I’ve added some photos and information to the HMF page I posted for this hybrid for those interested. The pollen parent was bred by Joan Monteith.
As you can see the blue foliage of R. glauca is not in evidence but then it wasn’t pronounced in the pollen parent either.
It will be fun to test the hardiness of this one. I hope it’s fertile. It’ll be tough trying to decide what to try the pollen with. R. kordesii perhaps?
I hate to lose the prickle free nature. This one is totally smooth so far.
This is very, very nice Robert. Maybe you can get some blue foiiage in the next gereration. Good luck with this one.
Patrick
I like how the edge of the petals are tinged pink. It looks like the reverse petals are all pink when in bud. Is that the case? What about crossing this one with Commander Gillette? I hope you get some blue/grey leaves in future generations.
Thanks Patrick. It’s hard to tell much from these blossoms as it was easily 114 degrees here today with higher than normal humidity. I agree they have potential.I can’t wait for Spring flush.
Rob, Commander Gillette is already in the pedigree but it would hurt to try some allied crosses.
To be honest I’m not particularly interested in blue foliage. I’m interested in glauca for it’s novelty, health and cold hardiness.
I was trying to think of what you could breed it to and keep coming up with, “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I have noooooo clue.” lol That is quite the background tho.
I think it would be a spectacular shrub with a touch more primrose and wider petals. I’d buy it.
Let’s see what it looks like in cooler weather Jadae.
It seems to me there’s a tendency for the flowers have a slightly twisted look to them. Perhaps with better weather and more maturity this will normalize.
The growth habit is a bit strange and vigor could be better. I doubt this will be the finished product. Next season will tell the tale. It probably only an interesting step along the way.
Robert, how exactly do you go about testing and selecting for cold hardiness and disease resistance, when you’re in such a warm and dry climate? You probably can only manage to test your more finished/promising seedlings with willing northern gardeners rather than each generation of breeding stock, I imagine. It’s really neat to want to breed for conditions vastly outside your home range, but… I’m curious how you can manage your program to accomplish that!
Hi Stefan. Yes, I will have to send any of these hardy roses for testing in colder climates.
I have a friend in upstate NY that is testing some things for me. I think his zone has just been reclassified as part of zone 6 so he’s not able to test for real cold tolerance.
I have to go with my gut instinct regarding what I think will be cold hardy and disease tolerant and allow others to test seedlings for me. I’m only now developing seedlings with commercial potential so I am open to suggestions as to where they might be safely tested.
This line of breeding with species like R. glauca is ancillary to my main focus but hardiness and disease resistance is my general goal in rose breeding regardless of zone.
I think it would be amusing to breed a cold tolerant disease resistant shrub rose from a tropical species.
As you know this isn’t far fetched as nearly any repeat blooming hardy shrub descends in some fashion from R. chinensis already.
Thanks Robert - I was just wondering if you did any hardiness or disease resistance selection before the end, but I guess you’d agree that this would be too difficult, and relying on “gut instinct” as you aptly put it is the way to go for you 
You must be trying for that elusive sort of rose that can survive in as many climates as possible at once… a worthy goal, and definitely not an easy one.
What suggestions would you have for northern breeders working on roses also capable of thriving in, say, the South or the Southwest?
Stefan, surprisingly I find many of the very hardy roses do just fine here. There are a few that seem to need more chill than we can provide but on the whole they thrive.
There seems to be a link between cold hardiness and heat tolerance on some levels.
The heat resistant nature of many of these cold weather hybrids is what encouraged me to explore them further.
One of the advantages of living in a warm climate is the speed at which I can hybridize subsequent generations. I also enjoy the fact that we deal with relatively few disease organisms.
My friend in NY said he thinks it takes him five seasons to see the results I do in one. I’m sure he exaggerates but I understand the point he is making.
After all plant growth is basically a series of chemical reactions. We all know what happens when you add heat to a chemical reaction. 
Thanks, Robert
Robert,
That is a very pretty rose. I can
Hi Paul, yes, I questioned the validity of the cross because of repeat as well. It doesn’t make sense but as I was was discussing with my friend in NY it is possible. One of his degrees is in genetics. He had a repeat blooming miniature come out of a direct cross with R. helenae and there is no doubt it is a hybrid
Apparently repeat can occur as a mistake of meiosis, depending on where the genes for repeat are located on the loci and which parts cross over on recombination.
I believe this is a hybrid and I think it’s likely glauca x pendulina was the pollen parent.
The plant somewhat lacks vigor, acts a bit confused as I’ve noted with other wide species crosses. The coloration also leads me to believe it’s a hybrid. Lyn Griffith has never produced a seedling with white coloration of any kind.
I can’t be positive of course without genetic testing but as very few hybrids are ever tested to verify pedigree, again we can only go on our gut instinct as to hybridity.
Hi Robert,
That is very interesting, I hadn
I was going with the “Robert uses voodoo magic” theory myself
Robert, is that true? Are you sacrificing chickens down there?
You know there is also the theory that heat influences fertility, especially in wide crosses. (I don’t own any chickens at present.)
I also got repeat blooming seedlings out of R. xanthina and R. alabukensis. Then I got no repeat in several repeat blooming crosses. Go figure.
Roses don’t read books. It doesn’t make sense. I report what I observe and believe to be true. Who’s to say there aren’t latent genes for repeat in some of these species waiting to be brought back out? We can’t know.
Look at ‘Floradora’. These things do happen. I have a feeling they happen more than many have been lead to believe.
“(I don’t own any chickens at present.)”
Well of course not anymore!
lol, anyways, what you state is one reason I dont care much on mixing ploidy. If it works then it works. If it doesnt, well, lesson learned 
I think what we’re observing in some of these cases is incomplete hybridity. Perhaps caninae meiosis carried over into this hybrid on somehow?
It’s too late for me to go back in terms of not mixing ploidy. The ploidy in my hybrids is all over the map. Sometimes the hybrids work. Sometimes they don’t. Often they are confused and weak as a result. Sometimes they die as seedlings which is to be expected.
Surprisingly a number live and even reproduce.
The picotee is very pretty.
You’ve done amazing progress with Basye’s thornless breeding lines and everything else.
I’ve only have first generation seedlings of Basye’s Legacy… the Queen Elizabeth one, and two of them resulting from Pacific Serenade.
Legacy in incredibly fertile. My Mother plant completely collapsed this year after several very productive years. I’m thinking it succumbed to a root fungus. I’m not sure if I will replace it at this point or not.
The good news with Legacy is that lack of prickles can be retrieved in subsequent back crosses. Usually this comes with petals that lack substance though I’m sure that can be overcome.