Has anyone used these roses in their breeding program with and are any of them worth getting?
Many years ago I grew Show Garden. It was low-growing (for a climber), only about 5 feet tall, and had huge prickles that made pruning hazardous. The buds are very small and tight, and that was a major reason it did not bloom well for me in Lubbock, TX. The flower was very pretty–when it opened, which was not often. Thrip damage usually kept the buds from opening in spring and summer. In the fall, when petal count was lower and thrips were less active, a few buds would open most of the way. I never saw a hip on the plant. HMF lists no descendants, and that is probably what to expect unless you make extraordinary efforts. You’ll probably get much better results with its parent, Queen o’ the Lakes.
I’ve not grown either of the others.
Lemon Meringue is a sport of a sport of Westerland, so you’d probably do about as well with Westerland, which is from Friedrich Worlein x Circus. Friedrich Worlein is a seedling of Clare Grammerstorf x Golden Masterpiece. If you are looking for yellow and disease resistance from Lemon Meringue, I’d suggest you go back to Clare Grammerstorf, but Westerland has a load of yellow in both sides of its ancestry, so it might be as good, at least for the yellow.
Tahitian Moon is from Aspen x a proprietary variety from which it probably gets its height and some disease tolerance. Aspen is probably triploid, but does have some offspring, mostly fairly low-growing. You might have to work pretty hard to pollinate Tahitian Moon.
Thanks Peter,
that’s good information I’ll have to think about what I’m going to do.
Hi Paul!
Tahitian Moon is triploid. The plants at UMore Park haven’t set op hips and were routinely knocked back hard from winter and took a long time to regrow.
Thanks David,
I’ll probably pass on TM then. I’ have enough roses that perform the same way already.
Id go with Autumn Sunset.
Peter, I gather then that Clare Grammerstorf has proven her mettle for you? (And am I correct in recalling she is tetraploid?)
Philip, Clare Grammerstorf has proved her mettle to quite a number of hybridizers. HMF says
1,002 unique descendant(s) for this plant
That number includes 9 generations, with 11 in the first generation–11 which have proved to pass on some good traits. If you need further evidence, look at these names:
Arthur Bell (Floribunda, McGredy, 1965)
Banbridge
Bobrava/Bobravka
Chinatown
Friedrich Woerlein (Friedrich Wörlein (Floribunda, Kordes, 1963))
Honeymoon (floribunda, Kordes, 1960)
Illumination
Jan Spek ®
Lichtkönigin Lucia (Large Flowered Climber, Kordes, 1966)
Marie Elizabeth
Ulrike (Floribunda, Schmadlak, 1973)
At least 5 of these are also known as good parents. Probably Paul could do a lot worse. And if he can’t find Clare Grammerstorf, one of its really good offspring might do almost as well. I don’t know that it’s tetraploid, but it seems to have no trouble making seeds, either as female or as male. There are probably some reproductive irregularities resulting from its eglanteria ancestry, but it works fine anyway.
Peter
Yes, I am aware of how strongly she figures into so many predominant pedigrees, and I have tried to seek her out for years for that reason. I had to settle for Lichtkoenigen Lucia and Chinatown since CG wasn’t available for a long time. But typically, when I use the same logic in seeking out an older rose, others on the forum suggest that there are newer, better improvements on the original, and going back in time is counter-productive. http://www.rosebreeders.org/forum/read.php?2,48049,48049#msg-48049 I figure, however, with CG, there is a little more species in her than most of her progeny, and she might have more to offer.
But then why did she fade into obscurity when so many older roses have stuck around so persistently? I can’t think of any offspring from her since the 70’s or thereabouts…
I was wondering if you had grown and bred with her yourself.
Thanks
The latest member comment about Clare G. on HMF mentions black spot issues with it. Perhaps its offspring had proven more resistant?
I’d much rather go to Bright Smile and outcross it to super hardy, resistant cultivars. It has a proven track record for promoting neon gold tones, petal substance, and chlorophyl. Also, it is dwarf, which is +++ when hybridizing with once-blooming giants.
About blackspot issues with Clare Grammerstorf and other roses:
At this time 16 or more races of blackspot have been characterized. Some roses have “vertical” resistance to one or two of these races of blackspot but get blackspot when exposed to other races. You can find a lot of reading material on this forum about these races of blackspot, and about vertical and horizontal resistance. Like almost every rose, Clare Grammerstorf gets blackspot when it’s exposed to the right race or races of blackspot.
Some of you have grown roses that are very susceptible to blackspot where you live. You have seen spots spreading out within the leaf until they touch each other or even overlap. In worst-case scenarios, maybe you’ve seen leaves that have almost nothing but black–and a small spot of yellow in one place. Some of the old Pernetianas were like this.
Location is important, and so is air pollution. Some roses (even some of those sickly Pernetianas) that get no blackspot or powdery mildew when grown in very polluted cities become really sickly when they are forced to live in clean air and their leaves are not bathed daily in airborne chemicals that prevent fungal spores from germinating.
Did you ever read about some rose that is “bullet-proof” and realize that whoever wrote that evaluation is talking about your worst offender, the one you consider the indicator for blackspot in your garden, or maybe the one you think brings it to your garden and serves as a distribution point to make all your roses get spots? Is the other person crazy or stupid or dishonest? Probably not.
Development of blackspot is affected by the fungal ecology where roses grow. Blackspot and other fungi are controlled to a greater or lesser extent by the endophytic fungi in a garden or an area. If the antagonistic fungi are present, blackspot does not prosper. It may seem that one or more roses there–or all roses there–have excellent resistance to blackspot, but maybe they’re just lucky to have such good friends inhabiting their leaves and inhibiting the fungi.
Does Clare Grammerstorf get blackspot? Surely, in some gardens. Does Knock Out get blackspot? Surely, in some gardens. I have seen blackspot on Clare Grammerstorf. The spots were large but not overlapping, and had sharp edges (no fuzzy black trails into the rest of the leaf). The leaves were unsightly, but they were not dropping, and they were continuing to do what leaves do. I have also seen blackspot on Knock Out. The spotted leaves were unsightly, but they were mostly in the lower third of the plant, and they were not dropping, so they were continuing to do what leaves do.
Is Clare Grammerstorf worth using? Have its good qualities been mined out? Should we abandon it because there are newer offspring with more desirable growth habits? My guess is that in most instances whatever disease resistance the eglanteria heredity brings to Clare Grammerstorf is diluted in successive generations. Given the complex heritage of most roses, most of us could use them for all our lives and never exhaust the various combinations and recombinations that will produce good roses. Mme Caroline Testout is still a good parent, as Warren has shown–and as I saw in my own seedlings from it several years ago. It’s a tall and wiry thing where I live, and the petals are fairly thin, but they are wide, and wide petals help make good flowers.
So, Philip, I think it’s worth using if/when you get it. With any luck it will become more widely available in the US. I don’t think it’s a magical rose, but it has produced good offspring. Don’t ask me–ask Kordes, McGredy, and others. Observe it carefully, find good mates for it, and see what children it produces.
Peter
Thanks, Peter. I have a tendency to look back at records to see what has worked historically. I have coveted CG for some time – not due to any firsthand knowledge, but due to her history and influence. The fact that she isn’t such a popular rose in and of herself seems to add to my feelings that she has much merit as a breeder. Often, if a very popular rose has many offspring on the market, I assume it is merely because every hybridizer has worked with her. When a less popular rose figures very heavily into many great roses, I figure it is more due to her merits as a parent.
I wonder how much we miss in looking too heavily at phenotype and not considering the non-expressed genotype in a potential parent. I would think the eglantine in CG could offer something, though I have no firsthand knowledge of the species.
It is funny how some rosarians claim disease-prone roses to be bullet-proof, and some of my best are rust or mildew prone in other regions. Banksia is my only bullet-proof rose, and I understand she can mildew in some settings.
Not unusual at all. Everyone’s climate and conditions are different. Lyn G. had a Sweet Chariot tree rose when she lived near San Diego. It mildewed terribly in her back yard, but was free of it in the front. In the next valley north, Queen Elizabeth is bullet proof. Not here, rust gets her, worse in some places than others. I have a friend who lives eight miles east of me. We’re at the same elevation and about the same distance south of the southern main street in The Valley. He’s in the Sepulveda Pass where the marine influence hits constantly, so he’s much wetter, with much more fog and easily ten degrees on average cooler daytime. The same rose reacts completely differently between his house and mine. He can root roses year round on his patio, without cover, and misting them once daily. I can’t. My hill is very hot and dry in comparison. His area has saw fly and Giant White Fly, mine doesn’t. We’re in the same climate zone, though. I’ve noticed tremendous differences in how roses perform and behave between two blocks from the ocean, here in the first valley north of the ocean and the next valley north. The further inland you go, the fewer disease and insect issues you encounter. At least here, those areas should have pretty similar strains of black spot. Other states probably don’t. Why shouldn’t something great for me, be completely different in Texas, Maryland or Maine?
Banksiae mildews here…in one place. The two Purezza, one Vina Banks, one Lutescens, one double white are all free from mildew. The Lutea in front mildews year round and has flowers on it in several bursts each year. It begins earlier, flowers later and scatters flowers off and on. The difference? It caps a very dense stand of Golden Bamboo and has to compete with it for ground water. It is bathed in the transpired moisture from the bamboo all the time. It receives much reflected heat and light off the brilliant white, latex covered, Styrofoam roof, though the roots are kept cool by the bamboo. It “repeats” and grows more rampantly than the others, but it’s also chronically mildewed. It’s the first mildewy Banksiae I’ve encountered and it’s all due to the conditions in which it grows. The others have little to no root competition for water and none of them have the massive humidity issue because of tremendous bamboo foliage mass.
If the same rose can appear and perform completely different in just a few miles, why shouldn’t it be so a thousand (and more) miles away?
When someone tells me that a rose has been healthy for them, I’m more willing to give it a try. And conversely if someone says that a rose hasn’t been healthy I’m more reluctant to try it, knowing full well that my environmental conditions probably are very different than theirs. I think this is just human nature. I have roses (a few) that are healthy here that others have tossed out because of their lack of disease resistance. And by the same token I have roses that just don’t do well here that others swear by. This fall, I finally culled my last two Moore roses: Topaz Jewell and Moore’s Striped Rugosa. Hybrid Rugosas usually do very well here, but not these two.
I looked into Brite Smile and one comment was: “I am a fan of this yellow semi-single sold by Hortico (have never seen it elsewhere). Hardy, floriferous and bullet proof – surprised it is not more widely grown. More hardy, more bug proof and more disease resistant than Carefree Sunshine in my zone 5 Ontario gardenâ€.
While Carefree Sunshine could use more hardiness, it usually is one of the cleanest roses in my garden. So here is another example of how a rose is clean for me while it’s not for someone else. But I’ve had little luck using CS either as a seed parent or as pollen parent and Brite Smile has lots of offspring so I’m actually interested in getting it. So thanks for the tip Michael.
The reason I was looking at climbers is because they are more vigorous and tend to do better in my climate than shrubs or floribundas do. Where as I prefer the growth pattern of shrubs and floribundas better, quite few don’t do that well here.
I have had Clare Grammerstorf since 2007, where I got it from Germany, and I have seen black spot on it many times. One year in autumn it even lost all its leaflets. It is though an excellent seed and pollen parent. I have used it with some ok results, but not seen any new Chinatown yet. The offspring’s also got some black spot, and some of them also the very light green leaflets, which is typical for Clare. It can look a bit odd with these very light green leaflets, and perhaps is one of reasons it haven’t been popular/available for a long time.
Only one of the seedlings seems to be solid and nearly clean so far. I will continue using Clare every year, and perhaps one day the winner will show up.
You can see some of my Clare seedlings via the link Clare Grammerstorf seedlings
Bo Valeur
Denmark
Bo, The photo of SdDJaman X CG2008 is looking good. Did it or has it got potential, I like the look of it. Don’t suppose it would have fragrance.
Hi David
The SdDJamanXCG is from 2008 and it took 4 years to grow big enough to show its real flowers. I have many times been close to dig it up, but didn’t as I wanted to see the flowers.
As far as I remenber it had some fragrance. Most of the seedlings from Clare actually had a good fragrance, so its another bonus.
I have added another picture of it in full bloom. I hope it had managed the hard winter here. Still down to -8 degrees in the nights.
Bo