Any feeedback on how this one performs in breeding?
…and also has anyone done any OP work on it?
I am just about to purchase one, but might actually cancel this order pending on more information here.
No experience in breeding with it, but from observation and reports from a friend who grows it about eight miles and fifteen degrees cooler than here, its first year, it shut down completely when his garden “heated up”. The color wasn’t anywhere near what was expected when it did bloom, but things leveled out once it cooled and the plant had a years worth of roots and growth on it. It’s a commercially budded plant, obviously on Huey as it came through Week’s roses. From HMF, “The Weeks label notes: True to her English upbringing, having a definite preference for cool conditions…sulks in the heat…Demands moderate temps.” and, “susceptible to black spot”.
To qualify, his garden is right in the Sepulveda Pass, complete with higher water table; increased fogs; humidity; huge, mature trees due to the increased water. His plant receives half day sun, is planted in a whisky barrel in great soil and is tended lovingly. For him, the first year, it refused to flower at all when it was “hot”. There, “hot” is in the low nineties.
Hold on, I’ll let you know in the morning when I can look at the seedlings. Neil
I already have Blue For You…apparently BFY has 25% Summer Wine (climber, Kordes 1985) and RIB has 50% Summer Wine in the respective pedigrees.
Not real happy to have two roses in the stud with too similar a breeding behind them.
For any here that have grown these side by side, which is more “blue” …
RIB or BFY??
Theyre just different. The color pattern attributes color differently, even though they both have purple and slate grey in them.
Rhapsody is darker, more saturated pigment. Blue for You is less saturated. Both can, in cooler, damper weather, age to some really slatey-blue tones. Both can also, usually in warmer, drier weather, form some really reddish-lavender tones. Rhapsody is a larger, rangier plant than Blue (here, at least); Blue appears to be far less adversely affected by intense heat and in this climate, Blue has no black spot issues so far. I realize it may simply be a matter of selection, but it’s disappointing that crossing Rhapsody with roses with reputations for health, have resulted in susceptible seedlings.
I grow them both, and both of them love my cool coastal foggy climate. Rhapsody in Blue (Rhapsody) grows as a climber here – 10 to 15 foot main canes. Blue for You (Blue) is a smaller floribunda 3 to 4 main foot canes, but mine is in a pot. Rhapsody is much darker in color than Blue, and as you would expect from a bigger plant, it gets bigger, lustier sprays of blooms that look great in the garden. If the termperature get to 80 degrees (which is maybe 2 or 3 days a year here), Rhapsody shuts down. And both of them like a lot of steady water. If you forget to water Rhapsody for a few days, that will also shut it down. Otherwise, it’s a charmer during June Gloom, when nothing else will open. Rhapsody in Blue sheds most of its spent blooms without producing hips, but I have “caught” it making a stray hip now and again – but those are rare. I haven’t tried to breed with either of them, and I deadhead my Blue to get it going on the next cycle as quickly as possible. Rhapsody is just too big for me to deadhead.
If RIB is a dadda rose there is plenty of space in my mom’s garden for it to climb all it likes.
:O)
This year onwards, for lack of space, I am thinking to keep my mom roses in my limited rental house here where I live, so I can pollinate them in the mornings when the time is exactly right for that action, and and all the dadda roses @ my mom’s where I can visit whenever and pinch some of the flowers (when she is not watching…just kidding, she doesn’t really mind lol).
C’mon Neil…haven’t got all day ya know !!!
I like RIB, it really puts on a show. One cane has 39 buds and that is the third cane this year. My plant is just on it’s second year and is going to get a ton of pollen on it this year. It did’nt set many hips last year but I crossed both ways with Severn Seas, Blue Nile, Ebb Tide and the four OP seedlings are most likely a cross. At least one OP has vigor and the one Ebb Tide x RIB has vigor and only four seedlings from Seven Seas. None have flowered yet but will. I have over two dozen seedlings of Ebb Tide so will see what develops. Neil
Your mom will probably love your keeping them there, George. At least she’ll get to SEE you more often!
LOL… thankfully she does appear to like me, but she doesn’t like how the rose garden there has roses that are lucky to survive one season before being pulled out… LOL
OK, Neil. I am convinced.
I’ll put the order through for one plant of RIB !!
Thx y’all for your input here, it has been awesome.