Sorry if this has been posted before…
It makes me wonder what is happening inside of Rosa californica along the same lines of this abstract. Similarly, it makes me wonder what would happen to cross modern purples (and modern bicolors too) with Rosa californica. Purples have come a long way since LeGrice came and went. I would also love to see if the iternal plant pH of various mauves, purples, etc is different that other colors.
I’ve been looking at this idea and was thinking of getting californica to run through my purples too, specifically to try for something like ‘International Herald Tribune’, which we cant get here. The first cross I was thinking about was to put ‘Ann Endt’ onto californica and then into purples polys like ‘Baby Faurax’ and ‘Sweet Chariot’. How does ‘Stephen’s Big Purple’ go, health-wise and breeding-wise?
Jadae, would you like a one gallon R. Californica? I have several. Last year, I sought seed of it to inoculate the back hill with it. The lovely Barbara Oliva, Director of the Sacramento Heritage Cemetery Rose Garden, and a very dear friend of mine, had workers rough out a bunch of them from the “choice” clone at the Cemetery and had delivered them to me at last year’s Great Rosarians of the World. I’ve grown them on and not gotten them planted out back yet so I have spares if you’d like one. Kim
I would!
OK, where and when do I send it? roseseek at american on line dot com. Kim
um, I would like to use R.Californica somewhere along the line - I have it growing next to one of its progeny, Cardinal Hume, a Harkness rose I love which is vigorous and healthy in East Anglia. Rhapsody in Blue, great colour but a horrible grower,ugly and ungainly. Ah, so much to choose from, so little time. Even strictly limiting my first attempts to only the healthiest roses I have, it is still a 'mare, choosing this select few. Feeling anxious as I have terrible label issues too. As I am ‘practicing’, I have a few hundred OP pots of seedlings on the go but mostly, they are an insane mix of practically every sort of hep I could find last year so labels are just not an issue. However, I grow a few dozen various tomato plants and every year, not one label has survived the endless pricking out, potting on, potting up…
Most other seeds, I just assume I will recognise them…eventually. So yep, choosing, breeding, keeping track - this is starting to seem a bit more tricky than i initially thought (or rather didn’t…think, that is)
‘Cardinal Hume’, is extremely seed fertile. It will accept pollen from practically anything.
That said, offspring are a real mixed bag. A lot of it isn’t worth keeping. ‘International Herald Tribune’ is much pickier about pollen but better in terms of what it produces.
Fortunately, both are EXTREMELY easy to root and Hume makes a tremendous root stock, never experiencing chlorosis here and easily accepting scions.
Kim, your ‘Cardinal Hume’ varieties are very interesting… beautiful too… but the thing that struck me first was how interesting they are. It’s amazing they are OP or selfs… They look nothing like CH (to me)… ‘Coral Hume’ looks like a great big older-styled mini to me from Karl’s photo on HMF. Another rose to put on my list of roses to get 
. How good is ‘Lilieta’ too!!!
Thank you, Simon, I figured with all that’s behind CH, some interesting selfs should come from it. They did, it’s just not as black spot resistant as I’d hoped here. From the crosses I’ve seen out of it, it doesn’t produce very nice foliage where fungi are problems. Were I still in Santa Clarita, I’d probably play more with it, but I’m not. That’s both a good and bad thing.
I like the rosette shape it often provides and they all have the “Red Hots” fragrance, which is the trait (and the color!) that attracted me to it in the first place. CH is far from “mini” where it’s happy. The original, budded plant from Harkness was often six feet tall and easily eight feet wide. I loved it in the old garden!
This year I added Burgundy Iceberg to my garden to use in my hybridizing. Although I did not get it to set hips the pollen was plentiful and so far I have one small seedling of Raspberry Twirl X Burgundy Iceberg and 4 small seedlings of Heritage X Burgundy Iceberg.
Robert, do you know if Cardinal Hume accepts pollen even from diploids, say rugosas? I just got CH from Germany, ordered because of comments here.
Bw,
Jukka
Helsinki, Finland