Optimizing for casual gardeners

Technique Embryo Culture
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It’s natural for us to optimize conditions for our seedlings, so they can show their maximum potential, but we are doing most people who grow our plants in the future a disservice if we don’t test them in below average conditions. Most people work long hours, then spend what free time they have with family, friends, TV, internet, or just running errands. They want their yards to look good, because it reflects on them socially, or maybe they enjoy gardening a bit, but they want it with a minimum of time and effort spent. If we want casual gardeners to be happy with our plants, then we have to make plants that will do well in below average conditions, so they will be pleasantly surprised with their results.

Hybridizing is not difficult. It is interesting, but honestly, it is something an average child could do. Cross two good parents 100 times, raise the seedlings, keep the best one, tada! What is a bit of a challenge though, is getting extraordinary results. To get extraordinary results, we have to be able to differentiate between the top, superficially similar looking seedlings. To do that we have to test them, challenge them. Think of children in a classroom, many of them look similar, until you give them a test. For roses, finding the ones that can handle a challenge means raising them in below average conditions. Less than what a casual gardener will offer them. If a casual gardener will dig a hole, fill it with a bag of dirt and a rose, fertilize it once a year, water it once a week, and then forget about it, then our plants need to be tested in less than those conditions. If you complain that none of your seedlings would do well in those conditions, then I would say, if you want casual gardeners to be happy with your plants, you need to find better rose parents and try again, because that is our challenge.

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Perhaps you provide your seedlings with the best of everything, but I know I don’t. I firmly hold to Ralph Moore’s “Test By Stress”. If I can’t kill it, you should have to work to try to.

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“Test By Stress” is a good way to summarize my long winded post, my thanks to Mr. Moore. I don’t give them the best of anything, I actively encourage Mother Nature to take all but the last few, which she does eagerly.

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There certainly are quite a few breeders who start out as rose gardeners that take great care of their roses and their love for roses have lead them to trying their hand at breeding them. Then there are breeders like me who started breeding roses because we like to experiment and want to create something new. Roses just happen to be our plant of choice but it could have been another ornamental just as easy. I think mostly I chose roses is because I live in a challenging environment and there are few roses that survive let alone thrive here. But I’m not that good of a gardener and I don’t take care of my roses as well as I should. So I also “test by stress” but it wasn’t intentional it’s just turned out that way.

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I treat seedlings great for the first three months of their lives after that it would be called abuse if they were children. Some I treat a little better than others but none do I treat well. The first winter they get protection after that they are on their own. I water here and their between work and other obligations they don’t get much; less than the few vegetables I grow. And the rugosas and the species crosses just get what nature gives them either from the sky or by blowing it from the neighbors sprinkler after the first year of life. And I never spray. I do treat my seed parents a little better in the watering department and the winter protection.

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I think “test by stress” is a good option but not necessarly at the seedling state. Actually, none of the customers will have to manage this state because they will buy a grown grafted plant.

I think the only think we could do at the seedling state is to discard the sick ones (mildew) but I think it might be useful to “help” the seedling (good soil, good watering) at least until the first flower shows up.

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I will express a minority opinion.

If a gardener is that casual, then they should not grow roses. They should grow low maintenance shrubs, perennials and annuals that do not require a lot of watering, pruning or deadheading.
Daylilies, hostas, oriental lilies, marigolds, geraniums and impatiens come to mind as low maintenance ornamental plants.


Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

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That isn’t the kind of “casual gardeners” we have in the west, Cathy. Usually, they get what they want, when they want it, whether or not it is suitable. If YOU won’t provide it, they’ll drive down the street to the guy who will.

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If a gardener is that casual, then they should not grow roses.

Lavish attention should not be a normal requirement for growing specimen roses.

low maintenance ornamental plants

Bill Radler continues to fill this niche as do the Meilland breeders with their various hedge clipper varieties. The Oso Easy line, including the work of David Zlesak, also fits this bill and Kordes is making continuous incremental improvements in specimen roses.

The demerits of high maintenance show roses are completely the fault of the 20th century rose industry for failing to diversify the gene pool. Had they paid attention mid-century to the advice of their own breeders, especially Dennison Morey, fewer would have paid the price of their own well deserved demise.

There are valuable gene repositories available to anyone wanting to improve modern roses rather than perpetuate the chemical addicts currently on offer. These include Ping Lim’s roses, the Paul Barden Atomics, Kim Rupert’s Lynnie and Carlin’s Rhythm, Rob Rippetoe’s banksea’s, the Ag Canada releases, various roses by Robert Erskine and the Marshall/Wright/Schowalter collaboration among many others. Indeed, the virginiana line just started by Joe Bergeson could easily become a cornerstone in a new foundation.

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Could you detail why these breeders are more able than others to improve modern roses ? They might be a good example to follow.

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Having read the replies to my minority opinion post, I again respectfully disagree.

Casual gardeners in the west who want flowers need to use flowering plants with low water requirements. This is not the case with roses.
Western landscape designers know that there are so many other types of plants that offer color, fragrance, low watering and other benefits. If a western gardener really wants to grow roses, then they can grow a few patio roses or minis in pots that can be watered frequently.

I realize that this is a rose forum. But I grow many different types of plants in my garden, and I recognize that some have greater benefits depending on the region.

Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

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What someone SHOULD do and what they WILL do are frequently two, very different things Cathy. We are a Nation of wanting what we want and over indulging in it whenever possible. Good, bad or indifferent. I, too, grow many different types of plants. I breed roses as I favor them above most of the others. I deny water to nearly 90% of this hill to conserve and preserve what I am willing to pay for (and can afford) and to prevent its waste. I have increasingly eliminated water hungry plants, AND roses, in favor of more climate and condition suitable plant types. I have more than a passing knowledge of rose production and a number of years experience in retail, wholesale and specialty rose supply as well as many years experience in gardening and landscape detail maintenance. I realize it is all local to the Southern California/Los Angeles area, where there is arguably a higher level of financial ability to pay for what you want than in many other places. There is a bit of a slow down in water waste, primarily due to the increased cost and even the shaming imposed upon those who obviously over use the resource by water companies and neighbors. Still, there is a large element which wants what they want and are willing to pay the cost regardless of what others think. I encounter it regularly, just as physicians and other health care professionals encounter people who simply want medications instead of undesired life-style changes.

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I cannot believe that you can develop the best garden rose without being very observant of how they react to states of deprivation, even if it is not extremely stressful. I purposely do not over fertilize (except occasionally by accident) my seedlings and it is very evident that some are just genetically more equipped to handle stress than others. Since it is very hot here, it is not unusual for the seedlings to get to the wilting stage between watering (every day and a half) and it is also evident that some seedlings are of a better genetic disposition to handle that kind of stress. I also grow my seedlings outdoors, starting when we still have frosts just because I can. I do not use pesticides as a general policy, although I have used some silica based, humate/kelp/fulvic acid or other bio active additives for the soil which I believe helps the seedlings own ability to mount a successful defense against otherwise hostile organisms. If they need much more help than that, I do not believe that these plants are going to serve many gardeners’ interests. There are already quite a few really nice 6" roses out there (in most color ranges) that can be coddled into maximum production with maximum care. Even If I can, or do have the time, I do not want to have to expend all that effort, time and material on coaxing one plant into its’ peak production all of the time, but rather would have those plants (not just roses) perform at high levels much of the time with much less effort, just because it is able to. I have also found that there is a large majority of “casual” gardeners out there who share that belief and quite a few of them like roses. So if I can produce something in that range that is what I will continue doing, and so much the better if that rose does not have thorns, or many. But the rose market is a broad market, and there will always be a need for big roses such as the B. Streisand, Oprah’s Legends, or Mr. Lincoln, etc., and while that does not fit with what I see as an ideal rose, they do strike me as knock your socks off beautiful when I see them at rose shows. I think this is just why roses have become known as divas and not workhorses. Modern rose marketers need to educate the casual gardener to the specific variety of available roses’ individual performance and ability, which is being handled admirably by HMF. Only problem with that is that HMF is still not well known among casual gardeners or even by professional landscape designers. HMF can be even more valuable when and if anyone who has experience with the long term growing of specific roses will share that under comments (which of course many do-making it truly a resource for the person not able to do in depth research) and this is something that may revive a currently flagging interest in rose growing by the general public. Build a better rose, let the public know about it, and they will buy. Knock Outs are not the #1 sellers for nothing.

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Interesting conversation.

Just one word- Cash y’all - is what drove the market for so many decades, that’s how I hear Kim’s comment. I agree. And now roses are a casual-T of that philosophy.

BTW, Rainbow KO carries really interesting genes- remarkable “general combining ability” to use a plant breeder’s term. I have no idea what % of the pollen is viable, but it is so abundant that it will set seed on almost anything I try it on. Offspring range from yellow to red, with and without shading, white eye and so forth. Add this on to the list Don mentioned.

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Our entire economy and much of the nation are casualties of the “cash” philosophy. It’s why we continue with what has paid us all along, avoiding, even sabatoging what CAN provide for us sustainably for generations to come. We continue consuming ourselves into oblivion. I agree, Jackie, I don’t coddle the vast majority of my seedlings. The few which represent extremely difficult efforts do get coddled, but nothing else does. It all goes back to Ralph’s, “If I can’t kill it, you shouldn’t easily be able to”. I coddle even fewer of my garden roses, those being things which have special significance to me and aren’t easily replaceable. But, as they enjoy their “swan songs”, they aren’t being replaced.

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I am pretty sure that Don’s list not including the Knock-Outs was simply an oversight. But he did mention Radler, implying their importance. Someone else made a quick list like this a little while back on another thread and included the Basye’s Legacy group, which is also an important source of optimizing roses for survival for the not so inclined to pamper-the-rose crowd. I do not mean to infer that we should not grow the big blossomed beauties of the recent past. Just like people for whom pursuing perfection, whether it be in beauty contests (I do draw the line with Beauty Contests for Children), breeding show dogs, cats, horses, etc., those roses fill a niche. But just like the ‘casual owner’ of a non-pedigree dog or cat, or someone who might want a special breed but not the responsibility of perpetuating it, there are many who enjoy the rewards of growing roses that do not take a degree in “rosology”.

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Having a retail nursery, I’m on the front lines of trying to get roses into the yards of the casual consumer. Our line of attack here in Northern Minnesota is to try to get the consumer to do three things: 1. Choose somewhat hardy varieties. 2. Choose disease resistant varieties. 3. Plant them very, very deep.

I’m still looking for the go-to variety that we can throw in every landscape plan.

The first roses consumer friendly roses in my area were the Mordens. We really marketed them heavily. People asked for ‘those Canadian roses’. Many people planted lovely hedges of Morden Centennial and Morden Blush. Morden Sunrise and Winnipeg Parks were always a bit weak, and were the first to go. (Although some people still have super-lovely Winnipeg Parks and one lady bought fourteen of them this spring for herself and her family members.) Then Centennial and Blush started losing all of their leaves halfway through the summer and soon withered away to nothing if they weren’t sprayed. I found myself in the awkward position of having developed a reputation for selling low-maintenance roses but not really having any that I could whole-heartedly recommend.

It was at that point that I discovered rose breeding and this forum. Thanks to the knowledge gained here and from the people I met here (especially Julie Overom and David Zlesak), I started finding the next generation of roses that I could recommend to my customers. These were roses that had less core hardiness than the Mordens but much better disease resistance. My top two roses became Sunrise Sunset and Double Knock Out. (The latter being just a little hardier than the original KO.)

Now I’m realizing that those two roses are on the edge of unacceptably tender to recommend to my customers.

Some of the roses that seem to have a little better hardiness are:

Cancan
Brite Eyes
Morning Magic
Music Box
White Out

The first three on that list are Radler roses that are labeled as climbing roses hardy to zone 6. As such they seem to be hardier than the KO’s, and function as everblooming shrub roses in colder zones down to zone 3.

Rainbow KO is pretty hardy and a bloom machine, but it doesn’t drop it’s petals (and I hear gets pretty severe leafspot in the Minneapolis area.) I’m wondering, Larry, if you find that RKO’s descendants share that problem. I have one Prairie Joy x RKO that is lovely but also never drops its petals.

Dakota’s Song and Mother of Pearl are both Buck rose descendants that have above average hardiness for a large-flowered rose or above average blossom size/form for a somewhat hardy rose.

David’s roses, especially Oso Happy Candy Oh!, seem to be promising but are not yet available from a reputable wholesaler.

We’re talking low-growing landscape roses. I can’t unreservedly recommend rugosas because of our soil; they often get chlorotic around here.

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Joe, this is not exactly low growing, but how does ‘Milwaukee’s Calatrava’ do there in the North country for hardiness?

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Jackie, Milwaukee’s Calatrava does ok. Maybe slightly hardier or on par with the Double KO’s. I’ll take another look the next time I’m out there. I think it’s a little better than Champagne Wishes, which didn’t do too well over the winter. Music Box outperformed them both.

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Could you detail why these breeders are more able than others to improve modern roses ?

Genetic diversity.

Here is the pedigree of virtually all modern roses:

Except for the four founder species and until Scrivens’ Baby Love virtually every cross in the major descendency was introgressive.

The good news is that, as a result, virtually any outcross holds promise of improving the innate health and vigor of modern roses.