Has anyone tried crosses between Rugosas and polyanthas? Are they compatible? Do they produce anything worth the trouble? Are these crosses difficult, easy, or in between?
I currently have Hansa and Therese Bugnet for my rugosas but I guess you can also count Rugelda too (I would like to stay in the diploids for these type of crosses though). For polyanthas I have about 20 different varieties.
I was thinking about combining Hansa with my purple polys - I have Heinrich Karsch, Lauren, Sweet Nothings and Baby Faurax - with some of my red polys - Red Fairy, Eblouisant, Anda (haven’t gotten anything from it but I want to try it one more year), possibly Lady Reading (although I might get the same results with Ellen Poulsen) - and with La Marne, Borderer, Ellen Poulsen, Too Cute, Oso Happy Smoothie, and Gloria Mundi. I might also include Candy Oh! Vivid Red with the polys too.
I would like to use Therese Bugnet on mainly my pink polys - Too Cute, La Marne, Pookah, Oso Happy Smoothie, Ellen Poulsen, Marie Pavie (maybe), Borderer - and maybe with a couple of the other ones I have.
Two other polys that I haven’t figured out how to use is Sunshine (if the rabbits will leave it alone) and Perle d’Or. I might try something with White Pet just to make sure I can get anything.
I don’t know whether this applies directly to your question, but Chuck Bock’s Sniffer is a cross between a mini and a rugosa. Clearly there is some potential in the combination, especially as people are looking for plants that don’t get extremely large.
One Rugosa x Poly cross that I can think of is Roselina, it’s The Fairy x (Rugosa type). It’s reported to produce hips. I did a similar cross last year with (Showy Pavement x R.blanda) x a mix of La Marne, Marie Pavie and Candy Oh pollen. I have a number of seedlings now, but quite a few have died. I’m not sure if that’s from a compatibiliy issue or because I have Downy Mildew attacking my seedlings this year. I am looking forward to see how they turn out.
I did a Marie Pavie x R.blanda cross 5 years ago and only one seedling was vigorous and somewhat fertile. It produces a few hips every year but none of the seeds have germinated. Also only one cross with it’s pollen has taken (I have tried it on everything) and that was on its half sibling, the same (Showy Pavement x R.blanda) as above. I have about a dozen one year old seedlings from that cross, I’m hoping a few will flower this year and are recurrent.
My hypothesis is that the heavy stipples/bristling that descends from the ‘Madame Norbert Levavasseur’ line of polyanthas, including up to some modern red floribundas, makes the rugosa thorns (bristles, whatever), much WORSE. You will even see this sort of bristling in roses like Ballerina. If I were to do rugosa/polyantha crosses, I would focus on polyantha types which do not pass on that type of stippled prickles.
Here is an example:
Otherwise, the caretaker of such rose ends up with some nasty skin damage.
A very thorny, low growing shrub might not be a bad thing I think. I have a three year old daughter and I know I’ll need some protection outside her window when the time comes. lol.
That being said though, I’ll have to watch a few of my polys to see if this is something they develope. Off the top of my head I think that Lauren is one of those so I might want to watch out if I plan on a HansaXLauren or reverse cross. I’m sure I can come up with a few "evil’ names if a very thorny seedling is born. I’m thinking Laleficent… if Sleeping Beauty can have a rose named after her, why not Maleficent too? )Did I mention I have a 3 year old going through the princess stage of her life?)
I wasted three year crossing Fru Dagmar Hastrup with Orange Mothersday. I did not think it through that this sport had only mutated the visible layers of cells. The reproductive layers were still the colour of the original clone a muddy purpley red. The plants were very prone to mildew, lanky small. I probably pollinated 1000 flowers. chinas on the other hand are great!
Andre, I love the idea of a series of Disney witch roses, though I don’t know if I’d name one I LIKE after Maleficent. For your three year old, you really need to name one, “No, Why!” Probably her two favorite words at this stage.
The problem when using Rugosa as a seed parent is self pollination. One year I thought I had achieved a good cross using Frau D Hastrup, but later on realised it was a self pollination. Single Rugosa blooms days from opening up, will release pollen, I found this out by using a magnifying glass.
Looking at Sniffer, the leaves are to rugosa to be a hybrid. Hybrids of this type, the leaves are smoothed out a bit more.
What I did with Rosa rugosa alba was to basically take the bloom apart premature, then I would let it mature and get “sticky”, which is when I’d use pollen. This is how I got true crosses. I thought it was impossible, but I pushed the idea, because it was obvious how much physical damage rugosas can take and still be viable.
I was recently reviewing ‘Orangeade as a Parent’ by Stoddard (1980) and got to thinking again about the inheritance and expression of the orange-red pigment pelargonin. He wrote, “Crosses by R. laxa, R. suffulta, and Victor Hugo unexpectedly produced strong and pure oranges among their very sparse populations.”
Suffulta, at least, is colored by peonin, which does not “blue” in the presence of co-pigments (gallotanin, apigenin) the way cyanin does. Therefore, it does not mask the pelargonin.
So, a cross between a light, clear pink Rugosa (e.g., Fru Dagmar Harrup) and an orange polyantha (e.g., Orange Mothersday) could yield a clear orange hybrid of the Grootendorst type.
Lynnie is a second generation seedling. Orangade X Golden Angel created Torch of Liberty which was her seed parent. My DLFED hybrids are also second generation Orangeade hybrids.
The mesoderm and endoderm are not coloured orange like the endoderm because they did not mutate to pelegonidine. The colours are like Echo or some previous clone that Orange Mothersday came from. I am assuming that it is a chimaera. Johannes
hi graham, I have given up on polyanthas completely. For the orange colour I am using Adelaide Hoodless . Some results better plants, better pelargonin expression hardier. Just not as good as Morden Fireglow. Johannes
One way to test is to raise plants from root cuttings. The adventitious shoots arise from single cells (usually). Or, one can use Orange Mothersday as pollen parent, increasing the odds of getting the desired orange color.
hi Karl, I did use orange Mothersday as the pollen parent no orange. I hope that I am correct that the pollen is derived from layers 2 &3. Not the one that is visible. I am hopeful that with other cultivars that my bad experience with polyanthas will be OVER!
Well, the thing is, that there are A LOT of orange sport polyanthas, so there is a chance one of them is not superficial; their instability could also be a merit. Also, there are orange-toned mixed ploidy types bred from other poly types, like Coral Drift and Orange Triumph.