How easy is the apple rose, villosa/pomifera to work with in breeding? Is it worth experimenting with other than for it’s huge hips? I was just curious since I love multi-season interest and wanted to know more about it before purchasing.
Thanks!
Max
Max, if you search the forum under both names, you will get some past results. Because R. villosa is a tetraploid from the dog rose group, it passes 3 sets of chromosomes through the egg, and 1 though the sperm (pollen). In this respect, it is like R. glauca, which has been discussed rather a lot on this forum. Of course, discussions of R. glauca tend to focus on its leaf color. An idea that has been circulating for a long time is that, if either species is crossed as a seed parent with some normal diploid pollen, the resulting