I have to agree…
Sequoia has the best prices around. Infact, I’m always shocked that the new Persica hybrids, an extreme rarity in my opinion, aren’t more expensive.
And the fact that Sequoia says stuff once in a while like, “Oh, this rose is fertile so hybridizers… get it.” It’s something that’s so humble and beautiful that it makes me buy from them even when I really don’t need anymore roses. I mean, one would think that a hybridizer would try to keep certain secrets and that “golden cross”-- but no… They’re eager friends.
So Max,
Invest in Joycie and get Golden Angel as your second choice.
Graham Thomas is good for seed and pollen: a couple of 2005 GT X Elina are good double yellows; a 2006 (Pristine X French Lace) X GT now has a large white bloom with good form. GT has its faults, but is fairly healthy here.
You asked about Earth Song: a very good seed setter in my experience; a 1990 ES X Frag Cloud is one of my best seedlings. People sometimes complain about E Song’s color (“pepto bismo pink”, “boring”) but to me the color is a rich glowing deep pink rarely found elsewhere except to a lesser degree in Country Dancer and Carefree Beauty.
The best commercially available mini roses for setting hips and having good germination in my experience are ‘Chipmunk’ and ‘Fairhope’. They both would need cleaner pollen parents to counteract their disease proneness, but they are very easy to work with. Others to consider are ‘Jilly Jewel’, Rise ‘n Shine’, ‘Roller Coaster’ and ‘Orange Honey’. Two of my roses that are also good seed parents are, ‘Sam Trivitt’ and ‘This is the Day’.
My best mini seed parent right now is a new seedling of mine that hasn’t been released yet. Two compact plants of it produced 2,340 seeds for me this past year.
Jim Sproul
Roller Coaster and Rise N Shine will be horrible for his climate, I believe. I think Sam Trivett, This is the Day, Chipmunk and Fairhope would be wiser.
Thanks for all the suggestions, guys, it’s very inspiring. It’s so conflicting with my Maryland zone, blackspot is apparently killer here and I’m just clueless as to which roses would be both healthy non-spray AND fertile, it’s a whole trial and error experience I guess.
Robert Rippetoe, the OP hip thing is so coincidental, that’s what I’ve started to do, I collected a hip from my presumed Queen Elizabeth ( the one cane, one flower a year wonder) that has lived on and on with no attention from me or my father on the side of our house. The hip produced a good amount of seeds, I think maybe 12…(which is tiny compared to the thousands you guys collect) and so far has produced six seeds that sunk in the water glass test and three had cracked their shells, germinated in the fridge, I lost one down the garbage disposal though as I was taking it out of its paper towel, a shame. It’s interesting because the rose I got the seeds from is surprisingly healthy, I don’t think she lost many of her leaves at all from Blackspot, I’m trying to remember pulling yellow leaves off and all I’m remembering is taking Japanese beetled lace leaves off of her in September, and they didn’t even chew all of them, the rest stayed on until the hard frosts came. I’m hoping the seedlings make it, because this particular Queenie is amazingly resilient if this is the case. Very curious, I’ll need to pay more attention to my orphan next year to see if she’s as resilient as I’m remembering her as…probably all wrong.
dave wolfe, thanks for telling me about “Earth Song” and it’s ability to be a good seed parent, that makes me really happy. I’m unfortunately one of those prejudiced against medium pink people ( I’m not a fan of pink in general) however I’m hoping that if I purchase either " Carefree Beauty" or " Earth Song" I can learn to love it more. I have to say it is pretty distinct, not necessarily the blue undertone magenta-pink as in my Roserie de L’Hay, but not glaring hot HT pink either. It’s worth a shot.
I have so many roses to look over! I’m going to drive my parents nuts…
Crossing your QE with Carefree Beauty might give some red offspring, as both have red in their backgrounds (Floradora and Carrousel).
As you say, QE is very resilent, and also Carefree Beauty;
two CFBs have grown well here since early 70s with no care other than occasional mulching.
Is Cal Poly a good seed or pollen parent? Is it a disease disaster?
‘Cal Poly’ is a good seed and pollen parent. In our climate it is clean, but it may get blackspot elsewhere.
Max, I like to go to neglected garden centers and gardens where there is a lot of disease. It is easy to pick out the clean roses!
As for selecting clean parents - selecting great seed parents (whether or not they are themselves clean) is an important first step. You can always use something very clean on the seed parents like ‘Baby Love’ or ‘Home Run’ pollen on everything and develop your own improved breeding parents that way.
Jim Sproul
Jim, I am close to Max, the same state, and Baby Love is not resistant here. Definitely for our climate he needs something else. Home Run has very little BS in my garden, definitely much better in resistance, but still not in the same league as Knock Out.
Olga
Olga, I am sorry that ‘Baby Love’ doesn’t do well there. I have heard that there are races of blackspot that defoliate it.
‘Home Run’ is a better parent for us in the West than ‘Knock Out’ because ‘Knock Out’ gets a fair amount of powdery mildew here (PM is our most bothersome fungal disease).
Max, looking at local neglected gardens can help you to find other resistant varieties.
Best wishes,
Jim Sproul