Having suffered through heat-wave after heat-dome after “just keep em watered, they’ll make it”, which coincided all too regularly with flushes of bloom, the only seed from MY pollination was Karl Herbst onto Quadra quite late in the season, with the hope & faith that the hardy-parent would mature seed in time, which it did! They haven’t shown signs of life yet, but…
The first of dozens of OP ‘Bonica’. I have a love/hate relationship w the ubiquitous and ridiculously-pink ‘Bonica’, but it does what a rose is supposed to do, THAT IS CERTAIN! I like many of its offspring, and I’d like a breeder from it in a colour I can stand.
And one from OP ‘Laura Ford’, which I adore for its unceasing show of little roses like miniature ‘Peace’es. Also a fair to good history of fertility and some very attractive descendants.
I don’t grow Bonica myself, because it’s everywhere around me. It does well here, shaking off blackspot and blooming continuously under very trying conditions along boulevards and foundations without spraying. So I avail myself of free OP hips here and there during the summer and fall, and hope for something in a colour I can stand.
Y’all were NOT kidding about the size of seeds from ‘Dainty Bess’! But I have one germination from op seed so far. It lives beside ‘Mrs Oakley Fisher’ and ‘Mutabilis’ (singles are very likely), but ‘Graham Thomas’, ‘Iceberg’, & ‘Julia Child’ are also nearby. Bess is amazing here on Vancouver Island, making a sturdy LARGE shrub if allowed.
The row of ‘Bonica’ OP seedlings was SO THICK…
(Crowd) “How thick was it?”
…that I took a kitchen fork, dug out large clumps of the seedlings through the entire row, potted up a flat of 32 individually, tossed maybe a dozen, and then tried to spread out the ones remaining in the seed-box. They’re still germinating!
I’d guess I have a hundred seedlings?
Now just ONE OF THEM needs to be not-pink. And fertile!
Paul once observed that it was extremely difficult to get anything that wasn’t either pale pink or white out of Bonica, but there is the occasional breakthroughs. I am rather liking Beales’ Bonica baby, “Ivor’s Rose”. Not just a richer shade of magenta-pink, but surprisingly fragrant.
Paler, blush to white OR deeper, veering toward “red” would be most excellent. It’s the Pepto Bismol/Bonica shade of pink that I find objectionable and unnecessary. lol
The ubiquitousness of Bonica around here is hard to take nonviolently. Same reaction to ‘Pink Princess’ Escallonia, if I’m being totally honest.
Awful.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, not a single loss from my “I’m going in with a kitchen fork” mass transplanting, both the individual pots AND the respaced row they came from in the box.
The remainder of the OP Bonica seedlings on the right, after removing forkfuls then tucking them back into a row. They all seem unperturbed.
To their immediate left is a row of OP Outta the Blue, which I LOVE because it grows and flowers so beautifully here. I’m excited to see what comes from these seeds, and have a short-list of pollens I want to hit it with this season!
Germinations so far:
Box#1,
Trier - 5
Laura Ford - 31
R rugosa ‘Alba’ - 73
Dbl White Rugosa - 3
Democracie/aka Blaze, Improved - 1
New Dawn - 3
Etoille de Hollande - 0
Don Juan - 0
Box#2
Abraham Darby - 1
Bowen Park yellowDA - 0
Bowen Park DKO - 0
Bowen Park lil hips - 0
Rugelda - 1, with two others eaten by slugs. Grrr.
Westerland - 0
Moonlight in Paris - 0
Lavender Crystal - 0
Loving Touch - 0
Work of Art - 3, w two others eaten by slugs.
Roller Coaster - 0
Laura Ford - 22
Nymphenburg - 0
Box#3
Golden Wings - 2
Graham Thomas - 1
Knock Out - 0
Prairie Princess - 1
Love - 0
J P Connell - 0
“Moonstone”/prob ‘Souvenir de Baden-Baden’ - 0
Bolero - 0
Bull’s Eye - 0
QuadraOP - 0
Quadra x Karl Herbst - 0
Lambert Closse - 7
Tiffany - 0
Mrs Oakley Fisher - 0
Iceberg - 1
Outta the Blue - 12
Bonica - 48, +flat of 32
Box#4
“Orange Alley Barbier” XLseed - 0
“Orange Alley Barbier” lilseed - 0
François Juranville XLseed - 11
François Juranville lilseed - 5
Night Owl - 0
Trier - 5
Topaz Jewel - 0 (one seed found)
Martin Frobisher - 0 (six seeds planted)
Dainty Bess - 5
Unknown - 1
“White Mediland-types” - 9, + one albino seedling.
Mutabilis - 14
Lotta disappointment this season, with few-to-no seedlings from some known parents. Last season was a freaking gong-show, weather wise, with EXCELLENT germination from Rugelda, then they were all killed by a late frost. Same with the majority of germinations from Alchymist, which got a hard prune last summer and no seed was sown this season.
As things look this season, I may have to shuffle some of the pollen to other targets if I want the seedlings to show for my work. I’m sad not one of the (Quadra x Karl Herbst) seedlings has shown itself. I’ll try again this year, as I think the cross has some merit.
I was forced to break down one of my seedling boxes early. I kept finding seedlings of ‘Laura Ford’ eaten off at soil-level. Strangely, only those seedlings were affected; the lone ‘Abe Darby’ and two of ‘Rugelda’ on the other side of the box weren’t touched. (That’s nice, because they were the only seedlings to appear from those parents.)
I dumped it out directly after potting up the remaining seedlings (shown here), and saw nothing obvious, but I’ll give it a few turns with a trowel before I plant a dahlia in the tub.
C’est la effing vie, non?
Update on the First Bud Spotted:
It’s big, full, and YELLOW?!?
Also has the fringed wings to the petioles, probably meaning it is sired by ‘Trier’-pollen. VERY exciting!
Very few losses, and a few new germinations from ‘Laura Ford’ at least. The two OP ‘Rugelda’ and 1 OP ‘Abe Darby’ persist, albeit slowly. Dunno what was infesting and eating them off at soil-level, but it was at least confined to the one box.
The PM-issues this year, on the other hand…
The forked-out seedlings from randomly collected OP ‘Bonica’ hips are looking great. I’m quite taken by the range of foliage colour that has appeared in this mixed-source batch; including one with actual “aurea-gold” foliage, which has enough chlorophyll to grow fairly well. Some are quite “blue”-ish, and greens from deep to light. I have about forty of them, they’re all beginning to show buds, and I just need just one that’s not Pepto-pink, and is fertile.
I might keep “Goldie Hawn” too.
That is the same balcony, late last September, before the seedling boxes were taken apart and the keepers potted up for observation in Season Two/2025. That’s me on one end of the leash, with my #BestGirl, and #MotherOfMastiffs, Ally on the other end.
The gold seedling is potentially very exciting if it can keep going–the great thing about gold foliage is that it is usually easily passed to offspring, even though that kind of foliage coloration seems to be almost nonexistent in roses to date. Even if the plant is a dog in every other respect, it might be a veritable goldmine when it comes to breeding new lines of better gold-foliaged roses. Fingers crossed!
First seed from the Kirovsk x Minisa cross germinated in May 31. Both are rugosa hybrids. Minisa is a rose bred in 1927 by Niels Ebbesen Hansen, who emigrated from Denmark to the United States. The parents of the Minisa rose are Rosa rugosa Thunb. and Prince Camille de Rohan, a hybrid perpetual. I expect the seedling to grow into a very winter-hardy rose with repeated flowering and very dark-red flowers.
The first seed germinated in May 31 from the cross of Annala x Morden Fireglow. Annala is Hansa x gallica Splendens. I expect the rose to have good winter hardiness, repeat flowering, as well as a beautiful flower shape and color inheritance from the Morden Fireglow rose. Fragrance would be a plus.
The strongest-growing of the OP Bonica seedlings I forked out to give the rest room inevitably became to first to bloom (but barely) AND it’s a reverse-bicolour?!
GTFO, amiright!!??
I like it.
