I appreciate this topic being posted. It reminded me that not enough work has been done hybridizing cold hardy European/Asian species with North American cold hardy species. One exception would be Rosa rugosa x North American cold hardy species.
Regarding the above, I think I’ll experiment this year with Rosa arkansana x Rosa beggeriana. I’ll also do the reverse cross. The latter species is tough, weedy and disease resistant, and should be used more in breeding programs. I recognize there is potential fertility problems in any selections developed. But I’ll wade through the rose bushes when I come to them.
Hello Paul,
I think that’s a great idea (arkansana X beggeriana) – I’d try it myself if I had beggeriana. And along those lines (“hybridizing cold hardy European/Asian species with North American cold hardy species”), I’ve got a one year old seedling of Rosa davidii X virginiana that I’ll be watching closely as it matures. I think Rosa davidii is an underutilized Asian species (supposedly tetraploid too!). And since I don’t have beggeriana or laxa or fedtscenkoana, I intend to try R.davidii with my other North American tetraploids this season.
I’ll keep you posted on the results.
Tom
I’ll try that this year then, Robert. I’ll have to remember to store Rosa primula pollen again since it blooms so early.
If anyone wants pollen of Rosa beggeriana or Rosa laxa this year, let me know.
Many good suggestions.
I’ll add, many drought tolerant plants also have a thick waxy coating on the stems and leaves to reduce transpiration. As a side benefit, I would think a thick waxy coating would give some protection against blackspot spores.
At the Heritage Rose Foundation meeting in 2005 in California, we were introduced to R. minutifolia, native to Baja California with a single extant stand near San Diego.
It is a rose with summer dormancy but lives in a frost free area. The sole planting near San Diego has been moved to an area not slated for development. The rose is on the California endangered species list.
One plant was available at auction; I didn’t bid on it, because I feared it would die in my cold Tennessee winters.
Loubert in France was the only source listed in CRL 2005.
Someone needs to work to get seeds from the stand by wonking with the conservitors.
The HRF Journal from 2005 has an excellent article about the rose and the Journal is available from their website, and I think Vintage Gardens and Ashdown may have copies for sale.
I had R. minutifolia here. I feel it’s not well adapted to inland deserts. I think it needs coastal influence to thrive.
There are a few native plants specialty nurseries along the CA coast producing it on a limited basis.
Sorry to up this topic but I’m very interested in Minutifolia. Is it still hard to find? Does anybody knows where I can buy seeds? Here in Europe it is not available.
R. rugosa and R. nitida grow in New England in sand on the beaches and rocky areas. Would these be good candidates for breeding tolerance to drought?
Rob Byrnes comment about rugosa and nitida growing on beaches is part of the NE story. I was shocked at the massive R. multiflora growing in the saltwater spray zone in coastal CT earlier this summer, Has multiflora displaced the natives in some areas?
Here in east TN we are classified as severe drought and have been since January. We had rain in July (enough to get a puny second cutting of hay.) That rain was followed by temps in the high 90s and no rain for another 21 days.
Buds were encouraged by the rain in July, and the chinas, teas and noisettes are now blooming. Weeds in the same beds are wilting.
Among the species roses the rugosas are kicking out a few blooms. But the real surprise are the Four season damasks that are in such full bloom that it’s hard to remember that they haven’t gotten any great care. It’s their third bloom cycle this year (and the first was lost to the Easter Freeze.)
I think the old teas are good breeders for drought tolerance. And Harrison’s Yellow, which the settlers took with them throughout the southwest.
But… I have interesting news. Last year, when I was in Mexico, I sent myself through mail a plant of a species rose I grow which I’m pretty sure is the Swamp Rose. I thought it was another, but I’m 90 percent sure it’s the swamp rose. It came to me through GardenWeb from a trade… YEARS ago, originally from Virginia. The original plant was growing in the cement/dirt of an old telephone pole at a construction site. That’s all I remember.
It’s did splendly here and it isn’t very invasive. Very romantic looking thicket of such lovely flowers, fragrance, and fruit.
So I took this rose to Mexico City to my cemetary where my grandmother’s grave is at. And I planted this rose, which looked dried out when it arrived to me, not on her tomb… but at a lonely corner. When I returned, it was still doing fine. Despite the fact that the dirt was cracked open and pourous.
So even though the Swamp Rose loves water, it does suprisingly well in drought.
Wow, what a neat opportunity being able to bring a rose to your grandmothers grave and to see prosper when you returned. That’s great to know about R. palustris. Kathy Zuzek had some palustris hybrids that were the only ones to survive in a field that happened to get flooded more frequently than expected a number of years back when we had a lot of rain. She propagated them and had them in a drier site and they did well there too. Very versatile hybrids.
As I’ve been driving to and from work in the median are a lot of patches of R. arkansana. I knew it supposed to be drought tolerant and it really hit home how tolerant that it is. We have had a very dry summer and the grass was brown and basically the only green around in the ditches were the leaves of the R. arkansana roses.
My parents live in the Central sand plains of Wisconsin. It gets very dry and some of the roses that survived and grew were rugosas, R. eglanteria, R. palustris, R. nitida, and a clone I got from Elton Strack that he said is R. virginiana. It seems a little different than other R. virginiana clones I’ve seen, but it is 4x and definately in the Carolina section. Someone suggested it may be a R. arkansana hybrid from the blue green foliage. It is very drought tolerant and it has sprouted long distances from the original plant and pieces of it are everywhere in the rose garden. It is the grandparent of the hardy apricot climber I love. That rose seems to do okay in gardens I have it even when the water is limited as well.
Sincerely,
David
It always amuses me to here people talk about heat and drought as I live in such an extreme desert climate. This said drought tolerance is a relative term. It helps to hear more about what is drought tolerant in other climates.
I’m fairly sure I have the same clone of palustris Enrique is speaking about. It looks identical to the photos posted of R. palustris scandens, the double form.
It was sent me several years ago by someone in Virginia who I’ve lost tough with. It’s nearly completely smooth.
I have managed a couple of hybrids using it as pollen parent. It’s intriguing. It seems to me it has to be of hybrid origin. It repeats all season in my climate for whatever reason.
Link: www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=6799&tab=1
Robert, I don’t think we have the same clone… The one you speak of is the one I’ve seen most, and it seems to be the one every nursery sells.
It maybe possible the person whom you recieved it in a trade got it from a nursery… This rose was growing in the “wild” (if you call an urban setting’s construction site the wild…)
It’s definetly not smooth. And the palustris I see always seem much more deeper in color while the one is very light… a shade of baby lilac.
The only way I was able to identify it was with its stipules, which are very narrow, and a picture in Roger Phillip’s and Martyn Rix’s Guid to Roses. (The photo of palustris looks much more close to my clone than the one I see being sold in ARE and others.)
I did an experiment this spring… I uprooted a clone, and left it in a bucket of water for a month. Despite that the water became scuzy… the cutting was making new buds and roots. This has led me to believe that this is indeed a swamp rose. It was pretty happy, even after I immediately took it out and planted it in a pot. No symptoms of shock.
This year, I tried to cross it as the pollen parent with the openly pollinated seedlings of clino X bract (the clone that roots in water.) None of them took… But it’s pollen worked with Perle d’Or. So I saved some pollen of this seedling so that I can pollinate it with my possible Swamp Rose.
Link: www.helpmefind.com/rose/getImg.php?img=S15405.jpg
I guess the link didn’t work… let me try again and show you this my swamp rose…
Link: www.helpmefind.com/roses/pics.php?l=2.5441&nr=15406
Rosa Arkansana is incredibly resistant to drought. I have seen it growing on sunny slopes in Colorado where nothing else but cactus grows. As Henry said, the Parkland series might be a way to start.
As far as modern roses, I took notice in a drought a few years back. Knockout, Westerland and William Baffin did not even flinch.
Rosa multifolia, I fear, no longer exists in the wild, at least from one source I read. Unlike its sister in Mexico, rosa multifolia sets seeds. I have been searching all the suggested sites for it, but alas, to no avail. It is being preserved in a few botanical gardens, but these are having trouble rooting it and getting it to set seeds.