What have others experience been with this species? I have a clone of this one I got from a retired professor that got it as a seed from a scientist in Russia. It’s been cane hardy for me and seems to be a true groundcover/long caned climber (the plant habit is kind of like ‘Max Graf’). It has been at my parents and this past year I finally was around at the right time to get some pollen and try it in crosses and now finally have a few young seedlings with it as a male on the plantstand. They seem pretty vigorous and have LOTs of prickles like this species selection. About 5 years ago I rooted cuttings of this selection of the species and shared them with others. Have others been successful with this clone or the species in general? What have you thought of the progeny?
Sincerely,
David
I do have Rosa maximowicziana, but not from your clone. I obtained mine form Forest Farms nursery. They have a lot of rose species, often grown from seed. They listed it as a “Manchurian version of R. multiflora.” It matches the description of your clone, and is very similar to R. wichuraiana, although bigger and more hardy.
I have a few young seedlings from ‘The Gift’ X Rosa maximowicziana. They are in cold storage, and I don’t remember much about them, except that they are non-recurrent, as one would expect. As many of the readers here know, ‘The Gift’ is a large polyantha with single white flowers. Some have speculated that it may actually be a clone of R. multiflora nana, and it certainly looks like pure R. multiflora, only it is a recurrent bush. About half of its hybrids with recurrent roses are recurrent even though, theoretically, they all should be. Anyway, I was hoping to intercross the seedlings to get recurrent offspring in the next generation. I plan to cross it onto R. blanda this coming summer, if their bloom periods overlap. Your clone sounds as if it is more hardy than mine.
What did you cross it with?
Dr. Roger Mitchell, Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan (zone 5)
Forest Farms are a great ordering source btw. I ordered 2 Rubus gifts for a friend for Xmas and they were expediant with delivery in their healthy plants at a nice cost bracket. This was in sharp contrast to all the other online gifts I ordered for others this past Xmas. If only they had a much broader selection of roses… =)
In the mid 1970s, Griffith Buck had a yellow seedling from an ancestry which included Rosa maximowicziana. He offered budwood of this to RHA members, and I asked for some.
Maybe a year (or more?) later, in January of 1977, he wrote to me: “I am sorry to report that the plants of that yellow seedling are no more. We sprayed with a new insecticide, and while it did little damage to the aphids and white fly, it wiped out a large number of rose plants. In all fairness I might add that the rose was scheduled for discard because it did not live up to its promise as a parent.”