Millicent (R. rubrifolia x Rosa harisonii) available?

Does anyone know if this one from Isabella Preston still exists and is available? Thanks for any information.

Bob,

It’s long gone. In any case, this particular cross produced progeny lacking vigour.

Thank you for the response Paul. It’s a shame as the description sounded great. this is a cross I’ve long considered doing.

One of my Rosa glauca x (probably) ‘James Mason’ selections (I have three) has bloomed for the first time. I did the cross seven years ago. The single flowers are hot pink fading to magenta pink with a white centre and 6.25 cm. in diameter. Quite striking against the almost typical Rosa glauca foliage. I’ve tentatively named this selection ‘Isabella Preston’, although I won’t register it in that name until the other two selections bloom. I doubt the other selections can exceed the quality of this one though. It’s very good. The name honors the Canadian rose breeder who pioneered hybridizing Rosa glauca and developed ‘Carmenetta’, which is still commercially available.

This is the fourth Canadian developed Rosa glauca hybrid. As far as I know, no other country has developed as many.

I have crossed ‘Isabella Preston’ with ‘Louis Riel’ to get larger flowers. If I can get a selection with white flowers, then the next step will be to cross it with ‘Hazeldean’ (‘Harison’s Yellow’ would also be good) to obtain a Rosa glauca hybrid with typical foliage of the species and yellow flowers. I think this is the way to go to achieve this goal.

Paul, I’ve got what appears to be a repeat flowering descendant of R. glauca here now. The blossoms are single and white. (with a hint of pink) I think it’s interesting that white comes out of glauca.

See link.

Unfortunately the second flush was destroyed by budworms. It’s building vigor now and appears to be free of prickles. I’ll try to catch a blossom next time it flowers

I’ve got some more crosses using the glauca/pendulina pollen parent coming along now.

Link: www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=52546&tab=1

You’re R. glauca x ‘James Mason’ hybrid sounds great Paul. You mentioned that you did the cross seven years ago. Any guess as to why it took so long to bloom? It’s wonderful that you were able to retain the R. glauca foliage coloring and hopefully this seeding will carry that trait forward. After much thought over the last year about where to focus my breeding efforts in the future, I decided to put emphasis on R. glauca/its hybrids to combine with select modern roses with the hopes of keeping the reddish-grey leaves along with yellow-to-peach or mauve-to-purple flowers. After much reading I think that

Rob, no, the foliage color didn’t carry through. The pollen parent isn’t very blue either. The trait must be recessive.

I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case Robert but it would make sense. If I work with parents that both have a recessive trait for foliage color it should bring forth some seedlings that exhibit the trait. Is my thinking right on that?

Makes sense to me!

I would try to create to disparate lines involving glauca (hopefully repeat flowering) and try them together.

Chances are a percentage of offspring should exhibit some tendency toward blue foliage.

It’s a long term project but one that seems worthwhile.

I’m not so sure that the blue-foliage traits of glauca are necessarily recessive, or at least, they’re not completely so.

My F1 rugosa X glauca seedlings all have greyish/blue foliage. Even if not as strongly expressed as in glauca itself, they are definitely not rugosa-green.

Last year I germinated a few backcross seeds (rugosa X glauca) X rugosa, hoping to recover the repeat bloom of rugosa and still maintain a little of the foliage color of the F1. One of these has as much foliage color as the F1, the other 3 or 4 are pretty close to rugosa. None has rebloomed, but they’re still fairly small.

Also remember, that ‘Louis Riel’ and ‘Carmenetta’ both are F1 glauca hybrids that express decent foliage color.

I also had a weak little F1 (glauca X xanthina) seedling that never flowered but had beautiful foliage color – every bit as nice as glauca itself. Unfortunately, it died several years ago.

So, just keep in mind that you probably should be seeing at least a little influence of the glauca foliage color. If not, you might want to repeat the cross with more seedlings.

It could be the species combination too Tom.

I have several of Joan Monteith’s glauca x pendulina seedlings here in one large container.

They don’t look particularly blue to me but then I live a a desert. Maybe it’s my climate?

One of these seedlings set OP hips for the first time this season.

It would be tempting to grown them pout and see if there are any blues in the resulant seedlings.

Of course there won’t be any repeat so we are nearly back where we started.

I have numerous open pollinated seedlings from R.blanda growing this year. A high percentage of them definitely have darker leaves approaching R.glauca. Some plants are darker than others. The leaves emerge with a light cast to them and then have darken with age. They are certainly darker than the mother plant.



Because R.glauca is a member of the Cananae group and has unbalanced mieosis, I was under the impression that the foliage coloring was only passed on when R.glauca was used as the seed parent.

I know now that is wrong. I think however that the coloring is much stronger when R.glauca is the seed parent verus as the pollen parent because there is 3 sets of chromosomes in the eggs and only one set in the pollen. If you look at Charmenetta, for example, its leaves are darker than the seedlings that I have.

I may or may not use these seedlings in the future as they will certainly be once blooming and the offspring of them most likely will be also. And they probably won

Thanks for the advice Robert and Tom. When I get more space I’ll work on two lines, one derived from Carmanetta and the other from Louis Riel and then combine promising seedlings from each line. I thought I read about some of Carruth’s introductions that had bluish leaves but couldn’t find anything on google or Week’s web site. Thanks again.

Rob,

You asked why the selections of Rosa glauca x ‘James Mason’ took so long to bloom. As I mentioned, only one has bloomed to date. Ironically, it is the least vigorous of the three. I can’t fully explain why they they have taken so long to bloom They would hardly grow more than 75 cm. for a few years. Then I transplanted them to a new location two years ago and last year they took off. All three selections continue to grow vigorously.

If you send me your Email, I can send you photos. The photos were sent to me by a friend who grows these Rosa glauca hybrids on his property. The photos don’t do justice to the hot pink colour of the flowers but it will give you a general idea what they look like. I would call ‘Isabella Preston’ an improved ‘Carmenetta’. Flowers are about the same size but the initial colour is better.

Thank you Paul. I sent an email to you, providing my email address, via this site. I look forward to seeing the pics of your seedlings. Especially your ‘Isabella Preston’.

Thanks for sharing your experience Paul Geurts. It would be very interesting to see if crossing siblings would enhanced the darker color. Thanks also for sharing that glauca used as a pollen parent can still pass on some of the foliage coloring. Knowing this now provides me with more options as I makes plans. I hope you’ll keep us posted.

Here is a photo of a R.blanda leaf, a R.glauca leaf and one of my seedling’s leaf in the middle. You can see that the color of the seedling isn’t as dramatic as the R.glauca, but it is a little darker and duller than the R.blanda. Notice also the seedlings leaflets shape is intermediate between the two species.

Link: s171.photobucket.com/albums/u288/ptgeurts/?action=view&current=leafcomparison.jpg

Great photo Paul. Thank you for sharing that. I can definitely see the R. glauca leaf color influence in your seedling. Has this one bloomed for you yet?

No, it’s one of this years seedlings. I don’t expect it to bloom for another two or three years. I’m really curious to see what color the flowers will be though.

Paul

Hopefully you won’t have to wait 3 years Paul.