comments mention it’s hard to capture colour accurately), so possibly fighting against all odds to be anything not pink.
Would be interesting to see if the red from Hugh Dickson disappeared as quickly in the Commander Gillette line.
Joe, have you gotten any further descendants from your foliocom? That’s one I think has fun potential.
Philip - re: FOLIOCOM seedlings.
Just a few. It appears pollen sterile, and is not super fertile as a seed parent. Might need longer seasons to ripen the hips properly. There was an interesting FOLIOCOM x Miracle on the Hudson seedling with lots of small, pure red blossoms, but it was not a keeper ornamentally and was completely sterile.
“Murphy’s law - single pink!”
LOL, That’s definitely what I’d expect too, Joe. 
But that double-flowered gene has already prevailed through two successive crosses to single species, so I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it’ll go another generation.
Plazbo, I wouldn’t even pretend to know how these colors work out. Fragrant Cloud x carolina was nearly the same light shade of pink as carolina. It was maybe just slightly darker. I still couldn’t tell you how “3/4 Native” ended up such a dark shade of pink (pretty much magenta) since the virginiana wasn’t even close to that dark.
It’ll be interesting in a day or two to see how the influence of ‘Commander Gillette’ will play out.
Oh that reminds me… before Fragrant Cloud x carolina died from RRD, I did one last cross on it. I used ‘Commander Gillette’ pollen. I’ve got two seedlings – a double (with smaller flowers) the same color as the mama, and a single that’s a little bit darker.