Spinosissima Hybrids

General Discussion
1

I would like to hear about your experiences with spinosissimas and spinosissima hybrids.
I am thinking about roses as

  • Karl Förster (Kordes) (occ. repeat)
  • Paula Vapelle (Ivan Louette) (occ. repeat)
  • Kakwa (John Alexander Wallace, Canada)
  • Robbie Burns (Austin)
  • Lochinvar (Austin) (repeats?)
  • wild spinosissimas
  • Scots roses (e.g. Marbled Pink,…)
  • …

Did anyone managed to cross them with garden roses or any species?
What about rebloom?

I tried a few crosses myself this year but I find it too early to jump to conclusions. Nevertheless, for now, neither Karl Förster, Paula Vapelle or Marbled Pink seemed eager to accept any pollen at all.
A few other pollinations seems to develop some promisi g hips, using the pollen of Karl Förster.

Looking forward to hear from you!

Dane Germeys

2

I have a few seedlings from a cross of Suzanne x Williams’ Double Yellow. Two have bloomed but are not recurrent. The shrubs are short with small leaves. The flowers are small, double & less than an inch across. The colours are yellow in bud and fading, and cream. Both have a pleasant scent. I used the pollen for the first time this year. There are 2 small hips forming on Honey Perfume & two on Carefree Beauty. The one hip on Hot Cocoa aborted with one seed inside. Sadly Suzanne expired. Good luck with your efforts. I’m just back to hybridizing after a rather long break. Very few of my seedlings that didn’t have a hardy parent survived.

3

You may want to include ‘altaica’ very hardy huge flower 7cm and more tough in cold climates then Scot collected forms. Hard to germinate and few seeds per hip.
In my northern climate it will rebloom more that in hot areas.j

4

Generally speaking, it’s best to use Spinosissima cultivars as the staminate parent with garden roses. The primary reason is that often the breeder has good knowledge of the fertility of some garden rose culktivars and not of Spinosissima cultivars. Also, simple Spinosissima cultivars’ seeds usually take two years to germinate, whereas Hybrid Tea and Floribunda roses don’t, of course. Having said that, I’d like to see more breeding work done using Spinosissima cultivars as the pistillate parent with garden roses to see if the shrubs and flowers might have different characteristics than the reverse cross. Maybe even a difference in cold hardiness. I don’t see any problem doing that, for example, using ‘Kakwa’ or the common Double White Scotch rose (the former is a selection of the latter).

Note the parentage of Frank Skinner’s ‘Beauty of Dropmore’ (Rosa altaica x Double Scotch). I think it’s unfortunate for cold climates (Zone 2 - 3) we haven’t developed more Rosa laxa x Rosa altaica/spinosissima hybrids (‘Suzanne’ and ‘Haidee’, a couple of exceptions) for use in breeding programs. Again it’s ideal to use Rosa laxa as the pistillate parent, because the seeds of this species germinate readily. Same with Rosa acicularis if it’s used.

Re-bloom, as Johannes mentioned, the use of Rosa altaica is your best bet to use, but the progeny will be likely taller than using Rosa spinosissima.

5

Doorenbos Selection has given me a beautiful 1x blooming seedling. Madeline’s Choice has given several hybridizers reblooming seedlings. I’ve read that Rushing Stream has spin genetics - it’s a DA variety and reblooms nicely and is very healthy.
Stephen

6

Dane, I am working with both R. Altaica and Prairie Peace with somewhat slow results. I do get about 10+% germination the first yr., and just a bit more the second. Since I have a Tree in the middle of one of my small rose growing areas, I have placed the PP offspring under it in partial shade. I think they appreciate the mid day break from the sun because they do not get chlorotic at all from our alkaline water, which some of the altaica seedlings out in the full sun do. One of the best shrub offspring is one between {(Calocarpa x r.nutkana) X r.acicularis(OP)} and PP. It is tough, somewhat drought tolerant, very sun and alkaline water tolerant, blooms prolifically in small clusters (not in spin-up-and-down the branch fashion) and is a deep pink wild rose form single blossom with deep burgundy, almost black hips. The best thing is it crosses with almost anything without massive aborting. This next yr I will find out how well the seeds germinate. I have two seedlings that bloomed this year from this shrubs last yrs seeds, both a cross with Lady Hillingdon. They both are semi double, were spotted, and have very typical spin leaf structure. One set a couple of hips which have matured to a deep black/burgundy. I do have a couple of reblooming (reliable repeating) seedlings from both PP and the r. altaica. Since I cannot have anything grown in the ground, I am relying on their compatibility with pot growth. What I have found is that specie type roses do not complain so fast and loudly as do the modern hybrids about getting too pot bound, so I have started to repot some of the woodsii, the altaicas and the PP seedlings because they are now suffering (quietly-they are pretty stoic) and this should speed up my progress somewhat. Bloom was lower this yr for all the pot bound plants (except for three very vigorous ones) Although most of my crosses have been with moderns (I had pollen only from altaica and PP) I plan to start crossing them back with each other, with PP seedlings, and with r.woodsii, and to utilize crossing with {(Calocarpa x r.nutkana) X r.acicularis(OP)} X PP, and so on, so as not to lose all traces of the spin-ness. I am rambling somewhat here, so I will post this and hope it makes sense tomorrow.

7

Hi all,
Thank you all very much for your replies!

Yes Lydia, the scent is one of the reasons why I love the spinosissima’s!

Johannes, I didn’t know rosa ‘altaica’ does rebloom. Do you think other spinossissimas in the wild would do this as well? I read somewhere on a Dutch site that rosa spinosissima can rebloom in august or so, but I have not read this anywhere else (so far). Maybe I should check the rosa spinosissima I know of at the Belgian coast and see if any of them are blooming this time of the year, but I doubt it.

Paul, your comment about which rose to use as the staminate and pistillate parent is very interesting indeed! I was not aware it could take up to two year if you use the spins as the pistillate parent, that the formed seeds could take up to 2 years to germinate. In this article Scotch Rose
Rowley wrote in 1961 that “crosses with unrelated rose species outside the Section Pimpinellifoliae succeed only when spinosissima is pollen parent.” I doubt this is entirely true, but it seems to indicate that the use of the spinosissima as a seed parent is much more difficult.

Stephen, thanks for mentioning Madeline’s choice. Interesting that it does give rebloom seedlings. I guess this is due to it’s ‘altaica’ parent?

And Jackie, that is a lot of information! I myself bought rosa woodsii this year, and I hope to be able to work with it next year, but I want to use the pollen on other roses… part of my secret hyrbridizing plan :wink:
Also, you mention “massive aborting”. Does this happens often when one polinates “garden” roses with spinosissima pollen? I found out today that one of my best mother plants, a red climber aborted a hip on which I used rosa spinosissima as the staminate parent. It could be due to the bad weather conditions overhere… I have to do the experiment again next year, since I have no spinosissima pollen left and there are no spinosissimas blooming in the wild in august (althoug, I might want to check that)

Furthermore I want to mention a rose I bought earlier this month, rosa ‘Mon amie Claire’. This is a spin hybrid, offspring from rosa “Paula Vapelle”, that does rebloom. So I tried some of it’s pollen last week on a few of my roses. Hope the hips will still ripe before winter comes.

Rosa “Mon Amie Claire” as wel as “Paula Vapelle” are decendents of Stanwell Perpetual. Who knows, maybe Stanwell Perpetual is a decendant of rosa altaica? Who will tell… But it seems this line of roses are reblooming, so very interesting to work with :slight_smile:

Greetz,
Dane

8

Dane, yes altaica does rebloom. I wish I could tell you about the European forms reblooming but in my extremely cold climate they do not do that well. I find that even ‘Suzanne’ dies back.

9

A friend of me told me today he went into the dunes yesterday and saw some duneroses, spinosissimas reblooming. So it seems some of them have reblooming genes. I will check this out this week and take some pictures.

10

I have picture from August 2016. If you expand the size of the picture one can find a dozen flowers on ‘Altaica’
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11

I can confirm some spinosissimas at the Belgiam coast do bloom now in august. Not the thousands of flowers I saw in May but there are a few flowers here and there, especially with plant that have no or only a few hips from the last bloom.
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