Mistress Quickley

Marcia

Some multipetaled OGRs that don’t normally set op hips, will produce hips when pollinated and make good mothers. I’ve never seen op hips on Belle de Crecy, but when pollinated by hand it produces good hips with large seeds and they germinate easily after a couple of months in the fridge. I have a seedling from a 2000 cross with Fourth of July. It hasn’t bloomed yet, but it’s very healthy, and it roots in water.

I’m still getting germinations from crosses made in 2001 with another cultivar.

Thanks to everyone for their kindly offered advice. I understand needing to have a goal to work towards. I would love to work towards a very fragrant, fully double, remontant rose that is blackspot resistant. I understand such characteristics are probably contradictory! I do like the look of the old gallicas with their tightly packed petals, but would like rebloom. Hence my wish to plant some more of the Portlands and Austins. If only they could keep their leaves without spraying them.

Belle Isis is also a rose that doesn’t produce hips by open pollination unless manually pollinated by hand.

Marcia,

I think it may be possible to create some new roses from the Gallicas when crossed with modern shrubs. However, its true that it will take at least 2 generations to recover the remontancy. I have some seedlings I have grown in the past five years using ‘Tuscany Superb’ as a parent, crossed with Miniatures and Austins. One of the seedlings from the Gallica X Austin crosses has been named and has limited availability in commerce. (‘Ellen Tofflemire’) Yet another seedling (image below) from that same cross, although of only an average pink hue, has proven to be totally Blackspot free in the 5 years I have been watching it. It does set some seed and produces a bit of pollen, and I am now exploring it as a possible parent to improve disease resistance. One more generation (when crossed with something fully remontant) will begin to show me some repeat blooming offspring. It may be a dead end, or it may prove of value. We shall see. If we can reinvent the Austins with good disease resistance, it would be a worthy goal, IMHO.

Regards,

Paul

Link: www.rdrop.com/~paul/gallicas/bestgallica.html

Paul, that is a gorgeous shrub. I actually like this color best. Deep pink, not really cerise, not really pink. Gertrude Jeckyll-ambigous pink…

I had a few 'Tuscany’blanda seedlings, all died. I think there was too big of a species gap between them, but I’m going to do this again, only reveresing the pod and seed parent. Gallicas has provided me a lot of intrest, especially when I see odd mutant seedlings, and stuff like that. I had a gallica seedling that I could had sworn that if it had survived, it would had oakleaf, hemp like crinkled foilage. It was an OP from an unlabled plant.

I agree with Enrique–that’s another beautiful rose you’ve created, Paul. Thanks for the information about its background and your plans for future development. I can see why a rose hybridizer must be a patient person! Thank you for sharing your insight and thoughts on using Gallicas. I would love to grow fragrant, remontant OGR-lookalikes that hold onto their leaves. I hope they are available in my lifetime! And I’ll think about what goals I’d like to work towards, if my interest in rose hybridizing continues.

Perhaps I’ll add another Gallica or two to my rose order for spring. I’ll need to fence in another section of my yard soon.