Paul,
I was wondering if those 72-08-11: ‘Condoleezza’ X ‘William III’ seedlings flowered and what they were like? My ‘William III’ is about to flower and I’m trying to work out which way to go with it. There’s not a lot of other roses out here yet to choose from unfortunately… unless I freeze pollen (which not had much luck with in the past). Do you think there is any merit going onto a rugosa first?
Link: paulbarden.blogspot.com/2010/03/spinosissima-surprise.html
I will have to look for a bloom photo. I’m sure I took one. The prettiest one reminded me of Great Maidens Blush in color and form. Good scent also. It was put to work as a pollen parent!
Is your ‘William III’ stingy with its pollen? Mine doesn’t want to give any up.
“Is your ‘William III’ stingy with its pollen?”
Hardly! You could practically gather it in a bucket. I often wonder, when I hear these things, if we don’t have different cultivars on different continents being circulated under one name. Perhaps we don’t have the same plant?
They could be different plants, but it could also be climate. Inland, Iceberg doesn’t form hips easily. In coastal climates, it sets fruit like made. Rosarium Uetersen is so packed with petals inland, there are no sexual parts and very seldom any hips. On the coast, not only is the Peter Max, fry yor retinas, poster paint coral faded to a soft, pastel color, but it’s semi double full of stamen and pollen and loaded with hips. Amazing what heat, and the lack of it, can do.
Probably not an issue in this case, but I’ve noted fertility differences between budded and own-root specimens as well.
Sometimes a rootstock pushes too hard and prevents formation of stamens and or hip set in certain cultivars.
The same thing can happen if a parent is pruned too hard.
Joe Winchell used to root prune with a shovel when something wouldn’t produce seed. He said it tricked the rose into thinking it was dying, forcing it to make pollen and seeds. Seemed to work for him.
You might try a piece of the rose where you can stress the devil out of it to make it “think” it’s on its last legs. See if that forces it to produce what you want. If nothing else, it might be FUN to torture an irritating plant! I loved dumping offending roses in the gardener’s truck at the old garden. Everything went to the landfill. A number met their Maker there!
According to Peter Boyd their are several varieties going under the name of William III. He has a web site full of info on the scotts roses. He also id suppose to have a book coming out at some point on the subject.
Climate was my first guess too… but it could also be age as my ‘William III’ is new this season and these were the first flowers. It’s budded onto the good (bad???) Doctor but I’ve planted it below the graft in the hope of it ditching the Dr to become own root over time.
My ‘William III’ looks very much like what you have, Paul, (wonderful perfume too) but I guess it could be anything. It has the trade mark small round spin. leaves and dense covering of spines, and the colour is a match… not overly double… I think I’ll let it form OP hips and try it as a seed parent as well though my track record with spin. seeds is not the best. I was really hoping I could put it onto something like my poly/multiflora hybrid that I think will germinate easily.
Robert, on climate and its effect and getting off-topic, for the first time this season my double white banksiae has formed pollen 
It was labelled Rosa banksiae ‘Alba Plena’. There was not a lot of pollen but enough to do a single pollination and I was thinking about what to put it on and thought back to your start-out cross with ‘The Monster’, from ‘Old Blush’, to make ‘Lila Banks’ and onto ‘Rivebanks’ (such a beautiful rose). I realised that my little dark red/pink china seedlings (OP 10,000 Camelias seedlings) from Viru were at exactly the right stage so I put it onto the best of these seedlings… a really lovely single blushing pink suffused with yellow at the base on a mildew-free plant… There was scarcely enough pollen to even see so I’m not overly confident that I actually got any on there but it’s exciting to have been able to even try It was a chain of coincidental events really like the planets aligning… I had stopped the car to do something along the driveway the other day and noticed some soon-to-open buds on banksiae and picked them and noticed it had stamens for once and they actually released pollen. I had brought my little China seedlings indoors because it is raining heavily at the moment and I wanted to photograph its first flowers so it’s the only rose on the property that isn’t washed out and its new flowers were at exactly the right stage. I didn’t even pick up on it straight away but I had both the seedling and the pollen sitting next to each other on the kitchen bench while I was looking at the pollen wondering what to put it on and thinking of your work… then I had a light bulb moment … if it works I might have to call one of its seedlings ‘Serendipity’