Living in a cold climate (Zone 3), I’m not into breeding tender roses much. But one thing that’s always been a mystery to me, is the lack of breeding ‘New Dawn’ hybrids with each other. For example, ‘Armada’, ‘Blossomtime’, ‘Cadenza’, ‘Red Dawn’ and ‘Rosy Mantle’. It seems to me there is much potential to do this, although I recognize the market has been severely reduced for Climbing roses.
Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be much breeding work done with ‘New Dawn’ anymore, despite that it has a good track record producing very good quality cultivars. I’m thinking that it might be productive to use it in a breeding program with cold hardy (Zone 3) shrub roses to develop breeding lines for new types of shrub roses. Of course, I wouldn’t forget about using it with Rosa laxa and species hybrids like Rosa maximowicziana (just thought about that one!) to develop Pillar roses for Zone 3 climates.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that ‘Armada’ has been proven to be crown hardy at one location on the Canadian Prairies (St. Albert Botanic Park rose garden, located near Edmonton, Alberta). It only grows about 60 cm. tall, but it really puts on a show. So I think it has potential to use in a breeding program for Zone 3 climates. I made a few crosses with it this year, mostly with ‘Frontenac’.
I think it’s a great idea to work with any wichuriana hybrid and that includes New Dawn. Maybe we are some of the few left, but I still have my good ole New Dawn at my house and still make crosses with it. It never needs to be sprayed and down here hot and humid Baton Rouge, that is saying something. I find New Dawn to be not so fertile a pollen parent, but it’s a great seed parent fertility wise for me. Readily accepts a wide range of pollens and the seeds have great germination. That’s just my experience though. Finally got a seedling from it this year that’s not a climber, so it is possible.
Good idea, had one for a few years (protected) that was very vigorous until tree roots got it - might put one back in as I cut down all the Brandon elms on my lot as they spall off large branches too frequently - beat Snowtember for the cut down - if i had not it would of been a disaster for the roof.
Also the Red Dawns you sent to Pickering were very vigorous in my yard - (lost two of three mother plants last winter’s cold after surveying two others - no protection). The last one is under 6 inches of wood chips.
Lots of good genes for vigor, just up the anti freeze with the cross.
New Dawn itself is not good in my climate. It’s very mildew prone and, unless religiously dead headed, once flowering. It’s also rampant in growth, preferring to grow at the expense of flowering. Even when flowers are available, they last one day and are seldom anything nicer than “stale flesh” with non of the lovely pink tones all the photographs depict. What really concerns me, though, is all of its close relatives I’ve grown develop deep purple cane lesions when our weather turns colder, which have often been diagnosed as Downy Mildew. City of London was an extreme example which I sent to Jon Singer when he lived in Issaquah, Washington. He connected his garden hose to his hot water heater and “cooked” those which supposedly had Downy, apparently eliminating the symptoms. Here, much of City of London’s canes were deep purple, not so much like a cold weather pigment response, but more of an “infection”. There, after hot water treatment, he reported the purple areas turned more green while the temps were still quite chilly. Now, I’m wondering if the purple cane response has been noticed by others growing New Dawn and its relatives in colder climates, or whether it was Downy? Any thoughts?
I don’t find ND reliably hardy below 0 F or so. Under snow maybe but we’re usually running bare here. We have spring and fall seasons cooler than SoCal, but not like up north. Never see purple canes here. Never mildew though selfs of Dr van Fleet did mildew for me. Mildew is rarely problem in offspring but BS comes with the other parent to some extent. Flowers genrally last 2-4 days here, start pink, fade to white. Temps affect rates of opening and fading a lot. ND will rebloom if watered here, sets only a low % of pollinations, and equally poor selfing. On campus a couple large old ones went on for 30 years of so blooming all seasons with no attention along a stone wall. But someone decided to prune one back and killed it two years ago.
Best rose of the year in a color I don’t want is ND x Rainbow KO. Bright pink, about 15 petals, completely disease free despite being surrounded with the sick. Bloomed all summer until late Oct. Looks to be a short shrub.
A couple years ago got a good ivory (for a while I mistook it for K.A. Viktoria) that reblooms sparingly after hip set and has moderately long (2 ft) canes. No idea of other parent but I’m using it as a mother generating good hip set, very low disease evidence.
A couple years earlier I got a decent ND x yellow mini with little disease and good fertility. Overall semi-mini. Original plant is hot and neglected but survives less than a foot tall. It produced a lot of hips last year and this, after propagation into several pots that get regular attention. As hardy as ND (below 0 F with canes surviving) it is definitely yellow with clusters of few flowers and canes 1-2 ft. Offspring have potential.
So yes, I think ND has possibilities at least in some climates.
Congrats on your ND x yellow mini seeding. What color was the F1? I tried to obtain mini F1s from ND with no success. I did have one ND OP seedling that didn’t bloom in its second year and when I went to repot, I found a very large root gall so I disposed of it. It was VERY disease resistant and had really nice growth habit so I was very disappointed to lose it. Good luck with yours.
Hi Paul,
I have for a long time think that New Dawn and its hybrids had a lot to offer in the breeding of cold hardy roses.
in 2006 I made four crosses of Armada x an as yet an identified rugosa. I got three hips which yielded 48 seeds.
The attached pics are two of the most promising seedlings.
Rob asked about ND x ymin as a parent. It is not what I’d call really a mini but a straggling patio rose. i dug through my notes on the 2014 germinations with that as female and Winter Sunset, Bulls Eye or Rainbow KO as pollen donor. in aggregate I saw 6 white singles, 2 white sem/dbl, 26 pink single + dbl, 4 yellow single, 1 p/y, 3 bicolor, 1apricot dbl. This doesn’t evaluate for any of the other useful traits. Very for of this lot get kept.
‘New Dawn’ contributed to the “Sub-zero Roses” raised by the Brownells.
It seems to me that instead of breeding FROM ‘New Dawn’, we could as easily breed BESIDE it. That is, start with one of the many Wichuraiana/Luciae hybrids, then cross with one of the Brownells’ roses. For instance, ‘Francois Foucard’ x ‘Lily Pons’, ‘Gardenia’ x ‘Shades of Autumn’, and so on.
In this way, the disease resistance of Rosa wichuraiana would enter from both sides of the parentage, possibly giving roses similar to ‘New Dawn’ that are less susceptible to mildew. I did see a ‘New Dawn’ that was horribly afflicted on a fence in Santa Clara, CA. Poor thing!
Then there is ‘Yvonne Rabier’, a Wichuraiana-polyantha, which might be of use in breeding with ‘New Dawn’ or the Brownell roses.
I think the strategy you mentioned is excellent to take.
I have developed one Rosa wichurana hybrid (Rugwich), which has the pistillate parent the Rugosa ‘Ottawa’. It’s my intention to develop more Rugosa x Rosa wichurana hybrids, particularly with ‘Aylsham’ and ‘Schneezwerg’. ‘Aylsham’, of course has shiny green foliage, so the progeny should have very attractive foliage.
Thanks for mentioning ‘Yvonne Rabier’. I wasn’t familiar with it. I’ve located a Canadian source for this cultivar (Brentwood Bay Nursery), and I should be able to obtain it this spring. I think it would be interesting to combine this cultivar with Rugosa/Wichurana hybrids. I couldn’t help think that if Henry Marshall had used it in his Parkland rose breeding program, perhaps this series would be more disease resistant than it is. Using Rosa arkansana, a tetraploid, to develop his roses, he would have had a potential ploidy barrier, of course.
I love ‘Yvonne Rabier’ and have had it in the garden for over a decade. It is marginally hardy for me, but very pretty and the flowers are large compared to my more hardy polyanthas. It is above average for health here and does get some infection with black spot and leaf spot. I think Ralph Moore used it some. I got mine from Pickering years ago if I remember right. It sets some hips, but isn’t as fertile as my more primarily R. multiflora polys. I should use it more in crosses again. I haven’t used it for several years now in breeding. I have a nice seedling of it I like that is hardier than it, but not quite as pretty.
‘New Dawn’ sure is an amazing rose being a fertile triploid and a nice bridge people have used to bring some R. wichurana genetics up to the tetraploid level and some of our more typical modern roses. ‘New Dawn’ doesn’t bloom too well for me because of dying back a lot, so I haven’t used it too much, but it sure is robust. Thanks for the encouragement to see if I can get some pollen at some point or another plant and cross it with very cold hardy parents.
The closest to Yvonne Rabier he got was using Strawberry Ice (descended from it) to produce Huntington Pink Ice (which has recently been unearthed!), Sequoia Ballet, Golden Horizon and Jacquie Williams.
I reread the references for ‘Yvonne Rabier’ on HelpMeFind. According to Journal des Roses (1910), “Issu de Wichuraïana inédit x Polyantha nain remontant inédit. Sera très recherchée pour la culture en pots et pour massifs.” I do not read (or write or speak or understand) French, but this statement suggests that the seed parent was an unnamed Wichuraiana seedling. That could mean that YR is only 1/4 Wichuraiana … same as ‘The Fairy’.
A few years ago I saw a modern offspring of ‘The Fairy’, but I can’t recall the name. At least this old and proven little guy is still being put to use.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Wright/Wright1967.html
I found this article recently. Wright wrote:
"… It would appear that if Rosa rugosa is first crossed with Rosa blanda, and then this hybrid is bred to Hybrid Teas of Floribundas, the dominance of rugosa’s weak bud-stems and excessive thorniness is broken much more effectively than if repeated infusions are made with the tender roses to a similar degree of loss of hardiness.
“The rose Therese Bugnet, which most of us regard as a Blanda Hybrid rather than a Rugosa Hybrid, is an example of the truth of the foregoing assertion. Its percentage of rugosa, however, is substantial, and it is to the rugosa element in its make-up that the fall blooming habit of the variety is due. The limited number of seedlings of Therese Bugnet raised to date suggests that the combination of good features achieved in it was due to an extremely rare and felicitous segregation, but this is no reason, of course, why the line should not be followed much further.”
Has anyone else had a similar experience? It does seem useful to break the linkage between the weak “neck” and other, more desirable Rugosa qualities, before crossing with the garden roses. The same could apply to the weak-necked R. nitida. This (if it works) would be better than repeated back-crosses to the more tender garden roses that tend to dilute Rugosa-ness (or Nitida-ness) out of existence.
I love ‘Therese Bugnet’ and have used it to a limited extent over the years and really like some of its offspring. It crosses very easily with rugosas. Many of the offspring had the thick glossy rugosa foliage again and most others were intermediate. Many had flowers with ‘Therese Bugnet’ form. The crosses I’ve had that particularly produced some interesting results were ‘Therese Bugnet’ with various polyanthas. The double purple one pictured is my ‘Catherine Guelda’ and it won a silver certificate at the ARS ARC trials years ago. It is basically a dwarf ‘Therese Bugnet’ in plant form. The necks of the blooms hold themselves up nicely. I really like a larger growing single hybrid from ‘Therese Bugnet’ and a polyantha seedling. I love the darker petal edges. It grows about 6’ tall or so. Both are strongly cane hardy in the Twin Cities from ‘Therese Bugnet’. The polyanthas I have typically die to the snow or soil.
Karl,
One would think that from a purely theoretical perspective it shouldn’t make a difference to eliminate the rugosa “weak neck” whether they first crosses a rugosa with an R.blanda or not. In both cases the F1 would have one set of genes from the Rugosa for the “weak neck” and one set genes from the other parent without the weak neck. Crossing one of the F1s from either scenario to another plant without the “weak neck” should result in 50% of the offspring without any genes for “weak neck”. But there may be some linkage to hardiness or disease resistance that was being selected for so the weak neck just happened to be selected for also. Another possibility is that the rugosa “weak neck” may be more dominant over the genes for straight neck in the moderns than it is over the genes in R.blanda. Further study will need to be done to clarify this.
My own experience working with R.rugosa and R.rugosa x R.blanda hybrids is that the hybrids are somewhat easier to work with. I’ve had little luck using a Rugosa cultivar in crosses with anything other than another Rugosa or R.blanda. I’ve had a little better luck with crosses of some single Rugosa seedlings I have. These latter seedlings all still pretty young with only one or two blooming so I can’t say for sure how the week neck was affected. I’ve also had some luck in using a Rugosa x R.blanda in a number of crosses. The most mature of the Rugosa x R.blanda offspring are third year seedlings this year and I don’t recall any sort of weak neck on the hips. I didn’t take any pictures of the hips of these roses.
Rob,
Catherine Guelda usually has maybe just a few hips on it and there are plenty of plants around it that can pollinate it. For that reason I haven’t tried any pollen on it. I looked at its pollen under a microscope and there are a lot of non viable grains but there are some viable grains also. My Marie Pavie x R.blanda has limited pollen viability also but I was able to get it to take on a half sibling which resulted in the third year seedlings mentioned above. So I decide to try some CG pollen on a half sibling as well. Since there wasn’t a lot of viable pollen, I put tons of CG pollen on 5 or 6 Metis flowers this year and have 88 seeds from that cross. I looked at my seeds yesterday and there were a few Metis x CG seeds that have started to crack open.
