Hi everyone,
I’ve been wondering if I should add this rose. The couple of Dot roses I’ve grown are very heat tolerant and I suppose this one might be too. HMF pictures don’t show any fried blooms in summer pics. Unfortunately there are no member ratings or useful comments about it on HMF. References seem to suggest health might be pretty good (?).
It clearly has pollen fertility considering its many descendants, but on the seed side I only see Rosada, a backcross to Rouletti. Has anyone here used Perla de Alcanada as a seed parent? Any comments about hip set, germination, or even general growing would be very welcome.
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SeasideRooftop, unfortunately I can’t say anything about this rose from a breeding point of view as I didn’t know ‘Perla de Alcanada’ before. But from the last journal of the WFRS, ‘by any other name’, issue 28, November 2023, I learned that the era of Dot roses, Spain’s most famous rose nursery, is sadly coming to an end.
It is therefore finally questionable how, where and to what extent these wonderful varieties will still be available to us in the future. Perhaps this is an important aspect for you.
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Thank you for sharing that PDF Roseus!
Yes, unfortunately the Dot nursery has not been doing well for some time now. It appears to still be open for the time being, but they don’t ship outside of Spain.
They have a number of interesting videos on their website about their growing process and also some about Pedro Dot’s work. Although their fields have always been sprayed, they don’t supplement water, which is quite impressive considering the Catalonian climate, especially in recent years!
http://www.rosas-dot.com/Farming.html
http://www.rosas-dot.com/Other.html
Loubert has some Dot roses, but most varieties are challenging to find. I was glad to read in the article you linked that at least there is a rose garden in Catalonia that will be preserving the Dot roses.
The two I have, Tarde Gris and Luis Brinas, came from Loubert, and are impeccable in their second year; although LB had a bit of a rough start, it passed the summer with flying colors.
Dot introduced quite a lot of minis, of which only Perla de Alcanada seems to still be widespread on the EU market. Perla de Montserrat, another nice-looking Dot mini, is listed by Novaspina under the name Pink Pearl, and I’ll try to add that one in the fall too.
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When reviewing the breeding records of miniature varieties - especially the “microminis” (which includes ‘Perla de Alcanada’) - if there are few/no hybrids that list a parent as seed bearer, that’s usually because the variety doesn’t set seed. Many of the tiny hybrids don’t. A few, like ‘Tom Thumb’ will occasionally set seed, but in general the smallest roses work best as pollen parents.
Side note: my own hybrid, ‘Oui’ sets seed fairly readily, although I have never tried to germinate them. I wouldn’t expect many (or any) to be vialble seeds.
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Thank you for your advice @paulbarden ! I will try using Perla de Alcanada as a pollen parent and not the other way around then.
“Oui” looks amazing by the way. I wish your roses were available in Europe… Hopefully one day!
This also reminded me that even Dot’s tiniest micromini “Sí” appears to have vanished from commerce in Europe. A real shame.
Either not viable or requiring embryo excision. R X Actii set copious seed but none of them germinate by themselves. Embryos extracted from them have developed into mature plants. Robert Rippetoe has experienced that issue with Laevigata seeds, also.
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