Thanks for the pics, Andy!
I’m thinking Darlow needs to be crossed with ‘Softee’ and ‘Crepuscule’
Think of hardy repeating buff-colored climbers and possible thornlessness from ‘Softee’…
I gotta get on this.
Hi Andy,
Those are great DE seedlings! I especially like the last one.
Hi Max,
That sounds like a good idea to try!
I have made lots of crosses onto DE with mixed Hulthemia pollen. The hips appear to be forming well on DE. I’m not having as good of luck using DE as pollen parent - many hips aborting.
There were 7 OP ‘Darlow’s Enigma’ seedlings from this year’s batch of seedlings that I saved and transplanted them into pots and moved them out of the greenhouse 4-6 weeks ago. They are continuing to bloom despite our crazy heat. Today I took the photo attached below.
Someone asked on another tread whether it is better to breed for roses that produce large sprays that will bloom all at once, or gradually over several days. Although DE produces sprays with a very prolonged blooming time, with a few blooms opening everyday, I’m not sure if there is a right answer. However, I was glad to see that DE can produce seedlings that bloom nearly all at once.
[attachment 940 DEOP7-14-12sm.jpg]
Jim,
That is one beautiful rose you have growing there. I wish you well in trying to get Darlow’s Enigma’s genes into your roses. Just imagine the same picture with big red blotches on every bloom. That would be priceless.
The person who was asking about the blooming pattern would be me. Ironically, I asked the question about my VANasong, which is also a Darlow’s Enigma seedling. One of the reasons I asked, and why I have been hesitant about registering VANasong is the gradual blooming over an extended period of time. This year VANasong bloomed in a huge masses of pink and white (I’ve attached one picture of one cluster - the rose produced numerous clusters such as this and larger). This spurred me to apply for registration. I have not received confirmation for the registration, but expect to hear with a few weeks.
Andy
[attachment 941 HerasSong.jpg]
Jim, I love this look! It’s exactly what ‘Tarrawarra’ looks like except with a hint of pink and yellow through it. I think hulthemia in this ‘design’ would look very effective. Like ‘Marjorie Fair’ in reverse! Speaking of ‘Tarrawarra’… did any work or was it in fact DOA? It’s on my list to meet the hulthemia here this coming season. It has flowered all winter and hasn’t dropped any leaves. Neither has the best of the OP K206 seedlings… been a strange winter.
Personally, in the cluster flowered debate, I prefer a rose that can open in a big flush all at once and then turn around and do it again quickly. In some of my big-bloomers that seem to drag opening out over a long time you get flowers at all stages of development and if they don’t self clean quickly and easily then holding onto old dead flowers while fresh new ones are coming through is a most displeasing look to me. Nothing kills the mood for me quicker than seeing a big bunch of flowers in the rain with old dead soggy tea-bags hanging in among the new flowers.
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Jim,
That is really a beautiful bloom, add to that this heat–you have got a winner there. Imagining it with a dark eye and a little ruffle to the petal is something to drool over!
Andy,
Vanasong is lovely-it just took a while to mature, but she looks like something on steroids.
Quit drooling over the roses, Jackie! Simon doesn’t like old, soggy tea bags in the bunch!
ROFL! S’ok, Kim… they look like self-cleaners…
Andy, I really love your VANasong! I think this is where rose breeding needs to go… with more grace and charm… it has a generous dose of both. We can’t get ‘Darlow’s Enigma’ here though I have one of my ‘Trier’ x ‘Mutabilis’ seedlings (so far thornless… which amazed me) to try that looks very similar so far.
Kim, I’m still waiting for the ‘Secret Garden’ seeds to germinate… I think they might be useful in the same way.
I hope they do germinate. I’ve never tried them, but I’ve pollinated MANY things with SG this year. It appears a very few pollinations ON SG may be taking. I’m eager to see what the results of SG and Fedtschenkoana and its hybrids may be.
Thank you Jackie and Simon. She is one of my favorite roses, and is also quite disease-free.
Jackie, It is interesting that you said it needed time to mature. I have shared the rose with quite a few people, and everyone I shared it with, says she hasn’t bloomed for them yet. I can also think of when she was a very small seedling, she didn’t impress me at all, until I caught one solitary bloom from her when she was two and a half years old. It took another three to look like this (it also could have taken less time if I didn’t try to root so many cuttings from her).
Simon, If there is a way to send seeds to you, I can save some open-pollenated seeds for you, and send them, along with some pollen? Germination rates are quite good from open-pollenated seeds.
Andy
Andy, there is a procedure for getting seeds through to Australia, and it’s a bit more involved than sending them across this country, but it’s doable. From the latest encounter with one of our Postal Service’s “finest”, if you’re going to use a Priority Mail box, label or envelope, you WILL be required to fill out the larger of the two customs forms. If you use ANY pre printed Priority Mail material, including a mailing address, the large form WILL be required. If you use a standard envelope or a plain box, you may send it Priority and use the smaller customs form. Both are available free from your local, semi literate postal employee. Unfortunately, rules and regulations seem as standardized there as they appear to be at every airport with every TSA employee, but not using their printed packaging seems to require less interference. Get the forms first as addresses in Australia tend to be a bit “unusual” to American eyes and fingers, so filling it all out before standing before the postal worker is much easier.
I don’t know how sending pollen would work, but all pulp and fibers must be removed, cleaned from the seed. I’ve followed Simon’s instructions by:
Cleaning the seed thoroughly.
Label each type as: 'Rosa hybrida OP seed" then the name of the variety or cross.
Make a packing slip to include in the package with the list of what is included, quantity of each type (as the customs form requires how many seeds total), the name, address and phone number of the recipient.
Mark the outside of the package or envelope, “Attn Quarantine: contains Rosa hybrida seeds” so they may easily intercept and inspect the seeds before forwarding them to the recipient.
Seeds are easy because you don’t have to use heavy, protective packaging. Keep the weight as light as possible. Use a slip of paper for identification of the seeds instead of a plastic label. Postage can begin to add up quickly, so lighter is definitely more efficient. I’ve sent them in cardboard disk mailers as well as small padded envelopes. Both seem to work fine. I just mailed Pierre Caesalpinia seeds in a standard letter envelope, each type in a small plastic bag and they arrived rather quickly to France, in good shape. I wondered if it would arrive because the “post office’s finest” produced my reciept saying the envelope was sent to Scranton, PA. Go figure.
Thank you for the kind comments.
Andy, VANasong is very beautiful! I am glad to hear from your experience that DE seedlings become more floriferous with time.
Regarding blotches on these, I spent quite a lot of time using mixed Hulthemia pollen on DE during the last part of the rose breeding season and most hips have taken well, so the answer to the question of whether or not blotches are easily accepted on DE seedlings will be known by this time next year. I can only hope that some of the DE X Hulthemia seedlings will be as floriferous as DE.
Well, just for the fun of it, I took this photo today of the spray on the DE seedling shown further up this thread, eight days later.
I was surprised that despite our strange weather including some wind and sprinkles, the spray didn’t look too bad today.
[attachment 963 DE8dayslatersm.jpg]
Today I also picked my first hips from ‘Darlow’s Enigma’ that were crossed with “M62” pollen (“M62” tends to have lower fertility, but is probably my cleanest Hulthemia with a good heat stabile blotch).
Seeing lovely flowers like this… and other multiflora-based big-bloomers like my own “Sweetflora” (‘Sweet Chariot’ x 'Poynton’s Multiflora):
[attachment 967 sweetflora1.jpg]
I always wish the stamens might last longer and wonder how one might go about improving the longevity of the stames to get a longer yellow display from them without losing the Hybrid Musk look? Bracteata stamens seem to persist for a long time as do the stamens on roses like ‘Altissimo’… it would be great to improve this side of hybrid musk-like roses.
I agree with you Simon. It would be nice if a blooming cluster could retain the bright yellow stamens longer. The petals seem to last longer and often a cluster will have fresh looking petals throughout though some flowers will have brown dried up looking stamens while the newer blooms will have the bright yellow ones.
Jim