stability of roses

I’m noticing that certain roses change–

Lynnie occasionally throws very thorny branches, as do my seedling of Queen Elizabeth X Basye’s Legacy.

I have a Abraham Darby X Basye’s Amphiploid that had yellow flowers, and the new flowers are a very rich purple color. (It’s a very deep purple in bud right now, at least.)

Sorry-- I posted before I finished asking my question…

But, how often does this happen in your seedlings?

I’ve noted the same instability issues with Basye’s Legacy descendants. In the second generation nearly all have a normal number of prickles.

It seems to be the weather that’s effects Basye’s Legacy seedlings.

Before, my Queen Elizabeth X Basye’s Legacy seedling had a sparse amount of thorns.

Yet, new canes and growth are completly without thorns.

I don’t know, for me this frustrates me because I don’t have much room to dedicate a rose that doesn’t fit my goals.

Even seedlings of Pacific Serenade X Basye’s Legacy are instable. I’m starting to notice needle sharm prickles on growth that used to be thornless.

But I’m hoping that my “Abe Basye” hybrid will revert back to the pretty creamy yellow flowers. At least, I hope it doesn’t have that unpleasent rugosa shade of muave-pink. If it’s going to be a purple color, I hope it’s going to stay that same shade that’s coming up this year.

It might be phototropic.

The only unexpected suprise is usually midlew. I can only test for mildew in the spring, and rarely in the late fall, due to my climate. So, sometimes a seedling tha was mildew-free it’s first year can sometimes be prone the following year. This can be annoying because it throws plans off when hopeful seedlings are culled. But that’s life :slight_smile:

Just as an FYI, all Neptune seedlings last year will 100% mildew prone. They were all Solitaire x Neptune which is unusual since Ive never seen mildew on Solitaire seedlings before, and I use it a lot.

It must have been the combination of Freude in Solitaire and the older reds found in Blue Nile via Neptune that aided this bad trait. In fact, now that I think about it, the pattern of mildew reminded me of what Crystalline does every fall before it goes dormant.

And the opposite is true. Seedlings can grow to resist mildew as they age, not that they will ever be immune once proclivity is exhibited.

Probably 90% of the roses I grow exhibited some type of mildew infection here this year. I found it even on roses I assumed to be totally resistant. It was a real eye opener.

I attribute the unusually bad infection rate to the fact I did my first real hard pruning here in years and I finished rather late so most were in a very lush state of growth when conditions are favorable to the disease.

It’s nice to know that I can at least test seedlings here for mildew.