Ralph Moore shared two of his seedlings with a friend many years ago. I posted them to my blog last year, and took cuttings from her plants today to wrap. This is the rugosa seedling today just a short distance from the Pacific Ocean in a no spray garden. I was impressed with the absence of disease or even saw fly damage. I believe this is one a friend suggested he name “Fire’n Spice” because in Visalia, it had decent fragrance and the reverse of the white buds stains red in hot sun. The own root plant in that garden is about three by three feet. It obviously flowers continuously as it is mid January, on an unpruned plant and it is still flowering.
The flowers are a decent size with shapely buds. I particularly like the purple tones the foliage and canes take on in cooler weather. Unfortunately, she says she’s never noticed any hips on it and none were to be found today.
I took cuttings of the climber pictured on the blog. There were no flowers today, but I did harvest seven small hips.
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I was particularly pleased when I asked for cuttings of another of his seedlings, MORjeri, she suggested I take the plant. It’s a single, pink which represents a combination of moss, Rugosa and polyantha. I’ll try propagating this when I prune it back tomorrow when I plant the bush which is now soaking in a bucket of water. I had grown this in the old Newhall garden where it flowered spring through fall and grew to about two by two feet. Strangled by her Carrot Tree roots in her sidewalk strip, it spread out on the ground to between twelve and eighteen inches like a ground cover.
Wow, thanks for sharing Kim!!! Very nice (and clean) looking. I am beginning to think I need more rugosas in my rose stable, expecially since I live where it gets a little cold. I love the foliage on them. Would be nice to see how fertile they are.
That is a case of interesting mossing going on there along with some very nice foliage. The foliage looks petite, how large is it and do you have any photos of the opened flower?
The white Rugosa cross has three to four inch blooms. MORjerry is much smaller, about an inch and a half. What surprises me about both is neither showed any chlorosis which is great for a Rugosa or hybrid Rugosa here. When I had MORjerry, I was never successful in getting anything out of it, but that was a very long time ago. I have to dig around to see if the white parentage is anywhere in any notes from the period, but I’m impressed that Yellow Jewel is involved. I could be wrong, but…
It’s interesting looking at the leaves on the hybrid rugosa above, Kim. It’s VERY similar to my rugosa ‘Alba’ x ‘Papageno’ seedling’s leaves:
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I took these this afternoon. I would have posted this earlier but I have been away in Melbourne to see Cirque du Soleil’s, ‘Ovo’ (which was awesome). I haven’t seen a flower on it yet (yup… bloody wallabies again), but I’m hoping for a striped semi-double-double rugosa. I was hoping for some remontancy too… maybe it will develop with age. It was a 2011 seedling. Growing really well now too… only good thing I’ve ever got out of ‘Papageno’!
It was amazing! It’s the third Cirque show we’ve seen… and by far the best so far. So far we’ve seen Dralion, Saltimbanco, and now Ovo. Hmmm… I’m liking a circus series of roses We are a circus family! My daughter wants to work with Circque, and my wife runs an online costume store and I make and use fire poi… I reckon Circque, being the commercial giant they are now, would have the names pretty much sown up though lol
I was just impressed with how similar the foliage is between these two rugosa hybrids. I have another rugosa hybrid here, also bred in Australia, called ‘Kilmore Rose’ that has the same foliage, too.
Every time I look at those pictures, I’m seeing hints of Rosa soulieana. I know Ralph grew that species. Do you think it could possibly be a hybrid of soulieana with some double-flowered rugosa?
…the leaflet shape and waxiness, the proportions of the stem to foliage, the shorter thorns, the shape of the flower buds and hips, and the color of the flowers… all are saying “soulieana was here” to me ;0)
I’ve attached two pictures of the soulieana I had (before it croaked from RRD), so that maybe you can see what I mean
Tom, that rose sure doesn’t look like the R soulieana seed that I got from Cass Bernstein a couple years ago. No idea which one is real. But yours has straight prickles, while the one she sent has really vicious hooks. Rather like multiflora overall but still different. Mine are young and only bloomed last year for the 1st time so I can’t comment about size of canes. I guess I want to know so that my germination studies have validity. Also I’d like to know if it is a successful parent, what species it is. Do you have some sort of provenance for yours? I don’t have much.
It was a long time ago, but I think it may have come from Greenmantle. I’ve tried re-purchasing this species recently from another source and got a multiflora-like plant, very much different.
What I had before had very distinctive, glaucous, grey-green foliage. Actually the whole plant was very distinctive in many ways. I still have a few seedlings of it from a cross with arvensis but I’d really like to grow that original one if I could find it again.
Its foliage is nice, David. If anything, it probably should be less clean where it is as it’s jammed into a partial shade ot ghetto in front where I can keep track of it until it’s stable enough to risk putting out back in the furnace.
This photo was sent to me today of the Moore Rugosa, the one I’m calling Fire’n Spice. Not bad for a no spray garden which is irrigated by sprinklers. I particularly like the red “tanning” on the bud reverses.
Kim, The phenomenon you call ‘tanning’, is this another form of mutability? I see this on a small number of whites and yellows primarily, but usually it does not follow through with any like pigmentation on the inner petals. Or is this totally unrelated? That example is really nice and a pretty picture.
That “tanning” is very common on many petal reverses, Jackie. In many cases, it appears to be unrelated to the ability of the petal faces to demonstrate similar effects. I’d think it would be sort of a “bicolor” effect where the reverse and face show different color possibilities.
That could be some mildew, Jim. Sharon’s garden is just over the ridge from South Coast Botanical, where she CAN get a touch of the coastal fog when it pushes over from the beach. The gardens are literally five minutes away by car. Plus, that plant is over crowded in her back yard, between the kitchen, the new “master suite” and the garage-turned-craft studio. It is smothered by several other roses (including Eyeconic Lemonade and Eyeconic Pink Lemonade) and bordered by lawn and stepping stones. She crams roses in EVERY square inch of available soil . It’s a normal sized, post war Torrance lot with a lot of house on it. Her named roses total about 225 and there are many whose names she’s not all that sure of. There’s just enough lawn to provide dry-ish walking room with much flag stone provided for walks and a two car concrete drive and large hot tub. When there isn’t wind, it can be very humid, but most often, the roses remain clean by themselves.
We are a circus family! My 
