I’m thinking I need to incorporate a yellow English rose into my breeding stock, and of course, I want it all…Repeat bloom, nice flower form, and good fertility.
I would hope someone among us has experience with a few and would like to comment on how well one might transmit the yellow color and other desireable characteristics to its seedlings. Preferrably I would like one that is both a good seed and pollen parent.
I am really quite taken with “The Pilgrim” and “Happy Child” and “Charlotte” by David Austin.
I have several good seedlings of Rugelda that I would like to breed with this prospective rose.
I have attempted to use the Pilgrim this year as well as the past several years and have never had any hips set. The pollen is scarse as well. I suspect The Pilgrim may not be a viable parent.
This past season was the first year I pollinated Charlotte and most everything took and I have quite a few hips that I am expecting to havest shortly. So far so good but the jury is still out.
I had two plants of Happy Child and neither survived winter, that was the end of that story.
In the past I have used both Golden Celebration and Graham Thomas. Both are good as either pollen or seed parents however I tend to prefer Golden Celebration since I get better seed set and for me the flowers tend to be more double than the Graham Thomas offspring. Of all the flowers I got none were really the shade of yellow I was looking for. From Graham Thomas many were a pale yellow or cream shade. Also winter hardiness is a goal and Graham Thomas barely survives and its offspring have generally been lacking hardiness.
Another Austin you might consider is Abraham Darby. It’s good either way and I find it tends to give yellows, apricots, pinks and everything in between in the process.
Golden Celebration is an easy hip setter. This is my first attempt with GC, so I can’t say anything about ease of germination or about the offspring. So far I haven’t been successful getting Jude the Obscure to hold on to it’s hips.
So, Judith, did you ever get sprouts from your Golden Celebration seeds?
I finally bought it this week and have it in the ground waiting for next spring to try hybridizing with. It sure was expensive compared to most of the other roses they had.($17.95)
I hope I can get some nice roses with it from Rugelda and her children, as well as other roses I have in mind.
I hadn’t exactly planned on pollinating Jude the Obscure, but once the first flowers of my pot grown plant opened last week I couldn’t resist. The fragrance was wonderful, almost intoxicating. I tried to discern the notes of “guava and other exotic fruit” according to Austin, but my partner put it simply: it’s like the lemon essence we’ve used for baking.
Purple fading to lilac. The flowers are large, HT-sized, but it is semi-double. The foliage is nice. It’s a weird rose =P I stuck it on Distant Drums, and it looks like it took. I didnt know what else to stick it on =/
It’s a WONDERFUL rose, but because it has so much petals… it’s not hip fertile, and while it has pollen… not a lot.
I’m raising a seedling right now, the only visible result from the Pilgrim, and it’s not that great… The hip parent was Pacific Serenade. It took 12 blooms too collect enough pollen for 2 flowers. And I didn’t even see the pollen grains… they’re invisible to the naked eye.
This seedling is completly thornless, but the foilage is horrible. It didn’t inherit the rosette form (or the fragrance for that matter, well… not to a big degree.) But, these things happen. I have a seedling of Prospero X Goldmoss and it has no fragrance, no moss, and no old garden bloom form. (Although, it does hold on its petals horribly and becomes spotted like Goldmoss.) I had thought this seedling was a self… but then one day I took a bloom and wilted it in my hand with a hankerchief. When I smelled the wilted bloom, I detected a small hint of the myhrr scent, thus making me believe that this is indeed a seedling of The Pilgrim.
The yellow is as pure as Pacific Serenade…
I hope to cross this seedling with my Prospero seedling next year… Perhaps genes will recombine and bring back some of scent and old garden bloom form. (Not likely… but I can hope.)
DA’s Pat Austin is a good seed parent - not a yellow really, more coppery orange than yellow, but really good seed parent. I got about 15 OP hips of mine this year and am getting sprouts from it now - will see how many, if any, throw yellows. It’s a healthy plant, repeat flowers quickly, cluster flowered, not a real strong scent (that I can detect) but I can forgive that short coming.
I’m sorry to hear that. Don’t have it, but I fell in love with Traviata which seemed very healthy in a public garden, and someone had recommended “Rouge Royale” for deep reds.
Of the yellows I had asked about, the yellow sport of Polka, in particular, intrigues me…
