-What cross are you most looking forward to seeing the results from?
I have several out of the couple dozen crosses:
All are up and growing now
Duane
Sounds fun, Duane!
My seeds are stratifying in bags right now, and I’m just starting the process of sowing them into flats, which will be returned to a cold environment until later in the spring.
I’m most optimistic about crosses that involve a rose of mine of lost parentage that I call 1113. See attached photo. Excepting the bland, pink, single, non-fragrant blossoms, this rose is everything I want a rose to be: a heavy bloomer, very healthy, good crown survival for quite a few years, and uniform mounded shape. I really love the shape of this plant…it’s like a Little Princess Spirea. I haven’t seen many or any roses with such a neat habit. I had a couple dozen seedlings of this rose from last year that seem to indicate it is good at passing on it’s characteristic of heavy bloom (unfortunately also it’s blossom color and form).
Anyways, I’ve got seeds from 1113 pollen with All the Rage, Highwire Flyer, Commander Gillette, Calypso (Easy Elegance), and others. These are the crosses I’m most excited about in terms of having landscape potential.
Some of the more interesting crosses that I’m excited about:
Above & Beyond x Hazeldean
Art Nouveau x Prairie Peace
(Ann Endt x R. acicularis) x R. davidii
(Ann Endt x R. acicularis) x (Tuscany Superb x unknown)
R. nitida x R. davidii
Bunch of seedlings growing, crosses from the below didn’t flower this season
Of the crosses this season most excited for
Start with 100 end up with like 3 that live for a full year…it’s just handy they are typically more healthy than SSC is.-I love the shape of that shrub (thanks for sharing the pic)! What kind of flower are you hoping to put on it, although apparently a challenge to break color and form it already has?
Also love the Above and Beyond & Hazeldean cross!
-I find some of those crosses that didn’t flower this season interesting. How do you cull through those? Or do you have enough space to wait and see?
I have a bunch that probably won’t bloom this season (mostly rugosa offspring) and I’m going to have to cut down on the numbers.
Duane
I’m very strict in the number of breeding sized roses I keep (anything over the limit generally ends up at my parents). There’s plenty of room to fill but that just means having to move more things eventually (renting). Everything is in pots, size control is pretty manageable, moderns will bloom in small pots, sweet briars in a year or so in pots around 10cm in diameter, stunts their growth but still flower. Unkown how rugosa and other species types will behave at this point, experimenting.
Some cool crosses planned there, IMO. I admittedly know relatively little about the colder-weather species.
…But Joe, how long have you had your Anne Endt x acicularis cross? THat’s an intriguing one. (Have you posted any photos?) Any clue as to what the ploidy on that one is, and does it maintain any interesting foliar attributes, or at least cooler-colored leaves?
Very nice architecture on 1113.
I envy you your setting and ability to openly evaluate so many plants in the ground. You are going to achieve some great things, sir.
(Am I the only one who always feels greater hope for crosses not yet made, rather than the ones in stratification?)
Hi Philip.
I’m thinking the R. annaciculendtaris (hey, if Kordes gets a new species name then so do I) is about three or four years old. I don’t think I’ve posted pics and not sure if I have pics. It was a nice purpley color but the blossoms are very short lived if I remember correctly. I’m assuming that my R. acicularis are diploid, because they are so fine textured and small-leaved. Especially compared to Robert Erskine’s “Aurora”, which has distinctly different foiiage and “thickness”. Therefore this seedling would also be diploid.
Thanks a lot for your comments. I crave attention. I agree that my situation is extremely fortunate. I hope I can succeed in creating a distinctly improved rose for northern regions, but it can never be assumed to be a certainty as this is a path of many disappointments.
I finished sowing my seeds today. The seedling flats will go back into cold storage. I love dreaming about the crosses as I sow them, while fighting pessimism that any of these moldy-looking achenes will yield life. I was happy to have just a few early germinations, which indicates that not all of the seeds are dead. I snipped into a few others and found life. Not thinking much about next year’s crosses yet…
No, my goals keep altering as I acquire information and gain access to new roses which keeps me looking forward to crosses not yet made. I suppose eventually I’ll hit a wall on external sources (I mean, my focus has shifted towards diploids…it’s not like there’s a bunch of new stuff available each year given they are largely disbanded classes and I think I’ve researched all that are available to me now) and that may see more focus towards crosses already made.
The threat of RRV has dampened my excitement somewhat because I have nothing going that will be resistant.
I do have a few Jersey Beauty x Aloha with cotyledons peeking up - think New Dawn with more wichuraiana, or Belindas Dream with more wichuraiana, that could yield a fragrant remontant climber.
And I have quite a few, both ways, looking quite spunky, Jersey Beauty x [(R. multiflora x believe to be Blush Noisette) x (R. multiflora x believe to be Blush Noisette)] that could produce a fragrant, remontant, “normally” disease resistant diploid breeder, that I suppose would be best classified as a hybrid musk.
Nary a peep yet from all of my R. bracteata pollinations. I shouldn’t be so hard headed.
Hope is in the air though and the seedling trays surprise every day, I’ve several other crosses popping up and no damping off yet among any of the trays. And as Minerva says, that’s probably just due to sheer, dumb, luck.
Baxter
Just to blab about a little guy popping up:
1206 x 1113
1113 I talked about and pictured above.
1206 is such an anomaly that I wonder if it was a seed that jumped ship, although it doesn’t really match any other cross either. It’s heritage is:
[R. carolina x (Red Dawn x Suzanne)] x Commander Gillette
It seems vanishingly unlikely that this cross could have produced a reblooming rose, but it blooms heavily. (single light pink.) It’s only two years old, and because it blooms so much it hasn’t been able to bulk up a whole lot. Therefore my excitement about it is qualified and speculative because I haven’t been able to evaluate if it has the hardiness and health that its heritage suggests that it might.
But anyways this cross is between two roses of disparate genetics that both might contribute health, hardiness, and bloom power.
Cool. I don’t know enough to calculate the hypothetical odds with the ploidies, Joe, but I suppose there is a one-in-several-dozen chance of a rebloomer from that pedigree. (You probably have a better grasp of the numbers than I.) What great luck! What’s also nice is that you now know that the female parent, against all odds, has the potential to yield recurrent offspring.
Nice potential there. Best of luck. (Of course, babies will be pink… 
)
You don’t like R. bergesonii?
Philip, I’m thinking the odds are way worse than that.
First off, back when I was crossing with RDxS I don’t remember getting any rebloomers even when crossing with rebloomers. I imagine it could give a small percentage in the first gen when crossed with a rebloomer. (It would be fun to check that out on HMF). So whatever that small chance is that RD x S would provide a pollen grain with two reblooming genes…I think technically 1 in 6 but maybe less than that…would have had to happen when I pollinated R. carolina.
Then you’d have another tetraploid with two remontant and two non-remontant genes and again the best chance it would have of passing on remontancy is 1 in 6.
Commander Gillette itself doesn’t always pass on remontancy. Let’s say that’s another 1 in 6 chance. So the best case odds are 1 in 6 cubed. My math tells me that’s a 0.46 % chance, or 1 in 216.
Knowing my seeding and pollination protocols, the chances of a stray seed popping over the divider or a stray pollen grain on the brush are higher.
That’s the way this breeding thing works…always getting excited about things that turn out to be duds. This spring should give me a better feeling for the hardiness of 1206, as it built itself up a little over the summer. It grew fairly horizontally, however, so most of it will be under the snow.
In other news, when I was sowing my seeds last week I picked out any that were showing a radicle, sowing them and placing them under lights. So far I have:
17 Highwire Flyer x Commander Gillette
2 Highwire Flyer x 1113
1 All the Rage x 1100 (1100 appears to be High Voltage x Prairie Joy)
1 Prairie Joy x Catherine Guelda
1 Prairie Joy x 1001 (1001 appears to be All a’Twitter x Above & Beyond or R. virginiana)
1 All the Rage x Campfire
1 Highwire Flyer x (White Out x [First Impression x R. virginiana])
2 Darlow’s Enigma x OP (seeds from Jim…thanks! I got 2 out of 333 to germinate, which is about par for the course with me and Darlow’s…but one has a flower bud already.)
Thanks, Philip, for engaging and allowing me this chance to procrastinate!
Oh, yeah, unfortunately I grubbed out the R. carolina x RDxS because they got some disease problems. One of them I sent to someone down south, so maybe it still exists. They were clearly hybrids. So no chance to try again for rebloom.
You all have posted some very interesting crosses here!
Joe,
I’m giving up on my RDxS. I’ve yet gotten a reblooming F1 and resistance is so-so. I didn’t know that Commander Gillette was stingy with rebloomers so I’ll probably rethink using that one as well. I realizing that I don’t have the time or space to work with stingy bloomers. I’ve got a couple species hybrids that I’m fond of that I may keep for a bit but there’s going to be a cleaning out come spring.
I like the architecture on your 1113 and your 1206 x 1113 cross sounds interesting. Cool that you got a reblooming one from that. Very cool.
I have a lot of crosses from last season that I think are interesting. The ones that really excite me are:
Thrive! x “Fire’n Spice” “Fire’n Spice” = Unknown × Belle Poitevine FnS is disease FREE here for me…spotless. So I’m hoping for resistance in F1
Screaming Neon Red x “Fire’n Spice”
Screaming Neon Red x Canadian Shield SNR has been very resistant for me the first season I’ve had it
Midnight Blue x Unity Unity is hardy to zone 2a
Thrive! x Campfire
Nyveldt’s White x Ann Endt
Oso Happy Smoothie x Ann Endt
Yellow Brick Road x Campfire
Yellow Brick Road x Frontenac
Orantida x (R. rugosa x R. xanthina) Orantida is Orangeade x R. nitida
Orantida x Ann Endt
Metis x Ruglauca Ruglauca is (Rugosa #3 × R. glauca) x OP and is a diploid
Rugauca x Lemon Zest LZ is a diploid
Ruglauca x R. alabukensis
(Never Alone x (Royal Edward x Prairie Peace)) x (Pink Double Knockout x Prairie Peace)
Cape Diamond x Never Alone
Quadra x Campfire
Gaye Hammond x Canadian Shield
Gaye Hammond x Frontenac
Prairie Snowdrift x (11Z29 x OP) 11Z29 = Prairie Joy × Knock Out
Prairie Snowdrift x Canadian Shield
Never Alone x ((ATT x 11Z29) x OP) ATT=All a Twitter
(ATT x 11Z29) x Canadian Shield
Never Alone x Campfire
Never Alone x (11Z29 x OP)
MBCDM x Campfire MBCDM = Midnight Blue x Cinco de Mayo
MBCDM x Never Alone
MBCDM x Canadian Shield
Ramblin Red x Canadian Shield
Ramblin Red x Never Alone
Canadian Shield x Campfire
Italian Ice x Campfire
Italian Ice x Basye’s Blueberry
Morning Magic x (11Z29 x OP)
Morning Magic x Gaye Hammond
Morning Magic x (Morden Blush x Hazeldean)
Rob: those are some great crosses! I’m assuming you are going for cold hardy and disease resistant? Any specific color (I notice red & yellow)?
Any flower form in particular? Good luck with those crosses!
Duane
Hi Duane. Thank you! Yes, shooting for cold hardy and excellent resistance/tolerance. Last year I added trying for excellent repeat bloom as a criteria. As far as color, anything other than pink or white would be great. I like yellow, peach, apricot, purple and DEEP red…stripes I’m working towards shrub roses so I’m not “aiming” for typical hybrid tea shape blooms but rather an OGR style or something close to it. Imagine a yellow Austin type rose in zone 3. I ordered a couple Austin roses to work with this spring. For example, Quadra can have very OGR style blooms and is hardy to zone 3b with excellent disease resistance. I plan on crossing that one with the Austin roses. That’s not to say I wouldn’t be happy if a high-centered bloom form showed up in the mix. I’ve just not had luck obtaining that traditionally ideal bloom form.
Hopefully you will be able to show us some pictures of blooms from the interesting crosses you listed above.
Yellow Austin type zone 3: you could sign me up to buy that one! I’l be interested to hear how your newer Austins will do. I’m thinking better repeat bloom is an excellent goal, but also more difficult in cold hardy roses. Maybe some of the more recent varieties would be helpful to that end.
I noticed you’ve used Quadra, Canadian Shield & Campfire. How have they done for crossing… regarding resistance and repeat bloom?
Duane
Rob, I wouldn’t give up on Commander so quickly. I really like it and it gives a dose of vigor and perhaps health. The reblooming seedlings that it does give can be heavily reblooming. You can screen out the non-bloomers at a fairly young age to save space. Just understand that you should cross it only with remontant roses so that you can do that screening in the first generation.
I grubbed out Red Dawn x Suzanne quite a while ago. Horrid spots, winter dieback, insane vigor, not passing on rebloom.
It’s nice to see you working on combining hardiness and rebloom. I think you are right to add a focus on heavy bloom, as that is what a rose must have to get released these days.
Duane,
Last season was the start of my serious efforts to combine these Canadian varieties and this is my first winter expectantly waiting for F1s to arrive and to bloom. In addition to the ones you listed I also have Frontenac and Radler’s Ramblin Red. I’m just starting to get germination from some of these as seed parents. All of these seem to be decent seed parents although I didn’t use Frontenac a lot that direction but I seem to remember the crosses that I did, they aborted. I did get a number of openly pollinated hips from Frontenac though. I’m reading that Morning Magic may be a good one to list as a zone 3 variety as well. It’s disease free here and is very fertile. I have a couple yellow seedlings from Morning Magic x ILC1-72-1 crosses that I’m using along with these Canadian roses. Both of those are disease free here like mom is. I’ll post more on the Canadian roses as to how F1 do for resistance and rebloom.
Joe,
I’ll take your suggestion about using Commander Gillette as a parent and cull for non-bloomers early. I did keep a couple seedlings out of RDxS that didn’t bloom first season but I kept because the cross was interesing. one being RDSx13-1 and the other being Orange Surprise x( RDxS). Both have ok resistance but if they don’t bloom and repeat this spring they will get culled.
Having to do with Suzanne, I had germination starting today from the cross, PPEGS x Campfire. Mom is Petit Pink x (Easy Going x Suzanne). PPEGS doesn’t repeat but blooms well. I"m hoping that adding Campfire in the mix will get me the repeat bloom and excellent hardiness. Lots of good hardy genes there and has good resistance.
Not to jinx myself, but I’m pretty excited about:
R. palustris x ‘Pretty Lady’ (SCRivo)
R. palustris x ‘Hazeldean’
R. palustris x ‘Sunny Knock Out’
Hopefully they’ll sprout soon.