Ok, here is another one out of left field. Are Moss and Damasks hard to work with or not, Thanks in advance.
For the most part, yes. If you’re talking about mosses which have been run through miniatures via Ralph Moore’s work, not as much so. Either there is little pollen or what there is, isn’t very viable; or they just refuse to set much seed. If you work with the Moore mosses, you’ll get a bunch more seed and viable pollen. Another instance of minis acting as a bridge between the mules and modern roses. Same with stripes and Hulthemia blotches.
David,
I haven’t used a Centifolia based Moss to breed with because I had heard they were infertile and because they produce very little or no pollen. I used the Damask based Moss “Henri Martin†in a few crosses as the seed parent. It doesn’t produce many seeds and they only germinated at around 10% so there weren’t many seedlings. I didn’t keep the first batch of seedlings because they weren’t healthy enough to keep for future evaluation, but I have several seedlings from last year that made the cut last fall. Of course they’re going to be once bloomers and they haven’t bloomed yet so I can’t say what the flowers look like yet.
I also grew some OP seedlings from the Damask “Gloire de Guilan†several years ago that I didn’t keep either. Like Henri Martin it doesn’t produce many seeds and they didn’t germinate all that well. I would like to use GdG some more because it is healthier here than HM here. But I moved my GdG last fall and it was set back quit a bit so I won’t be able to use it until next year at the earliest.
Dave, ‘Dresden Doll’ worked well for me this season as a pollen parent, to reinforce Kim’s message. It was added to my ‘Bullseye’ to go for mossed groundcover roses. No idea on germinability but I got a lot of seed from this cross to play with. ‘Dresden Doll’ is available from Thomas for Roses and ‘Fairy Moss’ is available from Misty Downs. ‘Henri Martin’ produces truckloads of OP hips but I’ve only ever kept one seedling from it and then something ate it 
I’ve not tried it as a pollen parent because I don’t want loads of non-repeaters.
Dave here is one I did A few years back ( Moulin Rouge X Laneii ) called Odysseus foliage as you can see is quite big and it has no trouble setting hips which have fertile seeds, have grown OP seedlings from this quite easily. Jim Prov , this is one rose you should keep away from, Laneii and it offspring are extremely thorny.
[attachment 678 ODYSSEUS1.jpg]
[attachment 679 ODYSSEUS2.jpg] Some buds show more mossing than others, but when rubbed smells just like pine resin.
Kim, Paul, Simon and Warren thanks for the imput. I thought ther might be more people “dabble” in some of these styles, I guess not. So lets go with ‘centifolias’.
Good luck! The sterility and disease issues are rather high for them in anything other than their initial, more “arctic” environments. Not that you CAN’T have some successes, but you’re in for a very long, seemingly unproductive haul. Personally, I would leave the more arctic hardy things for those for whom that characteristic is more important.
In the right climate, Damasks, Centifolias, Mosses and other old European Garden Rose types are wonderfully healthy and flower much of the traditional flowering season. In those of greater duration with higher levels of sun and heat, the danged things often suffer from rather extreme disease issues. The growing/flowering season outlasts the productive life of the foliage until disease is needed to trigger the plant to shed the foliage. If your climate favors moderns and more “semi tropical” OGRs, your greatest results are more likely to come from those roses best suited to your climate type. If I lived in upstate New York; Idaho, the mountains of Colorado, I’d concentrate on Gallicas, Damasks, Centifolias, Albas, etc. as they are happy there. They are healthy and flower heavily there. Many will exist here, but they are never really good and that makes a great deal of difference.
Say you go with the Centifolia line. With what are you going to breed them? What about them attracts you? If it’s the flower type, there are many which resemble them in a lot of ways on plants much better suited to your climate. If it’s their cold hardiness, how can you test for that where you are? How long might you be willing to plod along until you actually see a flower? I raised two Gallica cross seedlings and they flowered here (finally!) but not very much and not reliably so I passed the better of the two on to Paul Barden. I wasn’t willing to dedicate the resources required for something which wanted to become a large, thorny plant and only provide me with three weeks of flowers when hundreds of others would flower more heavily and virtually twelve months of the year. What goals are you considering from your work with those types? I guess, if it’s just to see if you can accomplish it, that’s sufficient, but if it’s to create an improvement, I would offer the selection may need further consideration.
You into some hard work there, David M!
David,
Some of us stay away from the mosses just because we are trying to get away from thorns, not because we want to see how many thorns a rose can produce. The fragrance of a moss is pretty hard to duplicate, but there are other fragrance avenues to pursue. For those who can appreciate and tolerate more thorns, it is an avenue bristling with opportunity.
“For those who can appreciate and tolerate more thorns, it is an avenue bristling with opportunity.”
Ba-rump-bump! LOL! There are MANY roses with highly scented peduncles, sepals and new growth an no moss. You don’t need no stinking moss to get those kinds of smells!
Jackie I did one year of breeding with Laneii(moss) and that was enough, the thorns are a little to much for me. I think if you disliked some one that much it would be a rose you would gift them LOL. " So lets go with ‘centifolias’ " Dave you sound a bit confused, you must find out which direction you want to go and stick to it and great things will come from it. When you go off track so will the results, which will be your seedlings. Dave I am not getting narkey just some solid advice for you to follow.
Kim I went searching for the perfume when I used Laneii and got thorny triffid offspring.
Hi David M,
This season I tried Alain Blanchard (supposedly centifolia X gallica), as I loved its spots.
I tried it as pollen parent on a seed fertile floribunda and got zero seed set.
If you’re up for a challenge then go for it, its all part of the fun, nothing ventured nothing gained!
:O)
Yes George, the hard work/times are what I thrive on. I guess it would or should be “The Challenge”.
Kim as always your imput is so appreciated. I love singles through to the double of doubles. As I mentioned it is the challenge, if something comes from it, it is a bonus. A hobby to use up some spare time. I think it is because others or some are not ‘playing’ with them. In my mind I can see a finished product, so the challenge is to pick a variety and go with it, it is what you have referred to with Mr Moore at times with his thinking. No doudt I will stumble, but I will get up. End of ramble.
Are there any semi-thornless moss roses? The reason I ask is I have never seen a moss in person, but about 3-4 weeks ago while going fishing I stopped and took cutting of an abandoned or wild rose growing in a ditch. If only has 1-2 thorns per cane and small glandular nodules with a strong pine scent on the buds.
David
You have me chuckling, David! Hard mossing is considered a modified prickle. I teased Ralph about raising a thornless moss and he’d laugh and laugh!
Could it be achieved Kim, a thornless moss.
I don’t know how you would differentiate between the prickle inhibition on the stems and that on the peduncles and sepals. That’s going to take some real Voodoo! “Moss” roses are very prickly. Some even show stippling on the foliage, which Ralph said was an expression of “The Mossing Factor”. What would be needed to turn it off for the plant, but not the reproductive growth (flowering shoots)?
Talking about thorns, well here is one that you would wear gloves when pruning. This is not a Moss but Sympathie X Maigold, talk about armed to the teeth.
[attachment 683 19E15F.jpg]
@david:
The mossing trait and abundant thorn production are linked traits; you can’t have one without the other. That is why Kim quoted Ralph laughing about the idea.
I have used a number of mosses of various pedigree and I can say this: the old, original varieties tend to be seed infertile. Some are virtually sterile, a few are quite fertile. ‘Henri Martin’ is actually very fertile in both directions. Now, as Ralph would have immediately told you, the moment you outcross the Centifolia types into modern, China-derived roses, you encounter a seemingly endless stream of problems, most notably infertility. (which has nothing to do with ploidy) Ralph did a lot of the truly difficult work through trial and error to weed out the “roadblock” roses and identify the ones with fertility and the ability to pass the mossing trait on to offspring. I can assure you that until the mid-1970’s, he generated precious little material to advance his goals. Even the foundation varieties like 'Fairy Moss’ are poor breeders, (although this plant is represented numerous times in the pedigree of Moore roses that followed) generating an army of seedlings readily, but the vast majority are of very poor quality. (most have no vigor, mildew badly, are insipid pinks and rarely exhibit decent mossing. Trust me, I have grown hundreds of seedlings from 'Fairy Moss’ myself and witnessed all of these symptoms firsthand.) So why did Ralph work with such a poor breeder? Because it was the first plant he got that offered the slightest hope of pushing his goals forward.
Fast forward forty years and we have a reasonable number of roses, almost all of which came out of Sequoia Nursery, that can be employed in a breeding program for moss roses. Many of them are fertile enough to be “workable”, but many still present obstacles: lots of weak offspring, little or no moss, and serious disease issues. It is simply the nature of the territory. That said, I feel there are a few mosses of mixed pedigree (Centifolia + China) that are good candidates for a breeding program. Here are my suggestions:
‘Rose Gilardi’': I feel this is potentially the most likely cultivar to offer an opportunity to breed truly healthy mosses from. However, I have found this rose picky as to what pollens it will accept. It is extremely pollen fertile. Sometimes it passes on striping as well, but don’t count on it. RG is one of the healthiest miniatures I have grown, and has one of the most attractive plant architectures of any mini bred.
‘Scarlet Moss’: Curiously, although I find this variety fairly Blackspot prone, when mated with the right thing it can produce much healthier progeny. (I am currently evaluating a significant number of seedlings obtained from crosses involving ‘Scarlet Moss’ and roses of kordesii pedigree, and most are extremely Blackspot resistant and extremely mossy!) It isn’t a great seed producer, but I feel it is worth persisting with to get seed from. Seeds germinate at nearly 100%, so even if you get 20 seeds or so, you can be sure of getting a handful of seedlings. Mossing and strong color are almost guaranteed when using ‘Scarlet Moss’.
‘Dresden Doll’: recommended with reservation. It can breed mossy offspring quite easily, but many lack vigor and you are pretty much guaranteed to get pale pink again and again. It’s very picky about pollen donors, so best as a pollen parent.
‘Lady Moss’: same comments apply as with DD.
‘Unconditional Love’: this is my own selection, bred from ‘Sequoia Ruby’ and ‘Scarlet Moss’. It sets seed very easily and they germinate readily. I haven’t actively pursued this as a breeder, only because I have moved away from the mosses in general. I know some people have used this one and claim to be getting healthy, colorful mosses from it, so I think it may have something to offer.
‘Condoleezza’: also recommended with reservations. This plant will accept pollen from just about anything, and every seed germinates. I know of no other moss that is as rampantly fertile as this is. However, it is descended from two breeding lines that are notorious for producing weak, disease-prone offspring, so beware: anything can happen, both good and bad. I think this is a great plant to use as a “door opener”; something to get a new idea started. Case in point: three years ago I pollinated four blooms of ‘Condoleezza’ with pollen from the Spinosissima ‘William III’, and got quite a few seedlings. Most of them were mossed to some degree, most were rampantly vigorous, and all had graceful, arching growth habits. (I will try to get a few pics of the flower buds today: they are remarkable) I never imagined such interesting progeny from such a cross, but this is what ‘Condoleezza’ has to offer: a way to outcross into highly disparate lines and get very interesting, fertile results.
In fact, this leads me to a very important point. I have made enough moss crosses in the past 12 years to conclude that, in my opinion, the single most important thing you can do to make progress with this class is to select parents to mate with your chosen moss that is as far outside the Hybrid Tea/Floribunda class as possible. Certainly, you can still work inside that class and get results, but I genuinely believe the HT/F genes are working to obstruct, not assist the goal. I think that Ralph might have had a much easier time with his moss breeding if he hadn’t had to rely on China-based roses to obtain remontancy and reduced stature. However, that is not to say that I am not grateful to Ralph for doing all the hardest work and providing a foundation for the rest of us to build on. His results are all the more remarkable considering how ill-suited some of his breeding material actually was!
Thank you Paul! There you have it, David. Straight from the mouth of the one man who has probably done more mining for mosses than anyone other than Ralph himself. The characteristic can be beautiful, but it’s fraught with many other, negative issues until you get far enough from the “old moss” character to introduce the necessary health and vigor, but then they don’t have “the look” you’re probably after.