I find myself wanting to work towards a combination of thornlessness and hardiness before starting to cross with moderns. If you are going to mix species and moderns, why not start with a thornless or near-thornless specimen?
If anyone has thornless or nearly thornless specimens of hardy species (including but not limited to the following list) or could recommend a cultivar that would do the same trick, please let me know.
R. acicularis
R. nitida
R. virginiana
R. carolina
R. rugosa (ha!)
R. foliolosa
R. nitida
R. palustris
R. blanda
Should I get Lillian Gibson? In the comments on HMF it appears there is a thornless version. I’d be very interested in finding that, as well as the Turnip Rose (Rose d’Amour).
I would also be interested in large quantities of hips from any thornless or nearly thornless hardy species rose.
I’d like to start with as thornless a plant as possible and then plant thousands of seeds in hopes of selecting, at a young age, those with even fewer thorns. Eventually maybe blend two or more species together and keep selecting for thornlessness. When I finally get a hardy, healthy, and completely thornless plant I can start making crosses with modern roses and start the long road towards regaining rebloom.
I have and am using Commander Gillette. For instance, I have some Apothecary’s Rose x C. Gillette and R. nitida x C. Gillette seedlings this year. The Commander isn’t as hardy as pure R. carolina but it is so lusciously thornless and has genes for rebloom.
Have you considered R. pendulina? It is very hardy in zone 4–how about up in your neck of the woods? It is thornless and has pretty leaves. I can send you seeds and/or a sucker.
I tried Lillian Gibson as female with Rainbow KO as pollen this year. 0/20 or so. I think it’s not very OP fertile either. This doesn’t mean it won’t work with something, but in my experience RKO as a triploid goes onto a lot of things effectively, whether diploid or tetraploid. The same lots of pollen worked well on other CV the same time. No luck with Haidee using Carefree Sunshine pollen but only 5 flowers to try. (This is not about thorns but near-species as parents). Applejack gave very low yield of hips with the same two pollens. Pink Cloud took RKO very well, or else it self-pollinated before I got up. We’ll see next spring.
Lillian Gibson might still have some potential as a pollen parent. I have a little Ann Endt x Lillian Gibson seedling from this year that seems to be pretty intermediate in form between the two. It hasn’t bloomed yet. Just went out and looked at it–it has some little hairy spines, but nothing bloodthirsty. It was the only seed to germinate from one hip’s worth of seeds.
[attachment=0]Cafe Ole x Basyes Legacy 2834.JPG[/attachment]
Joe, You might try some open pollinated seeds from both (CalocarpaxNutkana) X (Acicularis x OP) and from one of their offspring (pictured) which is very low thorned, and has Calocarpa(which contains rugosa), Nutkana, Acicularis, and Basyes Legacy in it. It has 5" across bright (of course pink) ruffled flowers and is quite showy and disease resistant/tolerant, fertile and does not sucker (so far no rust, no mildew, no spots, and last fall one or two black spots that did not go anywhere). It has a sister seedling that did survive this past winter in Wisconsin. Let me know, I could send you more than a few hips, and they contain lots of seed. I may try to start some cuttings of this one this fall.
Betsy’s comment about R. pendulina brought to mine a hybrid of mine. It is a cross from 2008 between R. pendulina and R. spinosissima Altaica. This plant produced some blooms this year–as I recall, just a light pink and white blend single-nothing too special. The plant came through the winter untouched by cold. Since two separate attempts to establish own-root R. pendulina in my garden did not survive their first winter and given the hardiness and the bloom color of this seedling, I am pretty certain this is an actual hybrid. It is probably about three and a half feet tall at present (my measurements from last fall were 42" (ht) x 40" (width). Anyway, what I did notice was the canes tend much more towards R. pendulina in appearance–the upper parts looked pretty smooth and they are the golden color of R. pendulina–I could check it today to see if there are any thorns. It’s too late to get pollen from it now but I could get some next spring if you are interested and I can be watching to see if it suckers. If you cross it with another thornless variety, you should see some smooth seedlings–even if the nasty Spin thorns are lurking in the background. My comment from the disease assessment done last Fall (sometime between the 15th and the 21st of September) showed thick and dense foliage with just a few leafspot lesions.
Joe,
I have a thornless R.blanda that I found locally about 8 or 9 years ago. I moved it two falls ago and it’s still getting re-established, so it didn’t have many blooms this year. I made a number of crosses with it and a cross with Marie Pavie is thornless and fully hardy here. It puts out tons of small single blooms but there aren’t many hips and there is usually only one seed per hip. I was able to raise about 10 OP seedlings from it this year. I also have a Showy Pavement x R.blanda that has grown into a monster and suckers like crazy. It’s been the most female fertile of any of the Rugosas I have. It’s not thornless but has the thornless gene from R.blanda. I have (4) third year seedlings of a cross of (MPxRb) x (SPxRb) that I know at least one repeat blooms. But all four had lots and lots of blooms this year. The stems on these are more like a typical R.blanda in that the base is thorny whereas the tops are thornless or nearly so. I could send you hips (or maybe suckers) of any of the above plants.
Has anyone tried Summer Snow or Climbing Summer Snow as a parent in an attempt to pass along its thornless trait?
The quote below is also from Help-Me-Find:
“Summer Snow has been the best rose in my garden. The foliage is glossy med/lime green and pretty much disease-free (only sprayed X 2), no pests. The plant is well branched and leafed-out with 3” pure white flowers in sprays of 3-5, continuous bloom, 3’ tall and 2’wide. A pretty plant–no bare knees. Not too prickly. This well behaved rose would make a nice low hedge as it really needs no shaping. I’ll buy more to dot throught the rose beds as a little white to show off all the other colors. Highly recommended No-Fuss rose. Performs as well as a Knockout!
I’m surprised that this rose is not a common, available variety.
2-6-11 This rose strikes very easily and I see no difference in growth or vigor between grafted and own-root plants. I don’t spray this rose anymore…doesn’t need it."
Perhaps for a wet, colder, acidic environment. I have grown Summer Snow three times in two gardens. Addicted to mildew with terminal chlorosis as were all of its offspring. Completely unsuited for inland valley, SoCal desert soils, water and climate. I liked the lack of prickles and hoped the sepals might have helped pass on interest. It didn’t.
Yes sir, they are, and I have pimped their pollen too long and too many times to recount. Puzzlement appears to be the only successful result, and I didn’t move that pollen. 'Puzzlement' Rose
Wow, I was unaware of Puzzlement, aptly named it is. Make a note somewhere to bring this up again next year and maybe we can swap pollen from fed seedlings to get a line going with Puzzlement.
My copy of minutifolia didn’t survive the trek home from Sacramento. I’ve thought of trying to get another, its available somewhere, but I’m trying to wean myself off of winter storage heroics.
The commonly available one (Tree of Life Nursery, Suncrest Nursery, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic/Grow Native) are all the California strain which is not known for setting hips. Tessie, who reads and posts here, reports hers does, but none of the others I have ever seen or known of does. I have three plants reserved of the Mexican clone from Grow Native for next spring when they say they should be ready. The Mexican form sets self hips and seed. I get hips on many things supposedly using Minutifolia pollen. IF anything germinates, it’s small, weak, mildewy and fries very quickly and easily once the weather gets hot. I also have a few hips forming on Jim’s L56-1 presumably from Puzzlement’s pollen. We’ll see. It appears to form pollen on the anthers, but getting it to release is the issue.
Joe,
Do you have Alika? It’s not thornless but has few thorns and probably is fully hardy there. I’ve had it for a while and dabbled with it 6 or 7 years ago but nothing serious. It doesn’t repeat so it’s going to take several generations to recapture repeat bloom. It’s one to consider if you haven’t already.
Lillian Gibson is not quite so bleak. I actually found I have 2 hips out there, out of 20+ crosses. Small, like 1-2 seeds each. Patience.
Also, Pink Cloud is close to thornless on its upper branches. A few on the basals. Loaded with hips, some of which ought to be from RKO or Carefree Sunshine.
I’ll add Lillian Gibson to my wish list. I’ll check out Pink Cloud, Larry.
Paul, yep, I have Alika. I did quite a few crosses onto it last year using three pollens: Hazeldean, Ross Rambler, and blended modern pollen. Interestingly the hips from Hazeldean and Ross Rambler were much bigger and produced more seeds than the modern blend (maybe I had just let the pollen sit out too long?). The x Hazeldean seedlings are a little weak, while the x Ross Rambler are stronger. Both uber thorny. I can’t remember if I ended up with any viable Alika x blended moderns seedlings. I think there were a handful. So why not Alika x Commander Gillette? If the bloom times would overlap we should definitely try that. Alika tends to bloom earlier.
Over the years I’ve raised a number of op Lillian Gibson seedlings. The seed set was low and the seedlings varied for strength. I read Hansen would sometimes group together a number of similar separate seedlings and call it a particular cultivar, so maybe there is some variation out there for what is labeled as LG potentially. That is very interesting… My LG is diploid and all the seedlings from it have been one time bloomers, suggesting to me that perhaps the form I have does not carry a recessive repeat bloom allele. There is one seedling that is clearly a cross with a poly and another that is very large flowered and double and I suspect a cross with the neighboring Gertrude Jekyll that I’ve kept. They both have very low fertility, but are very hardy and relatively healthy. They both are thornier than my LG.
