'Stars n Stripes' and climbing minis

Roses for Hybridizing
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I was looking at the descendants listed for ‘Stars n Stripes’ and they are all climbers of some description. I was wondering how a mini that isn’t climbing throw climbers or is ‘Stars n Stripes’ actually a low growing climber itself? I’m going to put it on ‘Ebb Tide’ tomorrow to go for something like ‘Purple Splash’… without the ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.

On a separate question about purple… I was thinking about putting ‘Ebb Tide’ on “Temple Bells” tomorrow… but decided against it. “Temple Bells” is a white, single, wichurana ground cover rose and the goal in mind was a deep purple groundcover rose. I decided against it because I figured that this cross, at this stage, was probably a waste of time because it would probably result in lots of pinks. I decided instead to do it in two steps and put something deep red onto “Temple Bells” to try for a red ground cover and then put ‘Ebb Tide’ over it the next season. I’ve also put ‘Hot Chocolate’ onto “Temple Bells” for this reason to see if an orange/red gc rose could be made before putting a dark purple like ‘Ebb Tide’ over it. Does this logic sound reasonable?

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On a separate question about purple

This is a very well thought out question. I am interested in seeing what the answers are.

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Hi Simon,

I think that is a good idea. If your goal is a purple ground cover though, I would still do the ‘Ebb Tide’ X '“Temple Bells” cross anyway. I think that you are probably right that the first generation would be mostly pink, but those (F1) could be crossed with each other or with other selections and you might get close to what you are looking for.

Some of the seedlings of ‘Midnight Blue’ are rather spreading and might also do well in similar crosses.

Jim Sproul

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Stars’n’Stripes functions like a climber for a very good reason. Its breeding breaks down to Little Chief X (Little Darling X Ferdinand Pichard). Little Darling is a floppy rose. It has a good dose of Wichuraiana in it, and usually throws long, floppy canes before blooming. Ferdinand Pichard is a fairly traditional HP in growth. Long canes throwing shorter laterals like a shorter pillar rose. Hybrid Perpetuals can (at least in my climate) be used as climbers. Most are/were suitable for pegging. Ralph’s intention was to take the semi climbing 26Stripe (Little Darling X Ferdinand Pichard) and massage the stripes into a healthier, bushier, more dwarf plant by crossing it with Little Chief.

Little Chief was produced by crossing his Cotton Candy (R. Wichuraiana X Multibracteata seedling) with Magic Wand, which is a climbing mini. Cotton Candy is a once blooming climber. Ralph explained to me years ago the Multibracteata seedling was a sister to Floradora which was never released. He obtained it for breeding and the one rose of note created from it was Cotton Candy. Magic Wand was so named because everything he put it on ended up being commercial, it was his “magic wand”. Not in this vein, but Secret Recipe was his striped, moss breeder, his “secret recipe”. He wasn’t very good at selecting names, but he had fun with them. Thankfully, Carolyn is MUCH better at it than he ever was.

As I wrote in my tribute to him, Ralph loved telling the story of Sam McGredy asking for a plant of Pin Stripe. Ralph wasn’t finished with it yet and didn’t want to let any of it go, so he gave McGredy a plant of Stars’n’Stripes. Ralph stated he told him if he selfed it once, he could fix the dwarf, repeat blooming striped plant he sought. If you’ve grown any of the McGredy roses bred from Stars’n’Stripes, you know that suggestion was not taken. They’re all floppy plants like Stars’n’Stripes.

So, yes, it is a climber…sort of. Like Sweet Chariot is a climber…sort of. Both can easily develop into arching, floppy plants in milder climates with ample root run and lighter pruning. If you’re looking to create climbers, and ground covers really are just climbers allowed to lay flat on the ground, it is a good choice. If you want bushier plants, either self it and select the best of the bunch, or choose something like Pinstripe or one of the others which exhibit bushier, more dwarf plant habit.

You might take a look at Twister. It’s a striped, climbing mini bred from 1-72-1, the climbing yellow mini sister of Rise’n’Shine crossed with Shadow Dancer. You’ll pick up a double dose of Dortmund in this one. There aren’t any listed offspring from it, so who knows what to expect from using it?

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I love a ton of McGredy roses, but I think one of the major flaws in his roses is mixing bs prone floribundas with bs prone minis. For example, his striped he used in a lot of his roses as well as Sexy Rexy. Every single one of them defoliates in unison here. Oranges and Lemons escaped this but New Zealand definitely did not. And yeah, the striper hybrids are floppy except for Old Port, which defoliates faster than even First Edition or Orange Sensation here lol.

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The reason I brought up ‘Stars n Stripes’ is because I love the idea of making a purple striped climber like ‘Purple Splash’ and I was curious about how/why ‘Stars n Stripes’ produced climbers as my plant has stayed a typical mini in all ways so far showing no tendencies to climb/flop/sprawl etc. I have pollen from it ready to go tomorrow to work towards this goal. I also like the idea of using it to make bushier compact wichurana based plants and I have done as you suggested and a few weeks ago pollinated a few of its flowers with itself. I wasn’t thinking of this at the time… at the time I did it because someone on here, I forget who or where, suggested that ‘Stars n Stripes’ wasn’t a great seed parent so I was going to try and raise a whole swag of selfed seedlings hoping to hit on a more fertile version… like taking the exisiting set of genes and continually shuffling them until a more fertile version appeared shrugs no idea if there is anything to this… was just a hunch at the time. Now it appears they might have another use as well… happy coincidence :slight_smile: Having said this ‘Stars n Stripes’ seems to do just fine as a seed parent here after all.

Jim, I’ve decided to do as you suggest and go both ways with “Temple Bells” (I’m 99.9% certain it is ‘Temple Bells’). This little GC rose accepts every pollen I’ve put on it so far. Even bizarre out there crosses like longicupis, rubinginosa, and I even have a few hips using pollen from the hybrid laevigata; ‘Anemone’ which I wasn’t expecting at all as Robert has said it has proven unco-operative for him. So I’ve collected pollen from the single, deep velvety-red flower carept rose and will put this on tomorrow and over the next few days will also collect mroe ‘Ebb Tide’ pollen to put on it as more flowers mature. Then I’ll have a number of options to work with to try and make a nice purple groundcover rose from ‘Ebb Tide’. I think I’ll also try ‘Route 66’ on “Temple Bells” too and then have a third string to this bow and bring the ‘Ebb Tide’ line and the ‘Route 66’ line together as well. I’ve got a single large hip forming that is ‘Ann Endt’ x “Temple Bells” as well that could add a fourth path to follow that will bring wichurana, rugosa, and foliolosa together along with the purple colour of ‘Ann Endt’ (from foliolosa).

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longicuspis even rolls eyes - must be the smoke here… we have a massive bushfire nearby that is cloaking everything in thick smoke… am feeling quite ill at the moment with a splitting headache…

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No… I won’t use ‘Route 66’… I’m going to use ‘Sweet Chariot’ instead…

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Simon, It’s amazing you have hips from ‘Anemone’.

Yes, mine has been a total failure here. I’ve never seen a hip and all attempts at hybridization have failed for me. It might be a good idea to consider embryo culture.

I grew ‘Temple Bells’ about 25 years ago. It’s a fascinating little rose. Sequoia had it at the time. I don’t remember that it repeated for me and one wouldn’t expect it to from the parentage, but HMF states that it does.

I also think ‘Sweet Chariot’ is the way to go.

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Simon I have a cross planned this Spring which is similar to your temple bells with the same objective in mind. I will put Midnight blue pollen on White Immensee which will probably have some pinks in the offspring also. Good luck on your crosses with Temple Bells.

Patrick

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Ralph explained to me years ago the Multibracteata seedling was a sister to Floradora which was never released.

Kim, did you mean a half-sister, there being no multibracteata in Floradora?

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RE ‘Cotton Candy’: I believe that the Floribunda seedling used to cross with R. multibracteata was the sister seedling to Floradora.

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Kim’s advice is spot on. In some climates, ‘Stars ‘N’ Stripes’ is a small climber, but not all climates. In my garden it does not exceed 24" tall. It is definitely upright, but not at all like other climbing minis. As Kim stated, the ‘Ferdinand Pichard’ in it is responsible for much of its upright, lanky habit, and it is the recurrence of the FP genes that tend to manifest as climbing (IE; tall, lanky, floppy) plants. Ralph’s suggestion of selecting more dwarf selfings from ‘Star ‘N’ Stripes’ is still applicable now, but it would be faster and easier to work with more restrained stripe parents like ‘Pinstripe’. (That would be my #1 choice for breeding stripes at this point)

There are, of course, several other compact, bushy striped roses in commerce now that might be perfectly good for breeding. The MacGredy plants might not be the best to work from, as many of them are tall and floppy. I am sowing a batch of OP seeds from ‘Hurdy Gurdy’ this year to see what traits come through. If they are all tall, floppy plants, I doubt I will employ it in breeding. It does, however, have the brightest, most contrasty/defined striping of any striped rose I have. We shall see.

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Simon,

For a purple striped climber, Tom Carruth’s ‘Purple Splash’ is an excellent one in the “pipeline”. The first time I saw it, I couldn’t believe it - the Spring bloom in the field was incredible. It had great contrasting pure white with dark purple stripes. One thing about purples though, and this is no exception, they tend to look more pink under certain cultural situations. This one in the greenhouse is definitely more pink and the same outside if pH or fertilizer is not correct.

I used to have both ‘Roller Coaster’ and ‘Hurdy Gurdy’. They have very similar parentage lines. Both produce hips, although I recall that ‘Roller Coaster’ gave me a better germination rate. I don’t recall whether you have ‘Midnight Blue’ out there? It seems to produce taller more vigorous seedlings than ‘Ebb Tide’, but used with either of the stripes, ‘Ebb Tide’ should produce some nice climbers.

Jim Sproul

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Jim, I noticed you have a nice lavender striped rose on your website from 2005, do you still have this one?



I believe Scentimental is a good striped rose to breed from.

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“This one (Purple Splash) in the greenhouse is definitely more pink and the same outside if pH or fertilizer is not correct.”

What fertilizer is best to bring out the purple in this one – what did you mean by the fertilizer not being “correct.” I am getting a Purple Splash bareroot later this month and your comment is intriguing.

Kathy

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Hurdy Gurdy at least bypasses Eyepaint. I have yet to see a Roller Coaster hybrid that doesn’t defoliate badly here.

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‘Hurdy Gurdy’ stays remarkably clean here with little or no spraying.

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So how is striping inherited exactly. I guess what I am trying to figure out is there is a lot of red and white striped roses and quite a few pink and red but not a lot of other striped colors. So how exactly is it passed especially if you wanted to get something other than red and white.

I am trying to use Rose Gilardi. For stripes. I almost picked up Pinstripes instead but decided to use this one because it also had genes for mossing. Having a lack of room it was a way of consolidating space. Especially since any interest in stripes is a curiosity and not a real goal, but I am very interested in moss roses.

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As with a lot of things here… we need to work with what we’ve got! ‘Twister’, ‘Pinstripe’, ‘Midnight Blue’… are all unavailable here unfortunately. I might be able to get ‘Rose Gilardi’ but so far have been unsuccessful. I had a feeling ‘Pinstripe’ WAS here… but again have been unsuccessful in my searches. I can get ‘Soaring Spirits’ of ‘Roller Coaster’ breeding and scentimental… but of the striped minis it took me 10 years to find ‘Stars n Stripes’. I have a yellow and pink striped poulsen’s mini but am not thinking of using it… it’s not exactly thrifty here. I think I can get ‘Hurdy Gurdy’ but haven’t seen it myself. I have a number of ‘Papageno’ x mini hips maturing now including ‘Papageno’ x “Temple Bells”.

Robert… I haven’t harvested the "Temple Bells’ x ‘Anemone’ hips yet as they aren’t yet mature. They are starting to colour up and have swollen… whether there are seeds in there I don’t know… and I guess it doesn’t mean much unless I can get them to germinate. As you suggested, I guess it makes them a good candidate for embryo culture :slight_smile: