Poor soil roses for zone 9+

General Discussion
1

I would like to make a family of roses that do very well in hot , poor soil, conditions. I’m in Florida, which is a giant sanddune really. I would prefer they grow on their own roots, but grafting onto Fortuniana is an option. Fragrance if at all possible.

I searched the Gardenweb forums to find some reliable southern roses. Chinas and old Teas are what generally do well here, although there are some exceptions which I’d like to use to give some form to the blooms on mine.

These are what I currently have to work with, most are still first year plants:

Belinda’s Dream

Spice

Westerland

Living Easy

Carefree Sunshine

Old Blush

G. Nabonnand

Mrs. Dudley cross

Mrs. BR Cant

Pres. Herbert Hoover

Granada

Marie Pavie

Crepescule

Juane Desprez

Secret Garden Musk

Any advice you could offer would be appreciated as I’m new to hybridizing. Are any of the above unusually sterile and to be avoided? I am aware there are some chromosome number differences in these, how often are triploids reasonably fertile? I’m open to getting more parent plants if it would help.

2

Forget Belinda’s dream it is sterile triploid. Living easy is a good one to use as both pollen and seed parent. Crepesculle is better used as a pollen parent. Most of your teas are fertile, you will probably just have to try them yourself and see which ones work best. You can look all of these up on Helpmefind.com and see if they had any offspring in the past. But just because they havn’t doesn’t mean they are not at least somewhat fertile.

Patrick

3

John Starnes hybridizes for and in your area. I’m sure he could offer you some good advice.

4

Carefree Sunshine is good for seed and pollen.

5

I’ve read (mostly here) that Carefree Sunshine, Westerland, Living Easy, Old Blush, and Granada have good seed and pollen, it’s the others I’m not sure about.

Since it’s my first season, I’ll be sure to include these in most of the crosses to increase my chances of good seedlings. CSunshine and Granada both have several young blooms at the moment, so they will be my first to try.

Interesting hobby, I feel like a mad scientist and mother nature rolled into one.

6

I agree with Carefree Sunshine and Westerland as good seed parents. I would not waste your time with Granada as a seed parent. It has poor germination and weak seedlings.