Portland roses as mothers

Has any one had any experience with these roses Duchess of Portland, Sidonie, Comte de chambord and De Rescht?

I am a total novice, my first seed germinations are this year. Any insight would be much appreciated!

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Hello James_D !
I haven’t had any success with Comte de Chambord yet, neither as seed parent nor as pollen parent. But I can highly recommend Indigo. Indigo is a very good seed bearer. She also accepts pollen from modern roses without any problems. With Rose de Resht the game is not easy. If you are lucky and everything fits during the pollination period and later on, you can create an exception, but it is rather rarely to succeed. If you still want to try this experiment, here is a small guideline: the pollen parent should have a suitable genetic background of Old Garden Roses varieties (R.gallica / R.damascena) and enough R.chinensis influence, then it is most likely to work out. But be aware it could take patience and time. All the best!

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Thank you Roseus!

I will try with all of them, De Rescht included! Just searched Indigo, thanks for the helpful tip!

Had many tries with Comte de Chambord. Makes a good pollen parent, but as a mother: no hips so far.

I’ve also used Duchess of Portland quite a lot. She is a good mother. The repeat flowering however, it doesn’t come easy. I think my offspring has yet to settle before it will eventually repeat. :crossed_fingers:

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Very good to hear about the duchess of Portland! Thanks for your help!

Thanks KarelBvn! This information is very interesting for me as well.

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I got a few curious hybrids from ‘Rose de Rescht’ twenty years back, but none of them were healthy or vigorous at all. They all died after a couple years in the garden. I don’t think ‘Rose de Rescht’ has any worthwhile genes to offer.

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Thank you for your comment, what did you cross it with?

如果没有古典花型爱好,建议远离法国蔷薇波旁长青等古典,香堡伯爵可以考虑父本。如果对抗病没有要求,亚伯是个好的亲本If there is no classical flower hobby, it is recommended to stay away from the French rose bourbon evergreen and other classical, Xiangbao earl can consider paternity. If disease resistance is not required, Abe is a good parent


The only ones that gave a few interesting seedlings were from the crosses with Tradescant and Reine des Violettes. But none of those seedlings lived for long: too much disease, no vigor. Most crosses resulted in zero seeds at all. Rose de Rescht pollen was almost universally incompatible with any modern variety.

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Has anyone tried crossing portlands with wild roses native to north america? How willing are they to accept wild pollen?

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应该可以的。有人做过It should be OK. Someone has done it

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Has anyone used Rosa Jacques Cartier?

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@James_D I found the above cited information in an older topic. Pls see Jacques Cartier as seed and pollen parent

Maybe it helps you.

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I attempted it years ago, with R. arkansana, R. folioloda and R. woodsii. None of them generated seeds.
However, the choice of Portland is important: most of them do not produce seeds, no matter what. A few, however, make reasonably good seed parents. My best seed producer was ‘Marbree’ - it would produce seeds quite readily. By Comte de Chambord, Jacque Cartier, and Marchesa Boccella did not produce viable seeds.
As others have mentioned, ‘Indigo’ is capable of producing seed, but like most Portlands, the vast majority of offspring will be non-remontants. My assumption is that the gene(s) responsible for repeat in Portland types is NOT the same as the remontancy gene(s) in the China descendants, so its to be expected that hybrids made using Portlands will produce a lot of once-blooming offspring. This is especially true when breeding outside of the Portland line.
‘Rose de Rescht’ will occasionally produce a viable seed when crossed with a modern rose, but few are going to be interesting, and VERY few will have any kind of disease resistance.

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Hi paulbarden,i am a novice,I just wonder if “indego” is helpful in breeding blue roses. Because its name makes me feel like this. If you can reply to me, I would really appreciate you

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Thank you for the information! I found the information that their offspring is not normally remontant very interesting! If anything the idea that their rebloom comes from another genetic line even more exciting!

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I doubt it. ‘Indigo’ is a classic ‘Tuscany Superb’ style purple: dark burgundy tones on top of deep magenta. Roses do not have genes for blue, but there are combinations of genes for cold lavender hues. I have never seen anything from the Gallica/Portland group produce a color that is anything but a dark purple/burgundy color. If its a ‘Veilchenblau’ type “blue” you’re after, the Gallicanae are very unlikely to get you there.

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In addition a little side note: Most Portland seedlings generally do not bloom until the second year. In the third year, it becomes clear whether they are once-bloomers or not. I have had only three exceptions of that rule. These bloomed in the first year and were repeaters.

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So as far as people are aware Jacques Cartiér is incapable of setting hips…?

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