The last time I did crosses was in 2009. I was so busy with work and other things that I just didn’t have time for hybridizing. I have a lot more time for my hobbies since taking early retirement last year.
I’ve harvested 24 hips from 16 different crosses so far this year. I probably have a few dozen hips sill ripening. I could have had a lot more if it hadn’t been for varmints. I lost a lot of flowers outdoors to deer in Spring, and a lot of hips in the greenhouse to spider mites in Summer. Oh well. Here are the crosses I’ve harvested so far:
((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Apricot Twist) x (Armada x Coral Dawn)
((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Apricot Twist) x (Orangeade x Pinstripe)
((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Julia Child) x (Ebb Tide x Julia Child)
((The Gift x unknown) x Lyda Rose) x (Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn))
((The Gift x unknown) x Lyda Rose) x Comtesse du Cayla
(Ebb Tide x Julia Child) x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Julia Child)
(Ebb Tide x Julia Child) x (Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn))
(Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)) x (Ebb Tide x Julia Child)
(Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)) x (Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn))
(Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)) x Pinstripe
(Gemini x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)) x (Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn))
(Midnight Blue x Night Owl) x (Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn))
(Midnight Blue x Night Owl) x (Mr. Bluebird x unknown)
(Moondance x Fabulous!) x (Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn))
(Moondance x Fabulous!) x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Apricot Twist)
(Moondance x Fabulous!) x Apricot Twist
Although I haven’t been doing crosses for a while, I’m still getting a few germinations from seeds I harvested in 2008 and 2009.
Congratulations, Jim, and “welcome back”! It appears you have a thing going on for mauve and stripes this year. Good luck with the Schoener’s crosses. It’s a great rose, but I never raised anything from it that wasn’t addicted to terminal rust.
Good to hear that you are still doing some hybridizing. It has been a while since I last saw a post from you. Looks like you made some interesting crosses. Now the waiting period until germination! I don’t have deer problems, but do have rabbits that love to chew on the lower part of the bush so I tend to make my crosses a tad higher. Should make some wire cages to stop them - they are on the list…
Thanks! My seedling of Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn is free of rust and other diseases here, where rust is a serious problem. Perhaps it gets its rust resistance from Coral Dawn. In any case, it is vigorous, fertile, and has large beautiful hybrid tea-form buds on long stems that open into somewhat loose blooms. Here is a pic of it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxkbmZJ7aYSYTUpFdzJmSGluM1k/view?usp=sharing
My seedling of Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn) is equally disease resistant, has better bloom form, and is an exceptionally prolific bloom producer.
((The Gift x ?) x Lyda Rose) x (Moondance x Fabulous!)
((The Gift x ?) x Lyda Rose) x Apricot Twist
(Apricot Twist x Julia Child) x (Moondance x Fabulous!)
(Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)) x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Apricot Twist)
(Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)) x (Lilac Charm x Schoener’s Nutkana)
(Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)) x Apricot Twist
Apricot Twist x (Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn))
(((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole) x Lilac Charm) x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Apricot Twist)
(((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole) x Lilac Charm) x Apricot Twist
(Armada x Coral Dawn) x (Armada x Coral Dawn)
(Lilac Charm x Schoener’s Nutkana) x (Fabulous! x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn))
(Night Owl x Purple Passion) x (((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole) x Lilac Charm)
(Night Owl x Purple Passion) x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)
(unlabeled seedling) x (Apricot Twist x Julia Child)
Apricot Twist x (Fabulous! x Lilac Charm)
Gemini x Moondance
Jeanne d’Arc (N) x ((The Gift x unknown) x Lyda Rose)
Lasting Love x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)
I’ve harvested more hips from some of the previously listed crosses, plus hips from 11 more crosses:
((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Apricot Twist) x (((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole) x Lilac Charm)
(Apricot Twist x Julia Child) x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Julia Child)
(Apricot Twist x Julia Child) x (Fabulous! X Lilac Charm)
(Apricot Twist x Julia Child) x (Lilac Charm x Purple Heart)
(Apricot Twist x Julia Child) x (Magenta x Lilac Charm)
(Lilac Charm x Purple Heart) x Plum Frost
(Lilac Charm x Schoener’s Nutkana) x Plum Frost
Apricot Twist x (Schoener’s Nutkana x Coral Dawn)
Plum Frost x (Magenta x Lilac Charm)
Scarlet Moss x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole)
Scarlet Moss x Rhapsody in Blue
72 hips harvested so far, with another 60-70 still ripening, although I don’t expect all of those to make it to term.
15 more crosses harvested, over 100 hips so far this year:
(((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole) x Midnight Blue) x (Fabulous! X Lilac Charm)
(((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole) x Midnight Blue) x (Lilac Charm x Purple Heart)
(((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole) x Midnight Blue) x Plum Frost
(((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole) x Midnight Blue) x Rhapsody in Blue
(Apricot Twist x Julia Child) x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Apricot Twist)
(Apricot Twist x Julia Child) x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole)
(Apricot Twist x Julia Child) x (Apricot Twist x Julia Child)
(Lilac Charm x Purple Heart) x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole)
(Lilac Charm x Schoener’s Nutkana) x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Cafe Ole)
(Magenta x Lilac Charm) x (Apricot Twist x Julia Child)
(Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Comtesse du Cayla
(Night Owl x Purple Passion) x Plum Frost
Jeanne d’Arc (N) x unknown
Royal Amethyst x ((Magenta x Lilac Charm) x Apricot Twist)
Scarlet Moss x Midnight Blue
(Apricot Twist x Julia Child) x (Apricot Twist x Julia Child) isn’t a self cross; it is a cross between two sister seedlings. It is interesting how closely related roses can differ in fertility. One of the Apricot Twist x Julia Child seedlings set a hip for every bloom that was pollinated; the other one didn’t set a single hip, although its pollen worked well.
Jim, I have been reluctant to make this comment when others have posted similar “stirring up the same old genetic pool” type crosses. (I would have to exclude your use of Schoener’s Nutkana from the following generalizations.)
I expect that you will produce many “nice” roses from your crosses. However, my prediction is that most (if nor all) will probably be “chemically dependent” from birth. If we follow the lead of Ontario (and I expect that we will), I expect that we will not have the chemicals available to support this type of rose.
I’d like to think that there are many things lurking in that old genetic pool that might be salutary, when we apply new and rigorous selection processes. Surely disease resistance is “in there” somewhere in many roses—we just haven’t been selecting for it. Perhaps I’m naive.
Hi Jim, looks like some very interesting crosses with lots of fragrance possibilities. Great to see you back at it!
I agree with Donald that many of the old roses have resistant genes. It’s all about selection, selection, selection…
For me during these last few years as I have tried to add more blackspot resistant genes, I’ve noted that many seedlings have increased rust susceptibility. It becomes a very difficult proposal to find roses that resist the big 4: blackspot, powdery mildew, rust and downy mildew (not to mention other bad things).
It honestly appears Nature has designed the genus to never permit it to resist all diseases to a high degree. Some seem impervious to one or two diseases but collapse due to one or the other remaining infections. Knock Outs resist many black spot infections, but mildew badly here. Some are highly mildew resistant, but they rust or black spot badly. Nothing is ever permitted to become the dominant species. Everything has its Achilles Heel.
In my humble opinion if there are resistances in some old roses such as Teas and Chinas, desease evolution occurred and superseded most modern roses defenses at least in the less favored environments.
And there is a widespread less favorable one that is large plantings of a single clone.
It is not for lack of selection that roses lost resistance. Breeders never intentionally gave up at it.
Breeding strategy as well as greenhouse and early selection as well as grafting are real culprits.
I never use any chemicals on my seedlings. Most of my seedlings have disease problems and are discarded, but some are disease free. I only use healthy seedlings in my crosses. Some of them are excellent at passing along disease resistance; some aren’t. I do a lot of experimenting to find out which ones are good at passing disease resistance to their offspring, and use them extensively in my crosses.
Thank you Jim for the additional information. My specific recommendation is that: if you start with one of the best disease resistant Kordes roses as one of the initial parents, you probably will find a much larger % that pass your disease criteria earlier. This would be similar to what Paul Barden started to do when he utilized the Canadian L-83 as one of his initial parents (it was one of the best available at that time).
I used many disease resistant Kordes roses in crosses I did 10-15 years ago, including Antike 89, Crimson Bouquet, Dortmund, Helmut Schmidt, Lavaglut, Magenta, New Day, Palmengarten Frankfurt, Iceberg, Rosenresli, and Sunsprite. With the exception of Antike 89 and Magenta, none were very fertile as seed parents, and most weren’t that great as pollen parents either. Some of the seedlings had excellent disease resistance, but the proportion of healthy seedlings wasn’t significantly higher than from some of my other disease resistant parent plants. I did register ‘Earl Parsons’ from the cross Antike 89 x Playboy. You can see pics of it on HelpMeFind.com
I also have a good seedling of Easy Livin’ x R. kordesii that I used in many crosses in 2006-2008. The two best seedlings from those crosses were
(Easy Livin’ x R. kordesii) x Lavaglut
and
(Easy Livin’ x R. kordesii) x red florist HT
Lavaglut might have R. kordesii somewhere in its background. If it does, then my seedling of (Easy Livin’ x R. kordesii) x Lavaglut has a double dose of kordesii. I planned to try both of those Easy Livin’ x R. kordesii seedlings in crosses last Spring, but the deer got into the bed where I had them and several of my other intended parent plants. Hopefully next year.
