Larry, Rosa arkansas Porter was based on a doubtful specimen allegedly collected in the Arkansas Valley, high in the Colorado Rockies.
Aside from that quibble, you make an important point. I suggest that R. setigera has not been given a fair chance because the hardier accessions have not been used. Feast started with seeds collected in Ohio. Pierce used plants that originated in the milder climate of Tennessee. Horvath lived in Ohio, so I’m guessing that he used local plants for his breeding. If anyone has tried plants from Michigan, New York or southern Canada, I would like to know about it.
There is a related issue that (I think) needs exploring. Somewhere in my notes I have a report of a European orchid that has a fairly wide distribution. Someone had three accessions, each from a different country, growing side by side. Despite experiencing identical conditions, the three specimens bloomed at different times. Would this be true for roses?
Rosa setigera reportedly ranges from southern Canada to northern Florida. If specimens were collected from several locations along the range, and grown together in some congenial middle-ground, would each plant have its own preferred bloom time?
In Kentucky I saw numerous examples of two-toned dogwoods produced by planting a pink specimen beside a larger white. This created a very attractive effect. I think a similarly attractive effect might be had by having two once-blooming roses of similar appearance but different bloom times trained together. For example, Horvath’s ‘Polaris’ reportedly blooms for five to six weeks. If paired with a Setigera hybrid that began blooming later, one might have 2.5 to 3 months of bloom.
I love R. maximowicziana for a hardiness. It is pretty cane hardy in zone 4 and crosses of it with polyanthas made some pretty hardy one time blooming rambler types. Most are blush to white though, so it may take a couple generations to bring in richer colors. Backcrossing these first generation hybrids to polyanthas give a mix of one time blooming climbers and then polyanthas that reflower. It seems like there is one habit or the other and not a climber so far that repeats some. The pictures are of some first generation hybrids.
I wonder how crosses between ‘Ross Rambler’ and some of the old Boursaults would work. Most Boursaults are diploid (like ‘Ross Rambler’), and thornless, and (probably) have R. blanda in them which makes them more cold-hardy than typical China hybrids. If you managed to make some F1s, then let them self, you may find some reblooming offspring. If those were then used with some cold-hardy tetraploid Hybrid Kordesii roses, you could get something interesting.
Genes are fine things, but it is more directly useful to discuss traits that can be observed and measured. Here are some examples.
Bugnet: The Search for Total Hardiness (1941) http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Bugnet.html
“With a much longer experience, on a larger scale, in stone-fruits breeding, I am led to believe that a plant, in order to withstand our climate, needs a very early ripening of its tissues. Winter-killing, apparently, is not caused by extreme cold but rather by a too early cold snap catching immature wood, like the 30° below we had in the first part of November last. Once, at dawn, on October 12, 1930, we had 16° below zero. The next day was rather warm. None of my hardy hybrids and no native tree or shrub suffered. I have often noticed that half-hardy plum or apple trees here, unhurt by December 1, passed unharmed through the rest of the winter no matter how intense the cold.”
Allen & Asai: How Frost Damage Occurs (1943) http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Frost/Frost.html
The authors show cross-sections of rose canes, and indicate where ice crystals form and cause damage. This sort of work should be expanded to the thin-caned Pimpinellifoliae species.
Asai: Effect of repeated freezing/thawing (1944) http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/AsaiFreezing1944.html
The author expands on his earlier work with with Allen. I will add that in some cases, plants may simply use up all their resources trying to re-grow after repeated frosts, even when the temperature alone does not kill them.
cultivars that break dormancy early in the season are more likely to suffer damage from late frosts.
cultivars that break early but grow slowly suffer less than others that break at the same time and grow quickly.
For example, ‘Etoile de Hollande’ and ‘Edith Nellie Perkins’ break dormancy at about the same time. ‘EdH’ grew more quickly at the low temperature, and suffered more frost damage.
Risley: Male Controls Sprouting (1958) http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/RisleySprout1958.html
When I first found this article, I was puzzled. Why should such hardy varieties as ‘Max Graf’ and ‘Persian Yellow’, as pollen parents, sire seeds that are so quick to germinate? Meanwhile, ‘Diamond Jubilee’, a seedling of the tender ‘Marechal Niel’, fathered seeds that took almost twice as long to sprout as those form ‘Max Graf’.
Around that time, I happened across a paper on peaches that mentioned differences in the growth rate of seedlings related to ambient temperature. That’s when it clicked.
Risley wasn’t observing differences in dormancy-breaking, but in the growth rate of the seedlings after dormancy (if any) was broken. ‘Marechal Niel’ does not grow much (or at all) at low temperatures, whereas derivatives of R. foetida and R. wichuraiana may be as cold-tolerant (growing well at low temperatures) as the species. The late emerging seedlings will probably be less susceptible to damage from late frosts, other things being equal. The quick shooters will need hardiness from other traits.
Lets see if l can do this without errors and apologies while l chill with a good cheap Cuban robusto in the coolish garage.
Believe l have young RR1 and 2 and welcome reading your observations and their breeding characteristics. I am fixated on this summer working with the hardier gallics as one parent with the Prairie near species as the other … order a couple tender gallicas to get pollen for color - tried them before.
Stefan l tried Baronne Prevost and it lasted awhile until l stopped protecting - l found also Sidonie and Mrs Baker fought all the way to the end when not protected. But to shift gears and as a generalization, the only old european that has stood the test of time with little or no protection besides the Agatha(e)s is the Duchess of Portland (Agathas dive some years). You might be interested in lillian Gibson - rarely sets hips but l have to prune mine to keep them mannerly in the south front gardens - changed the gardens in the last few years to heritage prairie “king kong” roses as my patience thinned - been very successful and saved my back and pocket book.
As to Pp l thought it was a cross between Beauty of Leafland and Hazeldean. I get the odd bloom after the peak as l do with the Suzannes.
All the heritage roses were hidden treasures to me in the early days since their serius commercialization was skipped ( hard to find for the novice) due to warm climate population market size and tastes steering the market - imo. But firmly believe strides have and will be made.
Stefan out of the scores of Austins l tried, the only semi- hardy to survive without protection in both the south and north plots is Gertrude Jekyll . In the realm of speculation l am convinced it has either briar or what Applejack has in it to make them last so long. This rose is another target for using. If one can get the fragrance in a hardy l will be first in the purchasing line
This trait might be worth verifying this Spring as the roses begin to grow. Is there a correlation between pith and winterkill?
LeGrice: Future of the Floribunda (1965) http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/LeGriceFloribundas1965.html
“Hardiness is a much more elusive characteristic but, broadly speaking, the more pithy the growth the more liable to frost damage. Possibly this accounts for the hardier character of the poly-poms, which are short and have little soft pith. They may be like their Japanese parent which coming from a tougher climate than the chinas are more hardy. Once one breeds from H.T.'s with a heavy infusion of “Pernet” blood the converse is true. The shoots are larger with more pith and because they are intermittent in flower, they may under mild autumn conditions produce late soft wood. This is an added source of weakness.”
I love ‘Ross Rambler’ and the sweet scent of its flowers (in contrast to superficially similar R. laxa), but have had similar problems getting it to accept applied foreign pollen even though OP hips set with ease. I can’t quite remember now, but I might also have had trouble getting good pollen from it the last time I tried… if that could be gotten, it might be worth trying one of the Ross variants on R. rubiginosa or R. canina to go for a really massive, yet semi-climbing and (hopefully) minimally suckering hardy backbone for further breeding. RR #4 sounds like an interesting variant.
Some random thoughts to throw out there for consideration/discussion: pure section Synstylae rambling species with their desirably flexible canes don’t seem to come in hardy enough flavors for very cold areas, unless there are yet-untapped reserves out there still waiting to be discovered. Some genotypes of R. setigera may have better hardiness than others (the few that I tried in MN disappointed me), but none of its repeat-blooming hybrids to date have been quite good enough to cut it as serious climbers in zones 4 and lower. Risley’s ‘White Mountains’, which was, I assume, a product of the work with ‘Skinner’s Rambler’ described in Karl’s article above, weren’t hardy enough to train above snow in even normal zone 4 winters. Did ‘Skinner’s Rambler’ have so much more hardiness, since it was selected in Manitoba? If so, I wonder why; R. maximowicziana itself stays fairly low to the ground and probably benefits from snow cover in its native habitat (it’s not quite R. lucieae low, though.) David’s almost-impossible ‘Polstjarnan’ seedlings might be a source of real hope and are something to watch. It seems like it would be a really good idea for anyone with the means to do so to import the clone grown in Scandinavia under the (doubtfully valid) name ‘Helenae Hybrida’, since that may just be the hardiest pure Synstylae rambler to have all of the best traditional rambler qualities (flexibility, floriferousness, fragrance, and even hints of yellow.) If you do, please share it with nurseries! R. helenae itself, which may or may not be the ultimate source of that cultivar’s hardiness, appears not to have been available in this country correctly identified for many years, but it has very recently been collected again from the wild in China. ‘Ames 5’-type crosses could point the way to more alternatives to R. x kordesii for breeding reasonably hardy climbing roses with different garden qualities.
Riku, I missed seeing your mention of Gertrude Jekyll and thought it was interesting that you had some luck with that one, while for me it had hardiness trouble where ‘Baronne Prevost’ fared much better. ‘Comte de Chambord’ was also less successful than BP, but it was more badly affected by disease, and that can make it difficult to do a direct comparison with any of these. Come to think of it, “Rose de Resht” was even better for many years, maybe in no small part because it was healthier. Winter wetness probably had some significant additional effect on what appeared to be simply cold-hardiness-related cane survival–dry cold sometimes did different things than wet cold, and we did get a fair amount of stem canker, so I wouldn’t be surprised. That could also play a role in your luck with ‘Soleil d’Or’, which seems like it might do better with dry cold.
Using ‘Applejack’ in crosses with fragrant, full-petaled lines is something I’ve been interested in trying myself, and I’m guessing others here have had similar thoughts (I hope.) Fragrance is one of the things I missed most in so many hardier modern roses, and I was never interested in breeding for hardiness without much scent. I think that ‘Applejack’ became a bit too diluted in most of the everblooming Buck lines that descended from it, because so many were basically crown hardy (if that) in our zone 4 and really no hardier for us than most floribundas. For a short time I grew and enjoyed ‘Lilian Gibson’, which was a gift from a friend; I didn’t get around to breeding with it before moving away, but you are absolutely right, and it has proven to have some fertility. I’m sort of curious to find out how well it might grow where I live now.
Stefan, got the lineage close but no cigar, I imported “Ran” through a friend from a reputable Europe nursery a couple years back. Limited info and no photos on HMF to share, stated as pink, shrub and a R. majalis (R. cinn.) × Rosa helenae ‘Hybrida’. Credited to an Arne Lundstad - Norway before 1972. Too young and small at the moment to be useful but made it through one winter.
That’s a pretty interesting background, maybe not quite as good as having “Hybrida” itself, but almost ‘Ames 5’-like in a way–it will really be good to see if that one shows any signs of fertility, and I’m curious how much hardiness it will show there. R. majalis is often only listed to zone 4, but I’m guessing it could handle at least somewhat colder.
I wish I had more than anecdotes on flower timing. But as an example, I have a once-flowering hybrid of something I called Pink Single which was Carefree Beauty x Rise N Shine. Using pollen of an interesting seedling from David Zlesak (nominally triploid R. pomifera) I got a dwarf plant looking for all the world like R. pom but with very short internodes (AKA dwarf) and blooming halfway between when R pom and PS first bloomed. The triploid is the earliest-blooming rose in my garden, coming about 2 weeks before Therese Bugnet.
Most of my once-blooming roses have bloomed in a predictable sequence. It advances or slows with the temperature of the season but remain in order. And it is in sync with other once-blooming species. Harison’s Yellow always bloomed with the common tetraploid hybrid irises. Austrian Copper blooms a bit before Carefree Copper and both reach full bloom before Therese Bugnet. Silver Moon is late but Dr van Fleet and New Dawn are later.
Clearly there is a daylength effect, not just temperatures here. Latitude determines daylength swings. Soybeans with their 10 maturity groups are the best known example. The 00 in Canada will flower at about midsummer (actually in July) so it can mature before frost, but a VIII down in MS is a couple months later. Here in KS we can grow about 3 groups economically, with variable risk and yield. Of course down in Wichita is different from up by the Nebraska border. Early or late planting results in the same flowering time, but smaller plants when planted later. So after wheat yields are lower because you can’t get them into the ground until around July this far north. But with Arkansas river irrigation they do well down south by Wichita.
We have species crocus that bloom, or try to anyway, about Feb 5, and autumn crocus (saffron)that bloom in October. Surprise lilies bloom Aug 1-5 at my house. Other folks have ones that are a week earlier or 10 days later, and it’s not just location, though that has some effect. Different selections of golden rain tree bloom at Memorial Day, or mid-June, July or up until mid Aug. I collected seed of the earliest and latest and grow them in my yard where they do as predicted by the author of the book on woody shrubs.
Although classic hybrid teas will bloom here until frozen solid by a sharp frost if fed biweekly, and irrigated to maintain continually moist soil, more complex hybrids with species blood often tend to shut down earlier. I don’t know of any common garden experiments with a single pure rose species from widely different latitudes. Maybe Erlanson did something of the sort in CA or MI? She had a lot of species to try out
I had no idea where R arkansana got its name, though it goes by several others in different times and places.
Horvath I believe did a significant fraction of his work on the east coast before getting to Ohio. Where he got accessions of parental lines I’ve no idea. I think I wrote about him in the newsletter a few years back. If he got them along Lake Erie around Mentor, they might have been growing in a relatively warm winter climate, but along he east coast would have been at least as temperate. That’s how the Brownells were able to produce roses in coastal RI that would not survive in northern CT. Doubloons, Horvath’s best known supposed setigera hybrid, can’t take 0 F while a found setigera from the old rose garden on campus has no problem with at least -15 or -20 undamaged.
So accessions are like real estate IMO, location is everything.
How hardy is Applejack? Researching says zone 4, is that crown hardy or cane hardy? It was mentioned that descendants were only crown hardy at Zone 4, but it was mentioned “too diluted”. Reading about Applejack it was mentioned that he used at like “antifreeze” in breeding. How well does it inject cold hardiness in breeding when not too diluted?
I also would like to retain fragrance while breeding for cold hardiness. Any other recommendations other than Applejack?
‘Applejack’ is usually cane hardy in zone 4. How far it can be diluted without great loss of cane hardiness probably depends quite a bit upon what it’s mated with, but a lot of Buck’s roses were probably a good several generations removed from it and frankly show precious little of its influence. Even though the first generation of seedlings might not give you the look you want in terms of petal count, crossing, say, two different first-generation descendants of ‘Applejack’ that has been crossed with more heavily-petaled parents might bring you closer to your desired goals (petal count is considered to be a quantitative trait.)
Beyond just using Explorer and certain Morden roses for hardiness (which is not necessarily a bad strategy–it has been done before with some success, and hints of further potential: see Mike Lowe’s ‘Friends Forever’ and ‘Bon Chance’), any relatively wood-hardy shrub rose might be worth a try. There are many, more than you might think, and if you start looking you’ll keep uncovering more. ‘Prairie Princess’ is one to consider. Riku’s suggestion of ‘Lillian Gibson’ is a good one, although its descendants so far are a little unimpressive. With its qualities and background, Above and Beyond (‘ZLEeltonStrack’) might be worth a try, too, and some of Kordes’ (older) “Fruhlings…” series have potential. I would take a good, long look at ‘Alika’ as well. There are also the (hard to find, and never commercialized) ‘Hazeldean’ and ‘Prairie Peace’, although I’m not sure how much they would need to be diluted before you get to a seedling that can be propagated easily by cuttings instead of grafting or suckers. You could also work with some of the forms (and especially hybrids) of R. rugosa that have fertility, hardiness, and fragrance (rugosas can be somewhat more difficult to propagate by conventional cuttings as well.) The biggest problem with those is that mating with modern roses tends to lead to infertile first generation offspring, so while they may be very good garden roses, they are also often dead-ends as breeders so you sort of have to get them right in one shot. ‘Suzanne’ is widely known from its contributions to hardiness in conventional-looking shrub roses, but realizing that its background is ‘Stanwell Perpetual’ along with R. laxa, you can imagine how it might be pulled into a direction that is more focused on petal count, flower form, and fragrance along with cold-hardiness. The more you read and the more you explore, the more options you’ll uncover (attempting all of this would be enough for several lifetimes, at least.)
There is also the slightly longer road of starting with species, in which case it definitely pays to concentrate on heavy petal counts with your alternate parent, so that you can minimize the number of generations before you get something with the look you’re after.
Stefan: Thanks for all the input!
I’m going to need to pick up some more cold hardy bushes for breeding! I’ve been using a few Rugosa Hybrids and I tried William Baffin and Party Hardy because I picked them up locally.
I have a handful of seedlings from Theresa Bugnet & a species rose. I am crossing these with Hansa, Martin Frobisher, and various english and shrub roses to see what I can get.
The rose I am trying to identify took pollen from several of my cold hardy varieties, along with English Roses. Over half of the seeds germinated. The ones that bloomed so far have all been fully double and fragrant, except for one single that was a powerful fragrance. That’s why I wanted to identify it: we are moving in a couple weeks and it is in the frozen ground in the garden. If I had known I would have put it in a pot under the house with the other seed parents. I hate to lose it without knowing what it is to replace it. I’ll post a few pics of the seedlings: I can’t get them to load here for some reason.
Larry,
Thanks for the info … and memories. It is certainly possible to have a continuous display of roses using only once-bloomers, and maybe a few rebloomers to fill in the gaps.
I have read/learned quite a lot about the vagaries of agriculture since I left Kansas. I didn’t understand the yield/risk trade-off at all when I had a small garden and no need to worry about surviving on what I grew. Farmers in the past, when they saved their seed for the following crop, sometimes selected the largest ears of corn. It seemed like a good idea until they realized that they were also selecting for lateness. A big ear one year can lead to a crop failure the next because of an early frost.
I remember when I would search for the first crocus buds, about Feb 1 as you wrote, and when I found some tried to convince myself that Spring was just around the corner. And for a time I started calling the Surprise lilies “August lilies”, though as I recall their bloom time was later and could vary more from year to year. Some bulbous plants are hastened by heat, but it’s been way too long to remember anything definite about correlations.
Erlanson followed Boulenger in recognizing the importance of phenology in distinguishing species that grow together. But as for plants of the same (supposed) species from different regions, I have this bit about Rosa woodsii:
Erlanson: Experimental data for a revision of the North American wild roses. Bot. Gaz. (1934)
Plants or seedlings from British Columbia, Washington, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Plains thrive in Michigan. Plants or seedlings from the arid Great Basin persisted in Michigan but were stunted; they lost their leaves during the summer drought and never flowered. These two physiologically different groups within > R. woodsii > show a parallel series of variations, and cannot be distinguished morphologically. http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Erlanson/ErlansonRevision1934/ErlansonSummary1934.html
I think it’s fair to suppose that the species with its variations existed before the Great Basin came into being.
I am skeptical of R. arkansana Porter because the author does not strike me as very cautious. He also reported that R. blanda was, “Common everywhere along streams in the foothills,” and that R. fraxinifolia (the Newfoundland rose) “Resembles R. blanda. Flowers large, 3’ in diameter; fruit larger, 6’ to 8’ in diameter; 2° to 3° high, growing solitary on dry ridges.— In the mountains”.
Certainly his book needed a better proof-reader. Even assuming that ’ means inch, and °means foot, we have the astonishing image of hips 6 to 8 inches across. He probably meant .6 to .8, of course.
I think Horvath worked primarily with R. wichuraiana while he as on the east coast. That why I guessed that he used an Ohio R. setigera after he moved to Ohio.
i would be happy to learn that someone, sometime has made some efforts with a Michigan accession of the “Michigan Rose”.
David Z., have you tried mating your R. maximowicziana lines with your setigera lines? I don’t have R. maximowicziana, but that’s a route that interests me. I don’t know if R. maximowicziana has the same inclination for RRD as the multifloras, but even if so, it seems there could be other arguments (e.g. hardiness) for choosing max. over multi. as well. (Does one seem to show greater resistance to common diseases?) If one were to use some of the hardier repeating Kordesii lines in the mix, it seems like there could be a decent possibility of getting some healthy zn 3/4 hardy reblooming climbers within a few generations, no?
This is the place to refer again to the Rose described by Mr. Regel as > R. Maximowicziana. > In my > Primitiae, > pages 528-530, I have spoken at length about this singular form that I was inclined to regard as a variety of > R. multiflora. > Today, with the knowledge that we have of the characters of Synstylae, this last opinion is no longer admissible: > R. Maximowicziana > cannot be a variety of > R. multiflora; > it is rather with > R. Wichuraiana > that one has to look for affinity. First and foremost, one should look for whether it is a legitimate species or whether it is not a hybrid product. I am not far from thinking that hybridization has not remained foreign to its production, but I reserve the right to discuss this question in a later work. Crépin: Synstyles (1886)
Has anyone considered building a new R. Kordesii using R. Maximowicziana instead of R. Wichuraiana? One might even go so far as to use a form of R. rugosa from Korea or further north. Or ‘Hansa’, which reportedly flowers freely in Alaska.
Just musings from the SoCal desert, where there was a little ice on the pavement this morning. Brrr!
An excellent thread for educating and path suggestions for increasing the chances of garden worthy hardy climbers and ramblers … especially timely for planning and motivation when Calgary supposedly had it’s “coldest” February in 83 years … glad cashed in my recycles and soon get to chose between 11 of 13 US climate zones for good long time - had enough of “canes chill” for awhile
I’ve been wondering how the reblooming Scotch rose group has fared in the far north.
‘Stanwell Perpetual’ is an oldie that has been recommended for northern Sweden. It seems to be a stubborn parent, as it stands it could be trained upwards as a climber. I’ve seen it, but haven’t grown it.
‘Ormiston Roy’ looks like a nice little bush with a little late bloom. Apparently that’s enough because 'Golden Wing’s [Soeur Thérèse x (R. spinosissima altaica x Ormiston Roy)] is a reliable rebloomer. Maybe GW isn’t hardy enough for the far north, but I’m guessing that (R. spinosissima altaica x Ormiston Roy) would make a good breeder. Or maybe (Hazeldean x Ormiston Roy).
Then there’s ‘Doorenbos Selection’, a reblooming Scotch rose with wine-red flowers. I have seen it in San Jose, CA, where the winters are not at all challenging. If it is hardy enough in the north, it might be used to breed a companion to ‘Stanwell Perpetual’. Otherwise, paired with R. altaica, it might yield a breeder to go with the (Altaica x Ormiston Roy) cross.
