Fun you people mentioned Immensee.
I’m moving to a new appartment and yesterday we discovered a lot of Immensee bushes in a public garden next to my garden.
How great is that. lol. I definitely going to use it’s pollen for hybridizing.
I just purchased Carefree Marvel today based on your recommendation Jadae. It’s the end of the season and most of the roses at the nursery are suffering from BS but not CM…the leaves are so clean. There are some OP hips developing so I might get some seedlings this winter.
Good luck with it, Rob! I’m expanding my groundcovers even further next year with White Meililand and Electric Blanket. I know the latter is fertile, and I think it may be able to mix well with colors from the orange/yellow spectrums.
A note about Carefree Marvel: The color isnt accurate in pics online. It isnt that flat or any tone of magenta at all. It is a deep pink blend. It has a light pink eye zone. The reverse is medium pink, but has red tones where ever the sun hits it. It is rather neat to look at if you take the blooms apart.
Thank you Jadae and thanks for the update on CM color. I’m glad to hear that it is a much more pleasant color than in the pics online.
Although I love how much White Meidiland blooms and how healthy the leaves are it doesn’t set hips. Electric Blanket looks like a good one but it bothers me when Kordes lists parentage as undisclosed. I like to know the ancestry of the roses I work with so I’ll probably skip that one. I’m glad that I read your posts on Carefree Marvel tho! Good luck next year with your work on ground covers.
There is no doubt in my mind that Electric Blanket is related to the Game Bird series (like Immense) in some way, so Im not worried. I worry more when I look through Hortico’s online catalog, which has roses with absolutely no information on them available, lol.
Does White Meidiland produce pollen? I was gonna try it with climbers as a pollen parent.
I think you may be on to something re: EB being related to Immense or the like. Makes sense.
I’m not sure about WM producing pollen. I found through a search that it doesn’t produce hips.
White Meidiland is triploid and does have a little pollen.
Thanks guys 
Does someone know where a person could get Immense here in the US? It sounds like a very successful parent for bringing in disease resistance.
Vintage Gardens
It looks like Cass Bernstein grows it if you want to beg cuttings. Considering the lineage it would probably root in water.
I have Weisse Immensee. Let me check the canes to see their conditions. If the wood is clean, I’d be happy to offer wood for cuttings. The canes are 8 feet long or so.
If there are enough cuttings available I’d be interested in some. Thank you.
Rob
It hasn’t escaped me the discussion eventually got to the Rosa wichurana hybrid ‘Immensee’ (‘Grouse’) and its contributions to breeding disease resistant roses. I don’t suppose the heavy dose of Rosa wichurana in this cultivar had anything to do with it? Yes, of course it likely does, which validates what I said earlier about the importance of using this species to develop disease resistant cultivars.
I happened to be at Brentwood Bay Nursery on Vancouver Island a few days ago. They grow a large variety of Shrub and Old Garden roses. Other than the Rugosas, the cleanest were ‘Grouse’ (‘Immensee’) and ‘Partridge’ (Weisee Immensee’). Interestingly, the Ground cover ‘Essex’ has the same pistillate parent (‘The Fairy’) of the above two cultivars but it was not clean. The breeder of the first two is Kordes, the last one is ‘Poulsen’. I don’t suppose that would explain the difference would it?
It’s interesting there is a current question about ‘Louis Joliet’ and its potential for breeding. This would certainly be one of the top cultivars I would use breeding with ‘Grouse’ or ‘Partridge’ to develop disease resistant and cold hardier Ground covers.
Poulsen uses minis in a lot of what they do. I avoid their shrubs, minis and floribundas like the plague 
Im hoping White Drift will prove better than Grouse. I like the growth way better, and the rebloom.
I did a cross with Prairie Princess and Louis Jolliet in 2001. I kept two seedling from the cross. Both are medium pink doubles, but one is very upright while the other is low and spreading. Both are much more winter hardy and vigorous for me than Louis Jolliet. They have excellent repeat. I have taken OP seeds from both seedlings and I would have to say that I have never had a cross that produced so many healthy seedlings. I planted out several of these OP seedlings this year and they are still spotless. Louis Jolliet has great breeding potential.
That’s great Julie,
It looks like you found the Holy Grail; winter hardy, repeat bloom and disease resistant, Wow! I’m definitely going to get Louis Jolliet now. Keep us updated on the seedlings progress.