I have taken a brief look at pix and some helpful descriptions of Sven (Zuzek) and Ole (Zuzek) to try to figure out more about which of these two might be the more likely dadda rose.
The flowers of this young seedling so far lack the cupping and the greater degree of doubleness of Sven and do not carry any fragrance like Sven is reported to have (sounds yummy!).
I guess? the deep coloration of this seedling can result from two far less color saturated parents such as Lena (Zuzek) x Ole (Zuzek), is that possible?
I think it could be either one, but my suspicion is ‘Sven’ as it tends to give stronger colors more easily in my experience. ‘Ole’ and ‘Sven’ have the same parents. ‘Lena’ shares one common parent, but the polyantha cultivar that seedling selection was crossed with is different (‘La Marne’ for ‘Lena’ and I think it was ‘Mevrouw Nathalie Nypels’ for the other two). The common parent to all of them is a chance seedling found in the shrub rose garden at the MN Landscape Arb years ago. It is a very hardy small flowered semidouble, healthy white polyantha.
Camera games…more random shots from this afternoon.
I am having trouble capturing the light ??purply smudging some of these blooms develop.
The color in real life of these is more deep-vivid red with some purple smudging developing, some start more deep pink with some purple smudging as they age.
These shots show blooms way too pink compared to their real-life look:
Here are two (out of the five) Lena x unknown in the foreground, Ebb Tide also apperas to the rear left, climbing beans and a bunch of sweet basil seedlings appear to the rear right (YUM).
Remember these are divisions only a few months of age taken from the original seedling, so the vigor is good considering what they have been put through IMO.
Strangely, that last pic showing the bushes from a greater distance away shows slightly more accurate coloring… err … as close as it is gonna get today !!
…(if you wish, try to click onto the last image just above here, then enlarge it to get a bigger view of the flower and buds for color comparison).
Another more “panoramic (LOL)” shot, yes this is pretty much all the garden space I have at this rental LOL (better than nothin’ round here…).
There are a few pots with roses on the concrete (not shown), to compensate for scarcity of “real Earth”.
Soooo… back to the subject, the other two (of the five) Lena X unknown seedlings are at far left and far right.
…and just to make a comparison regarding vigor: at centre (with plastic rods caging them in to deter possums and other critters that visit at night lol) are 3K20 X unknown at centre left, and Basye’s Legacy X unknown at centre right. Those two caged seedlings are a similar age to this polyantha (multiply the size of the poly cuttings by 5x to get the real picture of this vigor differential WOW!!).
George, I think the streaking on those petals above is because they are actually petaloids, that is converted from stamens which happen to not have pigment in their filament. And the way it spreads out tells you how the conversion from stamen to petal happened during development in the meristem forming the bud. All part of the timing of the A,B, & C genes, as I discussed in the last newsletter. Sometimes you can find smaller petaloids with a part that looks like it ought to have pollen grains. Maybe it will or maybe it won’t depending on timing. If the stamen filaments were pigmented, you wouldn’t get this effect. But I don’t know what happens when a yellow rose with red filaments and stamens is doubled. Maybe someone has an example, starting with Capt Thomas for instance.
Very pretty little bushes though. They seem quite happy in your location, even if it is kind of far afield for a Norwegian. (Maybe you’ve never heard a Sven and Ole joke down there either.)
Well, if you ever get curious, you can get a sampling in a wiki article on Sven and Ole, or Lena. Along with narrative regarding origins, meanings, sociology, anthropology, no apology etc.