I’m starting to look at things to order this fall, and rosa glutinosa caught my attention since it’s native range seems to include the Mediterranean basin. The reference page for it on HMF says that although it seems to originate from the Caucasus region, it grew in the wild in Sicily (80km from here) as well as Cyprus and Crete. So I’m thinking it might be a good candidate for growing in Malta since it does well in these other hot island climates with little rainfall.
Aside from liking it’s small size, I was surprised by pictures of the root system posted by the user “1”: See here.
I had previously believed that the most drought tolerant roses were so tough mainly due to their extra long roots, like rosa Arkansana for example. But this one seems to have very small roots, with very few fibrous feeder roots. I don’t understand the mechanism. Is the plant itself somehow just better at enduring dry conditions?
I saw a few threads on the forum where people mentioned their plans to hybridize with Glutinosa, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any posts about the results of such experiments. The lineage page on HMF shows a few descendants with iberica and spinosissima, but those entries are devoid of any details or pictures.
The HMF user “1” created an entry for a lovely looking seedling they bred from glutinosa named “Scotch Pine”, but few details are given and there hasn’t been an update since 2021.
I’d love to know more about this rose’s use in hybridizing and any experiences others have had with it!
My glutinosa came as seeds from a cultivar acclimated to northern Idaho so I can’t speak to drought tolerance. I would be careful, though, not to confuse the other couple of different ‘glutinosa’ species out there with the R. pulverenta one having pine scented foliage.
R. glutinosa as female yielded a lot of successful crosses with the mostly mossed males that I tried, things like Incantation, Morsoul, Mosseau du Japon, Nutshop, Rosa fedtshenkoana, Sympathie and Scarlet Moss.
Of these f1’s seeds I germinated only a few, mostly glutinosa x Mosseau du Japon. I initially kept three then whittled it down to one when I needed to free up the space. It has pine scented foliage - all three did, actually - and while it doesn’t have the moss I was targeting - none did - there are glandular trichomes enough to carry it forward with mossing in mind.
The bushes were somewhat larger than my R. glutinosas which were all small enough to be called miniatures, none more than a foot tall. Glutinosa is worth growing btw just to have the delicious resin to smell.
R. glutinosa is a canina so it’s offspring take on the canina characteristics to a great degree. Shaking them free of that will, I think be impossible but diluting it may work.
Thank you very much Don!
I am very happy to hear that you had good success with glutinosa as a seed parent, that opens up a lot of options! How cool to have crossed her with Mosses! How has the rose’s health been and how about her offspring ? I read somewhere on here that glutinosa does occasionally mildew. Has this been the case for you? PM is the number one rose fungal disease down here. Anything that can mildew, will mildew. But I can put up with it, to a point.
The french nursery I am going to be buying it from (Les Racines du Vent) mentions the pine scent in their description of the plant so I am guessing it must be the right one. I will be able to tell when she arrives I guess! Fragrant foliage makes up for the lack of remontancy IMO. It adds a whole different kind of interest.
Unfortunately they sell if grafted onto Laxa. I’ll check if they can do own roots, or else I will have to try rooting cuttings of it myself! The peculiar, small root system is a big part of her appeal for me, I find it very interesting, so grafted would be a real shame.
Have you noticed anything about the roots of her offspring? I am wondering if this particularity may be inheritable.
Small but efficient roots on a rose that can withstand heat and drought sounds like a dream to a container gardener like me. I’d love to try crosses with all kinds of other small roses.
References on HMF state it’s native to " mountain slopes overgrown by shrubs, subalpine meadows and pastures. — Caucasus", " It ranges from Italy eastward to Persia, ascending the mountains of Greece up to altitudes of 6,000 feet, and has been found on Mount Lebanon and in Calabria.“Native of the subalpine hills of Caucasus”. Don lives in the north east US and his seed came from a plant acclimated to Idaho…none of which seem to remotely resemble a hot Malta location where it is to be grown potted. You may want to do a bit more research whether this might be happy where and how you intend to grow it.
I was thinking the same thing. Elevation is equal to latitude.
You may want to do a bit more research whether this might be happy where and how you intend to grow it.
To answer the questions - I grew five or six of them. There was some variability but they were all small. I never looked at the roots but I recall them being sensitive to sprays so I didn’t include them in my spray schedule. They did not seem to suffer for it.
As for remontancy, I’m wondering it it is even possible for a canina. Remontancy is single allele recessive iirc. Given the squirrely Borg nature of canina meiosis is there a possible chromosomal assortment that could yield two copies of the allele on the right chromosomes?
Am I correct that for canina you get one gamete having one copy each of seven chromosomes while the other gamete has four copies each of seven chromosomes and those don’t match the chromosomes in the other gamete?
I’m not sure you should be expecting roses to do well in Malta. My almanac says you are in a state of constant high humidity as well as high heat. Maybe you could find some rugosas that do well there. They are adapted to coastal environments. I’m not sure about heat.
Michael Garhart appears to have mined some repeat from Canina through his Dog Father. 'Dog Father' Rose How successful other efforts may be is anyone’s guess.
There actually seem to be a number of named remontant hybrids of R. canina (mostly from the second generation onward). George Paul’s ‘Una’ might be the only one to reportedly achieve repeat bloom in the first generation, although maybe the species parent used was already a (cryptic) hybrid. Geschwind had a number of reblooming introductions from second generation crosses of the species (‘Creme’, ‘Griseldis’, ‘Sylvia’, ‘Vineta’), and there were some remontant selections from crosses involving R. ×hibernica, such as ‘Irish Fireflame’, ‘Irish Elegance’, and ‘Innocence’. Repeat-blooming hybrids of R. rubiginosa also began to appear in a couple of generations, as evidenced by some of the cultivars with ‘Magnifica’ as a parent. Caninae meiosis does not seem to persist for many generations following outcrossing to non-Caninae roses. There is no reason to think the outcome should be any different for breeding with R. pulverulenta.
R. Pulverulenta is one rose that i am very interested in doing a lot of work with. Unfortunately, it seems that in the states there is only really one place to get them and its sold out most of the time. So i havent been able to get my hands on one. Do any of you know where i might be able to get one outside of that? Does anyone have any seeds, cuttings, or suckers they would be willing to send my way?
Hopefully someone will have some to share–if not, this might not be much more helpful to you, but I purchased one in 2011 from Forestfarm. It unfortunately didn’t survive for more than a few years and hardly grew the entire time (I should have tried a bit harder to improve its soil, in hindsight, assuming that the climate wasn’t the main factor in its demise).
Mine are long gone. I went through my emails just now and found the nursery from which they came back in 2008. It was a mom and pop shop and is no longer doing mail order.
Thank you Roseseek and Don for your replies! @roseseek , you are right of course about Glutinosa origins, and I did mention the Caucasus in my OP. The rose is also mentioned in the sources on the reference page as growing in Sicily, Calabria and Crete, but I did not consider elevation. I have a lot to learn, and I am certainly not averse to doing more research as well as listening to advice from experienced hybridizers such as yourself. I value your input and that of others on this forum immensely.
Unfortunately, if I was going to stick to roses that are native to Malta, I would grow none. I am trying to look for things that fit my main criteria of not being huge and having a potential to tolerate the lack of real winter chill and the high summer heat. It’s an experiment, I guess, and it’s fun to explore adding a small sized species rose to the mix, if it can be happy here. If you have ideas about species that would be better suited for these goals, I would welcome your suggestions! @Don , thank you for the info about your seedlings! Good to know glutinosa don’t need/like spraying, I will keep that in mind!
Regarding Malta’s climate, it is thankfully not constantly hot. Temps range from minimals of 6-7°c in winter to a max of 42-43°c in summer. The average temperature is in the upper 20’s. Humidity averages around 70-80%, but perhaps thanks to the plumes of sulfur dioxide that regularly sweep down over us from nearby Mount Etna, fungal disease is almost nonexistent except for PM.
I don’t want to steer this thread away from the topic but just wanted to mention that many roses are happy here. Many hybrid teas and floribundas adapt well, as do several Austins. Teas and chinas, damasks and hulthemia hybrids (even early ones like Nigel Hawthorne) do very well here too. I grow several rugosa hybrids and they also do very well. My only bourbon, Honorine de Brabant, is spotless and sprawls large against an east facing wall.
Overall I am impressed with how adaptable roses can be. @Bregingew I hope you will find glutinosa!