Given how easily these China seedlings seem to mildew I don’t know that they have very much to offer the rose breeding scene in Australia. They don’t all mildew badly. In fact I have a few that seem to be resisting it quite well so far. My best one, structurally speaking, is quite large already but it seems to mildew quite badly on the new growth but it didn’t mildew until I brought it inside the house where it was warm and dry to encurage the buds to open. It will be interesting to see how it develops as it ages but I don’t hold much hope for it really… Lorraine Lee and Contesse de Labarthe we mildewers when they first went in too a few years back but have been clean after the first year. The real worth of these old China, to me, is in the variation that they are exhibiting and the ancient origin of them. This rose could be the same as the one called ‘Ten Thousand Lights’ (I love that name!!!) according to a few people but in India, for Viru, it seems to be more of a red colour. Of the 15 seedlings I have no two have been the same. Some have nice wide red tinged leaves with 5 leaflets, others are narrow and pointed with three leaflets. I have have crimson, light shell pink, almost white, green tinged, semi-double, double, single, big, small, fragrant, scentless, large plants, small plants, basally branching plants, single stemmed (so far), thorny and almost thornless… it’s quite amazing really and a window into where modern roses got their variability I think. I hope you can keep this one going George. I also hope, instead of putting it into rose boot camp like I do for most my seedlings, this one gets treated for mildew and so on to encourage it to reach maturity. Mildew resistance, I find, seems to improve as the seedlings age. I would find a nice warm sunny spot in the ground for it to see what it can do.
In other breaking news I have two of the Dr Basye bracteata line seedlings up now too… will be awesome to see how they develop if I can manage to keep them alive…
Hi Simon.
I planted this seedling in a very sunny warm location in my mom’s garden many months ago, and I have already given it all the TLC you can imagine. Still, as you say, it will be fun to watch it evolve and mature in its own right over time. It would be nice to see it without the “snow” effect of the PM, to be sure! LOL.
I am also planning on bud-grafting it as soon as my new season crop of seedling multiflora plants are big enough to be budded (probably in 6-8 months time). Just a fun thing to do, no other reason for doing it. This might help it along, who knows?!
I will post on it here again when all this has been done (probably by May next year).
I am definitely not planning to use it in a breeding program.