I’m slowly rebuilding my collection. I had to give up on a collection of nearly one hundred varieties and species when I moved to go to school in Knoxville, TN. Then there was graduate work which left no time for hybridizing (which, for me, demands a great deal of obsession). So, I only have sixteen species and varieties now. Out of boredom for lack of blooms right now, I crossed Stanwell Perpetual with Distant Drums yesterday. It’s not one I ever imagined doing, but what the hell. If it takes, that will be a wacky combination of traits.
Makes perfect sense to me, John. Some of the most interesting results have come from having left over pollen with nothing I’d planned to use it on. Many of the “What if?” seedlings are the most fun.
John as you can see I am in Australia and wondered if you wouldn’t mind listing the ones you have kept just out of interest, I guessing they are special or that they might be rare. As Kim points out some good rose come from out there “What If” crosses. As you say John, “wacky”, it might be the next big rose in the rose world.
This was one of those “what if?” moments where I had pollen but very few blooms to use it on. The seed parent was a Robert Rippetoe pink single, (Loving Touch X Country Dancer). Lutescens produces pollen very early. As the heat increases, the flowers continue, but actual pollen diminishes very rapidly until there are anthers but nothing releases from them no matter how they’re dried nor even with grinding them. Early on, there is a lot of pollen, just very few things to put it on.
This is a thornless plant, still in a one gallon can. There is nothing about the seed parent to encourage lack of prickles. The foliage texture is significantly different from any other seedlings I raised from it. The odd, strap-like sepals are very similar to the other Lutescen offspring I’ve encountered. The petals open relatively flat, but begin reflexing back once the sun its it. The reverse retains a bit of pink blush when open. There is a moderate, sweet scent. There is a significant level of mildew early and late in the year, but appears to be lessening with maturity of the plant. I haven’t quite determined if I want to grow it larger or not.
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Nice looking flower Kim, how does it hold up to your heat.
Thanks David. Right now, NOTHING is holding up to this heat. The sun is significantly more intense than the “norm”. Foliage and canes are frying which have never fried before. I’m staying out of it as much as possible. For a small, year old plant in a one gallon can, in this heat, with this number of petals, it does OK.
This is that Banksiae seedling flower at half past midnight, the first 102 degree day open.
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Really cool Kim!!!
And a great answer to that “what-if”
Kim, that is one beautiful flower! Those sepals are freaky. Totally cool.
Thank you! I thought it interesting enough to hold on to for a while. I harvested hips from this cross today.
(IHT X LB) X [(LT X CD) X Lutescens]
That’s this crossed with the seedling pictured above.
Are you asking about offspring I’ve kept, or existing varieties I’ve collected?
As for offspring, I grew several plants from Belle de Crecy x Madame Isaak Pereire. I considered them an intermediate step toward a disease resistant repeat bloomer with the rich color and fragrance of either variety. These plants bore some amazing flowers with intense fragrance. Alas, disease resistance didn’t even make it to this F1 generation. That is except for one plant with a great bloom. After I returned to school and moved to Knoxville, TN, I neglected this plant (planted at my in-law’s farm). Weeds grew up around and through it, smothering it enough to kill most roses, but it still exhibited only minor levels of blackspot. Then…(waaaait for it)…my nephew’s goats found a way over the fencing. Yeah, I know, right? I visited this plot on a rare break from studies and found the thing munched down to the ground.
My favorite plant ever came from a cross of Basyes Bluberry x Königin von Dänemark. The flower looked remarkably like Königin von Dänemark, but the foliage was much smoother. It had great fragrance too. I kept it in a pot in my front yard for a year, but left it behind when we sold our house and moved to Knoxville. We lived on campus, so there was no place to keep it. While I had it, it showed no signs of any of the common rose diseases. I had great hopes for it, but I put school first in my priorities and lost a potential gem.
John, this was the bit of your post I was referring to “I only have sixteen species and varieties now”
Oh, okay. Well, I can start off by saying that when I moved in 2002 to Knoxville, Tennessee (from Chattanooga, TN) I had to leave most of the roses at my former home and transplant just a few to my wife’s parent’s farm. There I had a collection of a number of roses in a fenced in area. Except for Rosa palustris, Rosa virginiana, and Tuscany Superb, those roses did not survive the goats. (Damn those goats!).
So, once I completed my M.S. degree in May of 2011, I had to start over pretty much from nothing. I actually underestimated the number of plants that I currently have because I wasn’t thinkng of roses I had growing at my wife’s grandmother’s home. I stashed a few there during my graduate work. I started adding to my collection this past spring, so I have a decent number of plants to enjoy and to breed.
I was thinking last night that it might be fun to see what everyone here would do if they had to pick one or two crosses from my current collection, like a game. So, now that you’ve asked, I’m listing here everything I have and I’m inviting everyone to choose a “what if…” cross just for fun (and, I guess, for real ideas for myself). So, here’s everything I currently have to work with next spring (I need to obtain more repeat bloomers):
Aloha
Autumn Damask
Belle Isis
Cabbage Rose
Celestial
Celsiana
Constance Spry
Distant Drums
Duchesse de Brabant
Eugene de Beauharnais
Königin von Dänemark
La Ville de Bruxelles
Rosa arkansana
Rosa banksiae lutea
Rosa carolina
Rosa eglanteria
Rosa gallica officinalis
Rosa hugonis
Rosa mundi
Rosa palustris (survived the goats)
Rosa pendulina
Rosa pomifera
Rosa rugosa kamtchatka
Rosa setigera (male and female)
Rosa virginiana
Rose du Roi
Salet
Schoener’s Nutkana
Stanwell Perpetual
Tuscany Superb (survived the goats)
Zéphirine Drouhin
I’d like to see R. virginiana x Stanwell Perpetual or R. virginiana x Cabbage Rose. Don’t ask me why.
jbergeson, I think the appeal of those combinations is to see what the two extremes in form will produce in the offspring.