Dee, Lambert Closse is an excellent seed parent in terms of seed germination rate. I would not recommend OP seeds from it. I grew up a few a couple of years ago. All the seedlings while winter hardy, were disease susceptible and the flowers were mis-shapened. I do have a rather nice looking seedling from a cross with LC and Hot Cocoa. It had some black spot, but pretty much everything up here this year, including Home Run, showed black spot. The flowers are quite nice, tends to hold onto the petal like HC, repeats quite quickly. Hope it has some decent winter hardiness in it.
Liz
Liz, Lambert Closse does mildew in my area. Being a tender Explorer, it almost calls to be crossed with something more superior 
I
Dee,
I donāt have experience with Rosa kordesii but L83 blooms over a period of several weeks. The important thing is that hybrids of the above two with modern roses repeat their bloom.
I think Dr. Svejda retired in 1987. I visited her in 1988 and believe she retired the year before. Dr. Ian Ogilvie replaced her and introduced a few Explorer Rosa kordesii cultivars. However, they were all from Dr. Svejdaās work.
Dr. Svejda is writing about her rose breeding work in current issues of the National Roses Canada publication. So if you want to learn more, I suggest you become a member of this organization. The best information of her work though comes from about 40 peer reviewed papers she published in scientific journals like Euphytica, HortScience and Canadian Journal of Plant Science. She wrote more papers on rose breeding than any other person has.
Dr. Campbell Davidson at Morden, Manitoba and Ms. Claude Richer at St. Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec together are developing the Canadian Artist series of roses.
āWulff hybrids,ā although I donāt think you meant it this way, is an incorrect term you use. Dr. H.D. Wulff was a botanist at the Botanical Institute of the University of Kiel, Germany. He declared Rosa kordesii as a āman made speciesā and therefore receives credit for naming this āspecies.ā However, I disagree. A species by definition cannot be man made. But Rosa kordesii, of course, is accepted as a species.
Diploids vs. Tetraploids? Rather than look at rose breeding in these terms, I would ask yourself what types of roses you enjoy the most. Then work with them regardless if they are diploids or tetraploids. You will have more success breeding roses with types you are highly motivated to work with.
Actually, there is no legitimate scientific acceptance of Rosa kordesii as a species. The fact of the matter is that it is not even acceptable as a term for a primary hybrid (a hybrid made between two species), considering that it is the hard-won tetraploid, open-pollinated offspring of a putative hybrid between two diploid species, rendering the name quite toothless. I do think that it is useful to have a word (unfortunately Latinized) describing its somewhat uniquely endowed descendants, loosely uniting them as a class of cultivated roses.
Horticulturists are scientists and rose researchers among them accept Rosa kordesii as a species. Therefore, scientifically Rosa kordesii is a species.
Does the lexical term really matter?
Forgive me if Iāve hit a sore spot, but I do hope thereās room here for a dissenting point of view. I do feel that names matter, and given the system of taxonomic conventions that have been more or less implicitly agreed upon by the scientific community, we should try our best to strive for excellence - even if it means scrutinizing some of our long-held assumptions from time to time. But maybe Iām wrong, and if so, I apologize.
No sore spot with me. I was mere just saying that as long as the genes are beneficial to the hybridizer then itās a very minor issue. Iād assume a botanist would disagree but Im not in that school of thought.
My school of thought is fine art, music, history, and philosophy.
Actually Paul, I
Talking about rugosas, wouldnāt Lac Majeau be a great parent for breeding since itās thornless? (And is hardy and sets hips too!)
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I know that there are major choices made by hybridizers re going for hardiness or bloom form or disease resistance.
Today out in the garden I saw something in the rose that I think is Autumn Damask (wasnāt bought as AD). Iāve seen the same characteristic in Aloha and I donāt think Iāve ever heard of anyone choosing either of these because of their petalsā having exceptional substance/ strength to carry the blooms well into fall. My garden is next to the Holston River and we have heavy morning fogs alternating with heavy frosts at this time of the year. Add some bloom filling rains. And so far this fall about seven days of night temps dropping into the mid 20s.
A lot of roses are still blooming, but many have petals that are far from perfect.
Autumn Damask (?) looks so good. The petals donāt look as if they were coated with frost for the past several mornings. Some of the blooms are holding water in between the petals. And the petals are still fragrant. Aloha unfurls well and with color complexity missing in warmer days.
So Iām cheering for roses that extend my bloom season with style and substance. A couple of additional months of bloom are a good thing. Full stop.
A rose that originated from a primary hybrid of R. rugosa and R. wichuraiana is NOT a species, by definition. If we are going to regard R. kordesii as a species, then the current definition of a species has to be re-written.
Regarding ploidy in roses: for the most part, far too much emphasis is placed on matching this plant with that plant to get gene counts ācorrectā. I donāt believe there is any one correct approach. I suggest you take a look at the article David Zlesak and I co-authored in which we counted the genes of a selection of roses bred from R. bracteata. It was discovered that although varieties of mixed gene counts were used in breeding, that the hybrids were highly fertile and the offspring, many of which have also proven to be highly fertile, are a mix of diploid, triploid and tetraploid. We focused on work done with āOut of Yesteryearā, a second generation R. bracteata hybrid. It is a highly fertile triploid, producing both seed and pollen that is widely accepted on most seed bearers. Most offspring are healthy, vigorous and uniquely beautiful. The seedlings, regardless of the ploidy of the other parent, are also a mix of diploids, triploids and tetraploids.
I would suggest to hybridizers that the ploidy issue is not nearly as serious a block in creating fertile hybrids as we once thought. I think that if we investigated more deeply, it would be found that many, many roses used in the past as breeders were fertile triploids. After all, it is known that modern Hybrid Teas evolved from crosses of Teas (diploid) and Hybrid Perpetuals (tetraploid) and yet the class advanced fairly easily and quickly into a uniformly tetraploid class.
Cross anything you like with anything else and donāt worry too much about matching gene counts. It all comes out in the wash.
Paul
From Rogers rosesā¦
āRecent research in Japan indicates that both summer and autumn damask roses originated with (R. moschata X R. gallica) X R. fedtschenkoanaā
Depending on what it is that you are after, there may be some benefits in looking at the origins of the rose you are wanting to emulate. Since someone reported that the damasks are difficult to use as parents, there may be an argument for reinventing the damaskā¦
I canāt speculate as to which original plant I might swap out and for what alternative parentā¦
The reasons for cold-hardiness are clear, but all (with a limited exception for R. f. from which the rebloom of the autumn damasks are considered to have arisen) are non-recurrent as well.
I canāt speak from any personal experience on any of these however.
Paul, what is the hardiness of Out of Yesteryear?
Link: www.rogersroses.com/gallery/Displayblock~suppid~10~bid~147.asp