Personally I’ve been looking at Souvenir de Victor Hugo (to use against some KO seedlings). Not exactly yellow but it does have some in it. If it’s anything like Rosette Delizy it won’t be completely hardy here though.
As far as triploids, I like what Larry is doing, ie Sunny Knockout.
Persian Yellow? It’s available this year from some mass producer because it’s for sale by Edmunds, Regans, S & W Greenhouse and the usual suspects. The rose sold in the USA may not be true to type because it’s a triploid, but whatever it is, it’s yellow.
Is this your picture? It’s gorgeous.
I wonder if the original (now extinct) Parks’ Yellow Tea Scented China was diploid (not that it matters).
Yes, Jon, it’s my shot of Souvenir de Victor Hugo. I think it looks a lot like Mme Jean Dupuy.
Link: www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.4003&tab=36&qn=0&qc=0
Kim,
Have you used Sunshine as a parent at all?
Rob, no, I haven’t tried Sunshine. Just haven’t gotten around to it. Back in the 80s, the RNRS ran an article called, “You Are My Sunshine”. The writer bought a house and discovered this rose in the garden. She moved several times, taking it with her. She finally supplied material of it to the RNRS for identification. They identified it as Sunshine.
I was volunteering at The Huntington at that time and found they listed it in the card file, so I started the search. They have a long arbor of concrete logs where they grow Hybrid Musks and other larger climbers. There are agapanthus planted all over as they are weeds there. At the base of one of the uprights, buried under an enormous clump of agapanthus, I found the garden marker for Sunshine. There was one, thin, wispy struggling shoot of a rose which I carefully took cuttings from. Fortunately, conditions in the old mist propagator there were ideal and the rose refused to give up. Three small plants resulted.
I propagated the devil out of those first three. Reintroducing juvenility in a variety greatly improves the ability to reproduce it and it rooted like Bermuda grass! Fred Boutin, formerly of The Huntington and one of the greatest Rosarians I’ve had the pleasure to count as a friend, asked for one, which I sent him. I passed it on to Pixie Treasures, Sequoia, The Rose Ranch, Vintage, eventually Ashdown and force fed it to everyone I knew who loved roses. It’s a wonderful border or edging rose here and it smells fantastic. The hunt and “rescue” resulted in an article I wrote about it, “Now, You Are MY Sunshine”.
Burling at Sequoia created some gorgeous patio trees out of it and it’s one of hers I’ve used in a large pot on a client’s patio. The client loves looking out her kitchen and living room doors at it. This also puts the flowers up in your face where they can be more easily enjoyed. Jim Delahanty reports the rose is much, much better budded than own root as it has vastly improved vigor and increased bloom. I agree, though I am an own root enthusiast…when appropriate.
I’ve found hips on Sunshine and never had any germinate. With the shot gun approach I tend to take, it’s just not been one I’ve gotten to…yet. I’ve thought about using it with Leonie Lamesch, and anything purple…Mr. Bluebird, Lauren, Purpurea, International Herald Tribune and their like, as well as Golden Angel, one of my favorites. One of these days…
How fertile and/or useful is 1953, Sunshine Sally and Golden Century? I am not a big fan of using roses that close to both minis and pernetianas but I felt it was worth asking since none of them are likely tetraploids.
I am a huge fan of the color of Golden Century though.
‘Golden Century’ while being one of the best “climbing” miniatures Ralph ever created, will not set seed, and its pollen is only marginally fertile. In the few crosses I made using its pollen I got only pale yellowish seedlings and whites, and all had vigor problems (IE; they had none!) and all died shortly after first bloom. I made no further attempts to use it. A shame, as it is such a wonderful plant.
What a great story Kim. Thanks!
Had Golden Century in Richmond, Va and it did not prove that disease resistant for me…blackspot;neither did it have a lot of blooms except in the spring flush! After a few years it died out.
Jim
Thanks, Rob. I don’t know of anywhere 1953 can be obtained. The real shame is The Huntington never planted any of the roses Ralph donated for their fund raising. I no longer have it and Ashdown, who propagated the plants of them I sold for Ralph’s Great Rosarians of the World presentation, lost it/them. I never had any of the crosses I made with 1953 result in anything. Sunshine Sally made an incredible hedge at Sequoia. Always in flower, it was easily 6’ high, 12’ long and 5’ deep in half day’s southern sun.
Yeah, I was going to say that. Sunshine Sally does exceptionally well for me. Dunno why (well ok- double wichuraiana) but I have a New Dawn x Sunshine Sally cross on my list for next spring.
Oregon Gardens either has Sunshine Sally or Poly Sunshine there. I cannot recall which it was. It was like 5 years ago that I was last there. Whichever rose it was, it was realy, really yellow everywhere.
Do any of ya Cali folks know why Moore specificallychose to use Floradora? I do realize that Floradora was quite unique for its time. It had pelargonidin, it was healthy for that era and the form was more formal than most other early orange-red roses.
One of the reasons I ask is because it seems like diploids express color differently. I wonder if it is complexity in layering but I really have no clue. For example, is it possible to have a true orange diploid. Is it possible to have an diploid groundcover that is crayon orange?
I put in a link that points to a Rosa wich x orange-red diploid polyantha. It states that it is orange-pink, so we at least know it is pale salmon.
In relation to the main topic, how well does a diploid yellow (dont care about source) become expressed when a diploid orange-red is the mate. Is it a different pattern that either peonin and/or cyanin are present alone, but does pelargonin react how the other reds would if they were as present as a diploid heavy in pelargonidin. For example, if a yellow diploid was crossed to a diploid with pelargonidin, would it behave just as a non-pelargonidin red diploid would when crossed?
I find it interesting that numerous diploid polyanthas have been around for a long time but it is not until now that any orange-tinted has been desired. Also, is there a differentcewhen using pelargonidin with the tea yellow tones and pelargongonidin with foetida yellow? ie. William Allen Richardson x Margo Koster vs. Rosa ecae?
Jadae,
Do you have a source for that I could go to go to learn more about the chemicals (?) that produce colors in flowers?
Jadae,
I believe it was in a book authored by Jack Harkness (don’t quote me) but a group of rose hybridizers were in a field lookng at the new test roses of that era and Floradora stood out from all its competitors-even at a distance. Everyone took notice of it. Assume it was the color of the bloom and the vigor of the plant. I think for its day, it was a “giant step” forward. I was around when it came out and the publicity was extensive and all favorable (I started very young, LOL).
Weren’t the two roses in proximity to each other in the greenhouse or lath house at Sequoia Nursery? Seem to recall that also…Kim, Paul, where are you? LOL Was it a deliberate cross or just a swollen hip that Mr. Moore saw and took advantage of.
Jim
“Floradora was quite unique for its time. It had pelargonidin, it was healthy for that era and the form was more formal than most other early orange-red roses.”
You answered your own question, for the most part 
Ralph generally paid little attention to ploidy issues, which is obvious if you look at the combinations he made. He was happy to ignore such technical matters and focus instead on creative process, which is, of course, what made his work unique and often superb.
Like most of us, Ralph would test a new rose and look at the offspring to determine its potential long term value as a breeder. Plants like ‘Floradora’ and ‘Little Darling’ produced plants that were what Ralph wanted, and so they were employed in breeding year after year and “rode hard”. Forty years ago they were exceptional varieties. They are nothing special now compared to what we have at our disposal, but you can see at a glance on HMF just what a significant contribution they made to modern hybrids.
Another answer to the “why” question: if you knew Ralph and asked him why he used something in breeding, as often as not he’d simply smirk and tell you “Because it was there!” Ya use what ya got!
Why did Ralph use Floradora? What he frequently said was it was new with hard, dark, large resistant foliage. The color was saturated, with large, double flowers. It is a strong grower (in 1940’s eyes)and it was given to him prior to its introduction. He reportedly was given two different multibracteata hybrids as he used the “sister” seedling to create some odd hybrids which never went anywhere.
We laughed like idiots over the creation story about 0-47-19. Imagine some Central Valley California farmer crawling around on his hands and knees on the ground all over this THORNY Wich. plant which had sprawled as they do, applying pollen on every flower he can find. At that time, he would have been about 37 or 38 years old. He deliberately made the cross. It was “engineered”. He wanted the Wich. ease of rooting, health, vigor, cluster flowering combined with Floradora’s large, dark, healthy foliage and the more saturated color from its large oddly orange blooms. Until his death, he proclaimed that Floradora “isn’t tapped out yet”. He would occasionally throw in some odd Floradora crosses, among others.
He was a good guy and people took a liking to him. Hennessey actually gave him various roses to work with. He LIKED Ralph and, from what Ralph said, never attacked him. The day he went to Hennessey’s, he had his wife and mother with him. They drove up to the house and met Mrs. Hennessey. She said Roy was up in the fields with Robert Pyle. The ladies waited at the house while Ralph went out to the fields in time to see Roy Hennessey verbally blasting Robert Pyle and throwing him off his property! Hennessey talked roses with him and sent him home with a trunk load of goodies to play with. Tillitson gave him moss roses and old HPs to play with. When something new and considered a break through came around, someone would usually give him one. He very seldom bought anything and he NEVER paid royalties! He was very pragmatic. Angel Farts created the Halos, “because I HAD it!”
He wasn’t above taking advantage of the convenient hip, but Floradora was deliberate. He hoped it would give him brighter colors, yellow being the most sought after. It did.
What it did for him is obvious. Two things I teased him over for years and years were, The Floradora Fade, that ugly, pumpkin orange which very rapidly faded out to dishwater; and The Anytime Shovel-shaped Petal. He’d show me a flower of a seedling, grin and say, “well, I guess we both know where THAT came from!” I’d walk through and comment, “Floradora fade”, “shovel petals”, etc. and he’d laugh at me. He’d shown me a little flower and stated it had taken him 35 years to get to that bloom. I asked him how long he thought it would take him to get rid of that awful Anytime petal shape. He responded, “WHY would I WANT to!?”
Rob, I learn stuff from everywhere. I’m an opportunistic learner =/ I think that the site CyberRose Garden contains a lot of older papers that are pretty neat to read. There are abstracts here and there online and at colleges. Also, there are books on breeding and chemicals and the like. You just have to dig, dig, dig because I do not think anyone is going to compile information about this stuff in one place.
re: Floradora. I find it intriguing how each mainstream hybridizer took a different orange-red poly/flori-type and ran with it. Floradora is also unique in that it was not a mildew magnet relative to the others. It’s main constraints are the obvious fade (terracotta coral? to like watermelon puke, lol) and the really erratic, upright architecture. All of these hybridizers had various choices ranging in Florence Mary Morse, Floradora, Independence, Cinnabar, Orange Triumph, Pinocchio and K
Off topic, but at the last Rose Festival I worked at The Huntington, I had the pleasure of taking the Australians and Kiwis around the gardens to point out the neat things there. Colin Horner and his wife were in the group (lovely people!). I made sure to show them Floradora. Mr. Horner said he’d read of it and its contribution for many years but had never seen it. It was of interest to them all. Mildew isn’t a problem with it here, it’s RUST. I’ve been repulsed and drawn to its dull metallic orange and how closely related to purple it seems. Odd rose.