Rouge Royale is one of the two I have. It basically grows blooms inside of it’s own reproductive areas lol. It’s sterile via mechanical mutation. Ive tried many times to get pollen from it =/ I think that using Rose Rhapsody would be an easier route. The other one that I own is Betty White, which seems rather tender for my zone.
If it is any help, theyre awesome garden plants 
Which is the yellow sport of Polka? I like Polka quite a bit.
Rob, check out:
Full Moon Rising (aka Madeline, a yellow sport of Polka)
I’m not really familiar with her, but photos look quite nice on HMF.
See link.
What I’ve often wondered about is, are we wrong to presume a sport (particularly one which reverts) exhibits different genotype (i.e., different potential as a parent) than its “parent” merely because we see a new phenotype in the sport??
Phillip,
Thank you for the link. I love Full Moon Rising…another one to put on my list.
I think I’m probably one of the few that doesn’t care for ‘Polka’. It’s extremely prickly, a rather floppy grower and the flowers blow quickly in my climate. It does has an interesting pedigree.
I keep cutting mine to the ground in hopes it will die.
I never liked it much because it’s weight is distributed unevenly. That’s a bad trait here in Oregon since mass growth + top heavy blooms = severely damaged plants. Well, that, and that Westerland is already nice and pretty much the same color range.
That seems to be my experience with Polka too Jadae. It seems to needs a lot of support. It might make a good pollen parent with something that could improve the growth habit.
Yeah. Oh btw, to switch from negative to positive, Times Past seems like a decent OGR-formed climber contender. It is City of London and Heritage. Penny Lane, Ginger Syllabub and Perpetually Yours also seem like decent canidates. I was impressed with Penny Lane at Heirlooms so I bought it. The majority of them are New Dawn descendants (shocking, I know =P ), so they seem worth a shot. I do know that they’re fairly flexible climbers like New Dawn is.
Add Nahema to my list of ideas. It is also a climber bred from Heritage.
Heritage mildews here but then so does Iceberg.
lol, Ive always hated Heritage. I have Geoff Hamilton, which doesnt have any of it’s parent’s faults. But it seems Hertiage is a decent breeder, lol.
Jadae, do you have any experience with Geoff Hamilton as a parent?
Heritage is awful here. It has fleeting moments of grandeur when the weather is just right. Some roses make good breeders despite their faults.
Geoff Hamilton balls bigtime here. Don’t know if it works as a parent.
I never really tried to use it. It grows like a floribunda here though, lol.
Which one in my lists would you work with, Robert? I got Penny Lane, but was thinking of adding another cause I think that good climbers are needed. I wish there was a decent white climber, but theyre all pretty bad.
I wish I could say I’ve been blown away with New Dawn descendants but in truth I haven’t been so far.
My experience with ‘Armada’ was a real mixed bag. On the up side it’s incredibly fertile but at least half of offspring were prone to mildew.
Interesting is the fact that Armada never showed any susceptibility to mildew here till a couple of seasons ago and last year it was pretty bad.
I have to imagine disease organisms are adapting.
Penny Lane looks about as good as any.
Regarding white climbers, I find ‘Lace Cascade’ intriguing.
If I had more time, space and energy I might explore it. I have no idea if it’s fertile.
Re: white climbers, I like White Dawn.
I never liked Lace Cascade because it looks more boring than Iceberg itself. Ive seen it in person. White roses need to be more 3D for me personally. But I guess it would be an okay parent.
I love White Dawn, especially the foliage, but it has 2 major issues. 1) If you let it, it would literally hug the ground and 2) the thorns hurt soooooo much. But I think it would be a good parent.
The reason I even interjected, though, is because of the topic-- climbers + OGR form, so White Dawn might be more capable of that. It’s a rather romantic concept…if one can get a climber that doesnt have blooms nodding out of sight on stems that want to flop everywhere.
There ya go, White Dawn x Lace Cascade. =)