I’ve been waiting for about five years for these to bloom.
Rosa rugosa x davidii and
Rosa davidii x virginiana
The first has opened quite a few blooms already. I don’t currently have a website but will try to get something set up soon. In the meantime I can e-mail anyone who really wants to see that one. And Karl King has graciously added to his website, a foliage picture of the second hybrid. I’ll include a link below. I think it only is going to have one bloom cluster (and it hasn’t opened yet) but the plant has built up fairly well now.
Sorry about the choppy post but I was too excited to just keep it to myself.
I don’t know much about R. davidii but after five years I think I would also be excited too. The one in the photo has beautiful foliage color. Does it also have fall foliage color.
I don’t remember it having especially nice fall color. I might just not have noticed because, as nice as the foliage looks in the picture it has had this weird twisty thing that it usually does later on, that I haven’t figured out a cause for. It may be some kind of insect damage. I’ll try to get a picture of that this year too.
Here are links to two pictures that Don Holeman has kindly posted for me, of the rugosa x davidii hybrid.
I don’t know much about davidii either, except that it’s supposed to be a tetraploid Asian species, and I think it (or a subtype) is not too far back in the ancestry of ‘Baby Love’.
It’s relatively healthy and happy here in Maryland and gets about shoulder high with medium to light green, foliage that is long oval with long drawn out tips. The flowers are not very large but are a purplish-pink.
I’ll try posting the photo-link for the rugosa x davidii hybrid in-line below.
The rugosa is just a no-name, plain, single, species type - almost the same color as the hybrid pictured above. My brother had brought it home as an extra from his landscaping job, when I still living at my parents home. All open-pollinated seedlings I’ve grown from it are nearly identical to it.
I think it’s the only rugosa I’ve ever used - for all my rugosa x species crosses. I had tried some named ones once upon a time, but they weren’t as fertile and cooperative as this one.
I wonder what the difference is between your pollen parent and the Rosa davidii, var. elongata in ‘Baby Love’? Also, I had thought that that same one was in ‘Pretty Lady’, but can’t confirm it.
Thanks Jim - and yes it’s been completely clean so far, but both parents are clean here also, so I guess it’s not too surprising.
I’ve been wondering that same thing about this davidii and the Rosa davidii var. elongata in ‘Baby Love’.
I did a Google search for images of Rosa davidii and haven’t found a picture yet that looks like the one I’ve got, except for some hip pictures. I’ll have to try to find the pictures I’ve taken, since my plant is not blooming this year - having just been moved last summer.
Thanks Paul. That was what it intuitively seemed like it would be since it was confined to the veins of the undersides and it had a corky sort of underlying appearance. I can’t think of where I’ve seen that before but some other kind of plant and some other insect had resulted in a corky response.
What had especially puzzled me was that I haven’t seen this on any of my other roses. Or at least I’ve never noticed. Now I’m going to have to pay better attention.
Adam had asked about the fall foliage of the davidii X virginiana, which hasn’t impressed me yet with its fall color, but the other davidii hybrid (rugosa X davidii) is in full glory here today and is a perfect example of the beautiful colors often displayed by many of the rugosa crosses (with other species).
