I used R. Rugosa Rubra extensively several years ago and have a lot of plants and still no flowers in the third year. I just don’t have enough room to keep seedlings for years before I can weed them out.
Does anyone know if there any Rugosa parents that tend to produce seedlings that flower in the first year (or at least the second year)?
In particular, I have Moje Hammarberg and Therese Bugnet at my disposal and am wondering if anyone has used either of these.
I’d use Therese Bugnet if I had the chance. I considered crossing it with the Drift series by Meidiland, lol. I think TB has a lot of admirable traits, including really cool stems. However, others here may be more experience on whether or not it readily passes on any of these postive traits.
I grew some R.rugosa seedlings about 4 years ago from seeds my mother-in-law collected in Canada and approximately 15%-20% flowered in the first year. Most of the rest flowered the next year. I have a Jenz Munk OP seedling that hasn
Generally, Rugosa seedlings take at least two years to flower. I’ve grown lots of Rugosa seedlings and I’ve never seen them flower in the first year.
‘Therese Bugnet’ still has potential to use in a breeding program to develop cold hardy (Zone 3) roses. It would be interesting to cross it with more species as was done with Rosa nitida to produce ‘Metis’. I would always use this cultivar as the staminate parent.
I second the suggestion of ‘Therese Bugnet’. It is a diploid and produces copious fertile pollen. It can set seed but is probably better as a pollen parent. I am currently growing out several crosses using ‘Therese Bugnet’ as the pollen parent and they are among the most beautiful (foliage and growth) and most vigorous of all my crosses this year. I consider this extremely encouraging. I do not expect any of these to flower this first season (but one or two surprises would be nice) but anticipate seeing many/most of them bloom next Spring.
Hybrids based on R. rugosa sp. are often more difficult to culture; they tend to take two years or more to start flowering, and you will occasionally encounter a cross in which a percentage of the seedlings have had flowering turned off. Yes, you read that right; sometimes something gets “broken” when mating Rugosas far outside of their own relatives and the flowering response fails completely. Some will never flower. Ralph Moore showed me crops of Rugosa seedlings he grew and he said he could identify 9 times out of 10 the ones that would simply never bloom. Its one of the hazards you are likely to encounter.
One other Rugosa hybrid I would consider is ‘Martin Frobisher’. It is a ‘Schneezwerg’ seedling and has bred some very garden worthy roses, including two by Austin. If I had it in my collection right now, I’d be putting ‘Therese Bugnet’ pollen on ‘Martin Frobisher’, you can be sure of that. For now, however, I will be satisfied with putting ‘Therese Bugnet’ on an F2 seedling of ‘Schneezwerg’ I have.
Lastly, I’d ask Henry Kuska about his experience using ‘Therese Bugnet’ and other Rugosa derivatives as breeders; he has quite a bit of experience in this area.
I had submitted 5 own root plants of “White Alzbeta Kuska” for commercial evaluation. The company reported they all died the first year. I wonder if they were spraying them (not knowing that rugosas do not like to be sprayed).
I like ‘Therese Bugnet’ a lot too. It is the male parent of my ‘Catherine Guelda’. 'Catherine Guelda ™' Rose
Therese Bugnet crosses very readily with pure rugosas and produces hybrids that sometimes have more of the flower form of ‘Therese Bugnet’ with the glossy rugosa like foliage. It has been more difficult for me to generate hybrids with other groups or classes of roses with ‘Therese Bugnet’ but it has worked with polys. I love the idea to cross the Drifts with TB. Joan Monteith has a poly x TB hybrid I think with ‘The Fairy’ as the female. ‘Catherine Guelda’ is like a compact TB with the great stem color for winter.
When I have made crosses with TB one thing I have tried to keep in mind is to cross it with something with mildew resistance. TB mildews here anyways. Over the years the crosses I have tried to make with TB and tetraploid shrub and other modern roses have all unfortunately failed to set any seed.
Catherine Guelda is fully everblooming, but the other TB/Poly crosses (I have both directions) didn’t bloom right away and were recurrent later.
Thanks for the tip of crossing ‘Martin Frobisher’ x ‘Therese Bugnet’. I can easily do that and if successful send seeds to you.
By the way, it’s possible that ‘Martin Frobisher’ and ‘Therese Bugnet’ has the same parent, ‘Betty Bland’. Or it could be that the staminate parent of ‘Martin Frobisher’ is ‘Therese Bugnet’.
I note in the St. Albert Botanic Park rose garden that ‘Harison’s Yellow’, ‘Persian Yellow’ and ‘Hazeldean’ all froze to the snow cover. It was a shocker to see ‘Hazeldean’ winter killed so much, because I had never seen that before with this cultivar. ‘Betty Bland’ though came through the winter just fine.
Ironically the past winter, except for a brutal cold period in December, was likely the warmest on record in the Canadian Prairie region. But perhaps that was the problem, causing the severe winter kill of shrub roses normally cold hardy to Zone 3.
One of the crosses I was thinking of making this year is Therese Bugnet x Pax Apollo. Like David mentioned TB isn’t the healthiest here but Pax Apollo has been very healthy for me. PA is completely thornless and has been very hardy. It doesn’t set hips so it will have to be used as the pollen parent. I used its pollen on several Rugosas last year with none of the attempts taking. I was hoping that I would have better luck with TB or Schneeberg as seed parents. I don’t know if PA has genes for repeat bloom so I don’t know if any of the offspring will have repeat bloom or not.
Paul, Will Alderman was (as is often the case) the first rose to bloom this season. Since then, we have had rain almost every day. As soon as we get a little dry weather, I will collect some pollen for you.
I had an apparent rugosa seedling come up with my Adelaide Hoodless seedlings this year. For a time I thought it was just a stray seed; but now, because it looks different than my straight rugosa seedlings (it has smaller, differently shaped foliage), I’ve decided it really is a hybrid. With those two parents I would hope it would be cold hardy at least. I HOPE it flowers eventually!
The one rugosa I’m excited about working with is Moore’s Striped.
Thanks everyone for your responses. It sounds like my experiences with Rugosas are pretty typical. It also sounds like Theresa Bugnet is worth using as a pollen parent. It is a rose that has always intrigued me. Its flowers look and smell like a rugosa, but the plant is so much more graceful and elegant than the typical rugosa. There is a gorgeous speciman in the New York Botanical Gardens in The Bronx.
Paul Barden, I had never heard of flowering being turned off completely. Let’s hope that does not happen often!
I think it should be kept in mind that ‘Therese Bugnet’, although commonly listed as a Rugosa is more accurately a Rosa blanda hybrid. The shrub form and cane texture/colour is very different than Rosa rugosa. Also, as David has pointed out it is susceptible to mildew, a problem most cold hardy (Zone 3) Rugosa cultivars don’t have. At least in the northern Great Plains region and in other similar cold climates.
Ive really only seen mildew on the Grootendorst trio, and it is usually very random and superficial at its worst. I have yet to see TB mildew here, but I am sure it is possible given the right microclimate.
In my (limited) experience, Therese Bugnet makes a fine female parent with other Rugosas. My first attempts at germinating rose seed were from open pollinated TB hips. The foliage of the seedlings varied, but all had clear Rugosa characteristics. Subsequent intentional crosses yielded great seed set and plentiful germination with pollen from Rugosa varieties, total failure with pollen from 4x shrubs. Of those first OP seedlings in 2006, two (!) have bloomed so far. One was a sort of ugly muddy-pink version of TB herself. The other was a pretty fully double, deep pink Rugosa that bloomed (and set hips) for the first time last year. There are buds on many of the others this year, finally! Moje Hammarberg is also a good seed setter, but the only other thing I can tell you so far is that its seedlings don’t bloom the first year either. TB seedlings can be mildew-prone but some do grow out of it.
I also like the good Frau as a seed parent… ‘Dagmar Hastrup’ is a lovely plant and sets easily germinated seeds easily though you need to be quick as it will self readily. I’ve not seen any of my ‘Dagmar Hastrup’ seedlinsg flower yet though as they are all only a year old but they seem every bit as healthy as their Mum with the same lower/wider architecture. It also seems to be able to breed some strong colours if you look at its progeny on HMF despite it being a delicate pale pink.