Prairie Lass - Any thoughts?

Roses for Hybridizing
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Good afternoon everyone,

I’ve been a longtime reader but have never posted anything until now. I just started making my planned crosses this year and am really excited that I finally found time to get this hobby started (an 18-month old somehow sucks up all available free time). OPs are great fun but I’d much rather spread the pollen myself.

I was wondering what your opinions of Prairie Lass are and of some of the crosses I made with it this year.

I was given a few cuttings of Prairie Lass last year from Kim and the two plants that I got rooted have taken off fast. Not only are they vigorous, but they show no disease (despite terrible issues with Blackspot here) and they came through the winter with only one branch killed. I live in Des Moines which is about 45 minutes to an hour south of Ames so I guess it should be expected that this rose does well for me. I decided to use it this year despite it being so young and it appears that I have had some success (so far) as both seed and pollen donor. Here are the crosses that seem to have taken:

As seed: Blaze of Glory, Denver’s Dream, Fourth of July, Lafter, Morden Sunrise, Night Owl, many OPs (I kept the list short so I didn’t put too much stress on the young plants)

As pollen: Adelaide Hoodless, Anda, Blueberry Hill, Charlotte Brownell, Denver’s Dream, Fourth of July, Julia Child, Lafter, Morden Sunrise, Night Owl, Orange Ruffels, Prairie Sunrise, Rise ‘n’ Shine, Rainbow’s End, Sachet, Snow Twinkle, and Sunsprite.

I don’t really have any specific goal in mind with these crosses. General breeding goals include trying to improve disease resistance, increase hardiness, and build a better miniature (you know, the usual). Since this was my first year making planned crosses I just crossed everything I could think of with it. Anyone have an opinion on what I can probably expect from these crosses - besides a lot of plain pinks?

I’m interested in working with the stippling too as this one has a good show of it. I did purchase a lot of other Bucks this year to use (hopefully) next year but for right now, this one and Earth Song are the two Bucks I have in use.

The other bucks that I got this year are April Moon, Bright Melody, Country Dancer, Countryman, Dorcas, Freckles, Golden Unicorn, Honeysweet, Polonaise, Prairie Clogger, Prairie Harvest, Prairie Sunrise, and Winter Sunset. Hopefully a few pants come from my cuttings of Paloma Blanca and Maytime.

Thanks for any feedback you might have on Prairie Lass or any of the others.

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Andre,

Crossing bucks and brownells (lafter, c. Brownell) sounds very interesting.

Do you know the parentage of prairie lass: hawkeye belle x (vera dalton x (dornroschoen x (worlds fair x applejack))). Lots of good stuff in there.

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Welcome Andre,

I don

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Some bucks are sickly here, but when crossed with healthy partners produce disease free seedlings. Examples here include distant drums x carefree sunshine, quietness x lions rose, and some seedlings of these.

Most bucks are hardy enough to survive here in z5.

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Howdy Dave

I see that you have used the Lions Rose, I was just wondering how the offspring faired. Saw a plant of Lions Rose, and was quite impressed with its vigour, foliage and health, will be using it this spring with a feeling something good will come out of it.

cheers Warren

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Warren

LR is certainly healthy.

2008 LR crosses produced several keepers, including the qtxlr mentioned above.

2009 lr crosses produced nothing either direction, so it hasnt been used since.

Maybe it is triploid?

Goodluck with yours.

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Thanks for that Dave. Dave can you remember whether there was must change between the breeding season of 2008 and 2009, I have found some rose cultivars are more virile in some seasons than others depending on seasonal changes or earlier in the season than later or visa versa. Being triploid, only Kordes would know, but comming from them it could be anything.

cheers Warren

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Thanks for the replies.

Dave

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J. H. Nicholas worked out a method of guestimating the “arctic hardiness” of the types of crosses you’re considering. I believe it was in A Rose Odyssey, but it could have been in his Rose Manual. As mixed a bag as our roses are, I believe your comment that the genetics are still too complicated to make it cut and dry is right on. Kim

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You’re right, Kim. It was in A Rose Odyssey. See link below.

Peter

Link: bulbnrose.org/Roses/breeding/Nicolas_arcticness.html

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Peter, thanks for finding that. This might be what I was looking at. This interests me because until recently I was obsessed with growing only HTs, Fls, and Minitures, I have access to a lot of less than hardy varieties (I spend about two days each fall before the first forcasted snowfall putting collected leaves on them). I grow them because I like them and still young enough to do the extra work. However, if I can get some similar varieties of my own creation that don’t require this yearly chore (coupled with the pruning and getting my hands all cut up when removing the cover in the spring) that would be a win for me. But I am wondering about how much work it is going to be to introduce some degree of hardiness into them. It will be fun finding out.

Has any other, more recent work been done on this subject (predicting (guestimating) hardiness)? If and when I get my hands on a few more hardier varieties I think I can contribute some.

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Andre, I don’t know whether this is what you are looking for, but Roses for the North, a book by Kathy Zuzek and others, includes considerable research on rose hardiness, as well as reports of the hardiness of various cultivars over a period of years. See the link below. Although you can read much or all of it online, the printed version is well worth the price, and I recommend that you get it if it’s still in print.

Peter

Link: www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG6594.html

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Thanks, a lot of good information in there. I’ll have to do a search for it to see if I can find it in print.

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Andre,

My guess is that you

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Andre, there’s a “To Order” link just above the MN Experiment Station logo. Can’t think of a better deal for the price. I would post the link, but the forum link-checking rule flags https:// as invalid.

Peter

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Paul - I was thinking that to myself as I was writing it. I am still having BS issues on the usual subjects (those that always had it even when I did spray). I was never really consistent with the spraying anyways (maybe did it 2 or 3 times a season)so I never had a truly clean garden. My bigger issue this year is weeds (it truly is a jungle out there) as I didn’t get the mulch put on the beds this year. We got hit with over a month of rain with a few days of sun and then it was in the 90s with high humidity almost immediately. So the weeds just got ahead of me this year. Fortunately I’ve been banished to the gardens on the weekends to take care of it and I almost have it under control again.

Also, thanks for addressing the issue of hardiness. Now the question is how to determine which varieties have how many alleles and therefore more effective at passing on this trait. I think it would be a fun little task to find out what the percentages would be on certain varieties.

Peter - thanks for pointing that out, I didn’t notice that tab. I’ve got a birthday coming up so I think that I will just have to get it.