Unfortunately, I lost my original garden last year as a result of family tragedies (two deaths and four moves). Thus, I have pretty much started from scratch starting this past May. I currently have four roses growing:
Koko Loco
The Magician
jbergeson’s 1173 (Yellow Brick Road x (Lemon Fizz x R. Carolina)) - the plant is a beast, it survived sitting in a garage for 6 months with nearly no water
A rose that is either Hot Cocoa or Neptune (unlabeled, has not bloomed yet)
I am looking for advice in what additional roses to purchase. I am interested in both species (particularly xanthina and the Southern American roses such as carolina and virginiana) work, hulthemia blotches, and OGRs, but don’t have experience with any of these options. Orangeade, as I mentioned in another topic, has also caught my eye. Basically, I’m just looking for suggestions as to interesting directions that haven’t been heavily pursued.
I’m sorry for your losses. I well understand your condition, having lost my garden space of over 18 years with a massive collection on it. Thankfully, it gets better! I think it would be helpful if you mentioned where you live. Suggestions of frost tender roses if you’re going to attempt breeding with them where Arctic hardiness is required would be useless for you.
I’m sorry to hear about your losses and the turmoil that ensued. Your story reminds me of my life in 2008. Nobody died but sometimes you have to cut ties with people you love and it eats you up inside for a long time afterward.
Your most important rose right now is that 1173 hybrid. How did you attain it and what does it look like? Does it set seed? I did a quick search of the others on your list and this is the spread I got-
The Magician- no registered decendents
Koko Loko One seed child Queen of Elegance, One Pollen offspring by Peter Ping Lim
Neptune- very seed fertile, evidence of pollen fertility all the offspring are full and beautiful blossoms
Hot Cocoa- very pollen fertile, not a seed setter gives beautiful unusual warm dark magenta coloration
very well. Paul Barden went on a tear with its pollen and got these and more:
If you can capture a Dr. Huey rootstock or find a feral multiflora where you are I will send you cuttings of orangeade or whatever else you want to try that has reached an appropriate size. I will slip them into a ziplock and I have insulated mail packets ready to go. Orangeade, Florange- whatever you want. I was thinking that Knockouts flood the market and there is always a big get rid of them all sale at the end of the growing season at the big box stores. They would probably make good rootstock. I am gonna try it myself.
Regarding 1173, I obtained it from another member of this forum in late 2021 (jbergeson). It is golden yellow and has upright growth. Photos of it can be seen on this post:
It sets hips readily, although I have yet to experiment with it given the circumstances. I would love to try and combine it with The Magician (which is phototropic) or perhaps rosa xanthina, in pursuit of healthy yellows.
Regarding rootstock, I am clueless as to how those even work (I’ve only ever grown own root, and have successfully grown only one cutting). Since I live in a suburb, there aren’t any feral multiflora in my immediate vicinity (although there are many in my part of the country). Basically I’m saying that I can’t do anything with rootstock since I don’t know the slightest about grafting (or much of rose care in general, as I’m only 21 at this point).
That rose is nice to have, a fine color, and a good seed setter apparently.
I don’t want to overwhelm you but rose budding is supposed to be fairly straightforward.
It either happens for you because you used very clean and sharp tools or it fails because of a variety of factors.
It really is just as simple as clipping a nice thick stem off of the rootstock plant then-
making a clean cut vertically into the stump and then-
shoving a freshly trimmed “wedged end” clipping of the desired rose (scion) into the rootstock.
wrap in plastic and leave for a few weeks.
Your scion rose should have a healthy bud or two up top. It takes or it does not.
I know the fear of failure can be an ego hit but there is power in numbers.
Rooting cuttings is not a great numbers game either. Most of them fail in my experience. I am working to gain a knack for this but it still means waiting awhile for the rooted band to take off , whereas a vigorous rootstock enslaved to the “scion” will pump it full of nutrients and water and cause rapid growth it could never achieve on its own roots.
Just learning the traits of the species and trying to remember their ridiculous names is tricky. PM your email and I will send a document Roseus sent me with a list of all the species categorized into their “section” if you want to reference it in the future.
You know you want to have Xanthina-a member of the Pimpenofollia “section” of the Rose family tree. This rose has beautiful bark and yellow flowers and is available from High Country roses sometimes.
Remember that roses from the same section and even hybrids from roses of the same section are MORE LIKELY to mate and produce offspring that survive. This means that the lineage of your 1172 with a R. Carolina heritage is not a likely match to break the incompatibility of Xanthina with modern hybrid roses. That is because Carolina is a rose from another section. Hybrid teas and moderns can all mate with each other fairly successfully because they are all at least part china, with hybrid perpetuals/OGR thrown in there somewhere in their heritage. Modern roses all recognize each others reproductive junk because they are all at least somewhat similar in their Chinensis and Gallica/Damask (OGR) heritage. Xanthina is too foreign to these roses and these roses are too foreign to the Xanthina. In the wild, Xanthina is looking for roses more like itself to accept pollen from, and also it has evolved pollen grains the right size and shape to fertilize the receptacles of roses that grow around it.
Xanthina will require the use of a “fertile triploid” a MUTANT rose that is fertile and very willing to mate. We do not know why these roses are able to break reproductive barriers.
Kim Rupert identified these well known regular everyday roses as secretly MUTANT triploid roses-
APRIL MOON by BUCK (Rose Petals Nursery has this)
GOLDEN ANGEL by MOORE (Burlington nursery has this)
BLUE FOR YOU
TORCH OF LIBERTY by MOORE (High Country has this)
For complicated reasons the most exciting results may come about when you use the pollen of these roses to fertilize the flowers of the Xanthina. But you should try the reverse as well.
He was able to break the Hugonis -another member of the Pimpy “section” of the rose family tree (same as Xanthina) using a gifted rose from Jim Sproul that he suspected was a MUTANT triploid.
If you are starting anew a good actionable step is to select the fertile triploid mutant rose you want to attempt to mate to the Xanthina. Once you have a surviving hybrid it should recognize the reproductive junk of the other roses in your collection.
Not quite, the first rose to successfully cross with R. Minutifolia and produce fertile offspring which actually LIVED was Jim Sproul’s L56-1. Lynnie (also triploid) has successfully mated with it, but I prefer the L56-1 line.
Kim, any ideas on finding a source for Blue for You? There don’t seem to currently be any available in the US anywhere - I’ve kept my eye on the market for a few months and nothing has really come up.
Oh yes that’s right- the Hugonis was “broken” by a tetraploid miniature hybrid thus debunking this whole triploid issue. However, your wild desert rose was “broken” by the Sproul triploid.
Only Burling and Angel Garden’s Pam have Lynnie at this point. By request only and be prepared to wait awhile. They are both great options.
I am familiar with the concept of fertile triploids and the various sections of the Rosa genus, so I’ve cast my eyes particularly towards Orangeade and Blue for You. April Moon looks promising as well, as I’m more partial to full-sized roses as opposed to minis.
April Moon is a full sized shrub and quite a nice rose. It picked up quite a bit of the crested sepals from MORcrest to produce April Mooncrest. 'April Mooncrest' Rose
Pretty Lady (Scrivens) is also a very willing fertile triploid full size floribunda. It’s successfully crossed with both Hugonis (not my hybrid, but Hugonis) and Fedtschenkoana.
I have no source for Blue for you either. Heirloom will have it back in stock at some point but their plants do not make it for me here with enough reliability.
I am sorry for your losses. I “liked” your post, because I admire your drive to start over again. As a newbie I can’t be of much help in selecting good varieties for hybridizing, but I wish you all the best in your new garden!
Out of curiosity, has there ever been a curated list made of fertile triploids? Are all triploids with known descendants good candidates for breaking into other species? While I’m familiar with the usefulness of known ‘good parents’ like Orangeade, is it worth it to try other triploids that are known to not be sterile?
I can at least add to the list of suspected “fertile” triploids.
Cornelia the hybrid musk is triploid and has descendents.
Double Knock-Out red is triploid and successfully reproduces.
Dee-Lish is a stunning rose with a delicious sweet citrus-based fragrance that everyone can smell-it is also triploid and has been the mother of Crawfish Etoufee from Antique Rose Emporium a successful offspring. It can’t be infertile then and is listed as triploid.
If you have a Premium membership to Help Me Find, you can use the Advanced Search to find roses by their ploidy, then research their offspring to determine if they are fertile, or at least have been reported to be fertile. It’s quite possible many simply haven’t been explored. You can even limit the search results to finding those triploids of specific classes, so if you want triploid minis, simply search those terms. I just searched “Buck” and “triploid” and it listed: April Moon, Barn Dance, Pearlie Mae, Polonaise, Prairie Harvest, Princess Verona, Quietness.
Sounds good - I’ve had a premium membership for several years now, but I just wanted to check and see if there were any triploids that were particularly noteworthy besides those aforementioned.
Bonica is a fertile triploid. You will not be disappointed. Goes well both ways.
I’ve used New Dawn also, but she does not give many offspring used as a mother. Better as pollen parent if you choose your seed parent well.
