Where I live, “Lamarque” shows itself off with perpetual flowering on an extremely dense rambling growth.
Does anyone have any breeding experience with this glorious rose?
I have never seen hips on mine George and it has a definate dormant period during winter. Looking on HMF, however, it is evident that it does set hips’. It flowers quite well in the warmer months and right to the beginning of winter and retains its folliage even down here in Tasmania. I got ‘Lamarque’ a few years back to also inlcude it in breeding because there are some intersting descendants listed on HMF… interesting from a warm climate rose point of view anyway. These are the three that I found intersting (in order from most interesting to least):
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‘Di Castello’ ('Di Castello' Rose). I find this one most interesting because it’s a bankseae hybrid.
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‘Le Pactole’ ('Le Pactole' Rose) because it’s pollen parent is ‘Parks’ Yellow Tea’ like ‘Safrano’ which I also love.
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Chromatella ('Chromatella' Rose)… because it too has a lot of descendants and has inherited the blousy ‘Lamarque’-style flowers in yellow.
I’m interested in ‘Lamarque’ because it strikes easily from cuttings and has a lot of descendants and is almost like a fertile version of ‘Fortuneana’ in both look and growth habit (only with more to offer in breeding terms). I haven’t, however, used it yet in breeding as I don’t want to be over run by massive climbing seedlings and need to think more carefully about what to put it with to try and avoid this. I am thinking a lot of the Teas would go well with it and so am looking at the ones recommended to me on here as more reliable breeders; ‘Mons. Tillier’, ‘Safrano’, ‘Papa Gontier’, ‘Comtesse de Labarthe’, and ‘Lady Hillingdon’. I’ll put it with ‘Lorraine Lee’ (bush form) too to try for colour and introduce ‘gigantea’ blood into it. A pairing with ‘Crepuscule’ might be interesting too but would probably produce mostly massive climbers I reckon.
Do you have ‘Lamarque’ yet? I have two pots of cuttings in that I think are close to striking (they have calloused)… I can send you a plant later when they definately have roots if you like.
BTW George… Every one of those ‘Fortuniana’ cuttings have struck and are growing nicely and each of the three ‘Eiffel Tower’ cuttings have calloused but are taking a lot longer to develop roots.
Soooo many typos in that… sorry about that blushes
Simon!
Thanks for the offer, but I do have Lamarque available if I ever need it.
Anyway, today I picked 3 OP Lamarque hips just for fun…they were red and pumpkin-shaped (like a sphere with a flattened top and bottom).
On cutting up the achenes, I found their casing to be extremely hard in consistency - like hardwood.
Out of these 3 hips, there were 2 floaters and 15 sinkers. Both floaters and about 4 sinkers were all duds (either gelatinous or totally mummified seed).
I kept a few of the viables, and have them in a glass of water, but I am not sure whether I really want to germinate them as such, as they are likely all selfs.
George
I had ‘Lamarque’ for several years. It was glorious here in Winter and did sometimes form OP hips but the early attempts at controlled pollination failed.
It was about this time that I discovered it’s first Powdery Mildew infection which came when conditions were worst and cleared up quickly. It was enormous. I decided I needed the space for other things.
I let it go in favor of ‘Amber Cloud’ and ‘Manipur Magic’ which have been clean here so far.
Mine Mildewed where few other roses did, and it died back badly each Winter. Eventually it died completely. Not a rose I’d use for breeding, unless I limited my work to warm climate roses only.
Lamarque had no excuse to mildew here for me. The air circulation where it was positioned was about as good as it gets.
Yep, something about it attracts me to it , and yet something always tells me to not bother at the very last minute- hence my procrastination for years now to do anything with it. I am about to toss out the seed and move on…
George.
It’s never got mildew here… I guess it’s as you guys always say… all you can do is breed for roses in your own area and use what’s good for you 
We have no need to breed cold climate roses here, in fact it’s the cold climate roses that often do poorly (they do better for me than in most places because it cooler here than most places in Australia). I think it has plenty to offer Australian breeders where roses have to cope with high temperatures and high humidity at the same time. It would be good to repeat the banksiae x "Lamarque’ cross to see what we could turn up here… It would also be good to try ‘Larmarque’ x laevigata and bracteata if it doesn’t mind species pollen.
Robert, I thought you were in desert-type climate… Are you telling us that it mildewed in a hot climate?
It’s hot and dry. Sydney is hot and humid. Mildew is worse when the air is dry.
I would have thought that hot and humid is more conducive to fungus viability compared to hot and dry (like in a desert).
Not all fungi behave the same. Mildew is always worse for me when the days are warm and the nights cool and the air dry. You can get rid of mildew by routinely wetting the foliage down.
Simon is correct we have ideal conditions for Powdery Mildew here because of cool nights and warm days in Spring.
This lasts for months which I find delightful. PM unfortunately does as well.
Yeah, mildew usually only happens here in Sept/Oct, right before dormancy. If a rose mildews here before that time frame, and is within proper growing conditions, then it is likely to mildew elsewhere with ease. Crystalline, Dr. Huey and Tropicana come to mind…
I can force mildew in seedlings by overcrowding and culling any that show mildew in the Fall, but that is as good as it gets for testing mildew resistance here.
Robert, in that case how come you say that it had no excuse to mildew, since you have such ideal mildew conditions wherever you live?
Hi George, I live on a corner at the base of a large canyon.
The spot where I located ‘Lamarque’ had excellent air flow.
There wasn’t a better location here to keep ‘Lamarque’ clean.
People who raise seedlings in greenhouses have big mildew problems, and seedlings raised outside are only rarely affected. Is this not a humidity factor?
This is why I am surprised to hear that mildew does better in dry heat as opposed to wet heat… out in the open where there is air circulation and so less humidity, one would expect less mildew… yes?/no?
Powdery Mildew is favored by cool nights, warm days, dry air, limited air circulation.