Today I stumbled upon parentage information on the Chinese Plant Variety Protection site (cnpvp dot com). Thanks to Google Translate, I found out that the 2002 floribunda Gelber Engel is Honeymoon X Goldener Sommer. Honeymoon is a hybrid of Clare Grammerstorf x Golden Scepter, introduced in 1960. Goldener Sommer is a yellow floribunda from Noack, introduced in 1983.
Gelber Engel is a rather vigorous yellow floribunda with dark green, disease resistant foliage. It gets only a minute amount of blackspot.
It’s interesting that Kordes is obtaining new, disease resistant yellow floribundas by reaching back to old yellow floribundas. Of course, this information may not be entirely reliable. Deciphering Google’s translation is an art in itself. Moreover, I always thought there was wichurana influence in Gelber Engel, because of the glossy foliage. However, my deciphering of the translated parentages of other roses in the Chinese list matches those from other sources (when known), which gives it some credibility.
Also interesting is that Bernstein Rose (a beautiful Tantau floribunda) happens to be used quite a lot.
Second thing is that -apart from the groundcover roses- there don’t seem to be truly disease resistant parents in the parentage of the newer, disease resistant Kordes roses. Nothing like fancy wichurana, davidii or multiflora hybrids. Just somewhat older hybrids like Westerland, Lichtkonigin Lucia, Caramba and Bernstein Rose. Could it be a ‘brute force’ game of chance and subsequent selection? Or is there something they are not reporting…
Isn’t there a lot to be said for the “brute force” method where all are subjected mercilessly to the forces of nature and only the strong survive? I think it works for natural selection well enough. Kordes does get some good looking and tough roses—it’s not as if everything comes up single pinks.
(And you single pink defenders, I actually have several I’m very partial to myself.)
Rob that is interesting news and a surprise that Kordes still have and use Honeymoon in his breeding program.
I don’t know how long Honeymoon were on sale in the sixties, but surely it was not as successful as Lichtkonigin Lucia, Westerland, Chinatown and other from that breeding line.
Some time ago I took part in a guided tour in the Kordes Company. We were told that they have 1 000 000 new seedlings every year. Their success owes much to huge numbers.
Im all in for survival of the fittest. But maybe my imagination is too wild and I like the thought of roses with swords and shields doing battle? =/ I do crowd my seedlings on purpose though. I always want to know how they behave when stressed. It makes culling easier I can still recall my old hortiulture yelling at me in the greenhouse every time I did this, lol.
I can still recall my old hortiulture yelling at me in the greenhouse every time I did this, lol.