Sounds an interesting cross Paul, I’d be interested to see the results. Would you keep us posted?
I’ll let you know how well they germinate and grow. I doubt that they will bloom in their first year.
Did anyone of you tried some more crosses with Wild Edric? I have the rose myself and would love to know if it’s worthwhile to use it in a breeding program. Just a beginner breeder myself, so I was wondering… anyone, any success?
Hi dgermeys, sorry I don’t have an answer to your question…but just wanted to revise a conjecture I made earlier in this thread (nearly four years ago). Back then I suggested the mystery Rugosa parent of ‘Wild Edric’ might be ‘Wasagaming’, even though it was not a Svejda introduction. My new armchair speculation is ‘Jens Munk’, which is a Svejda rose and a fertile seed parent.
Rugosa hybrids that have a China type as the other parent tend to be fairly sterile. If I were you I would try the pollen on your most fertile roses and see what happens. Even if you don’t get anything out of it, it looks like a beautiful rose just to have in your garden. Good hybrid Rugosa breeders include Fru Dagmar Hastrup, Wasagaming, Magnifica, Therese Bugnet, Jens Munk, Will Alderman,Rosa Zwerg, Ann Endt. Roseraie de l’Hay, Belle Poitevine, and Blanc Double de Coubert are also good, but not quite as fertile. Schneezwerg is fertile and will take ‘foreign’ pollen, but is also (for me) prone to blackspot. Martin Frobisher and its progeny Mrs Doreen Pike are among the prettiest, but M.F. is prone to blackspot and Mrs D.P. has been mostly or entirely sterile for me. Austin’s ‘Snowdon’ is a Rugosa-Noisette cross, I think, and may or may not be fertile–all I know is that the deer find the buds delicious. Good luck!
Resurrecting this line on wild edric to see if anyone has had any luck using pollen from Wild Edric. It doesn’t appear to be easy to use, but was wondering if useful in just the right match, or if it would be a waste of time and money. So, should I pursue other hybrid rugosas?
Duane
Thanks for resurrecting this line on Wild Edric mntlover …wow…time flies and from a breeding perspective with Wild Edric, success has still eluded me when dealing with this cultivar. Related to this post…I’ve had several seasons now to work with Wasagaming…this cultivar is much hardier than Wild Edric but the flower quality of Wild Edric is so much better. Like Wild Edric, Wasagaming is almost seed parent sterile but I was able to find one hip in a large abandoned patch growing along nearby railway tracks…that’s all…one OP hip in a large patch. So I used embryo culture on the seeds from that hip and got a surprising array of phenotypes…some of which are very fertile. Here is a photo of the most floriferous and fertile one…extremely hardy.
I wish I would find just one hip on Wild Edric someday.
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Doug,
Thanks for the response. Great bush from Wasagaming! Is it as hardy? If it is fertile, any success with it so far? Does it repeat? Fragrant? It makes me wonder if this could be done in other cases as well, patience and determination getting the one step to break through the almost sterile plant, but getting the genes in one seedling that is much easier to work with.
Have you had any success with Wasagaming as a pollen parent? Would you strongly recomment it in a cold hardy breeding program?
Duane (mntlover)
Mntlover - Wasagaming is fertile for me as a seed parent, although picky. Example - one year out of 77 crosses, 37 formed hips. Some crosses took sporadically (Therese Bugnet, Marie Bugnet), however spinosissima pollen was usually 100% successful (Prairie Peace, Suzanne). It does not repeat, but puts on a lovely one time show. Bloom form is very nice. Very fragrant & cane hardy for me. Suckers. Commercially available in Canada through Corn Hill nursery.
Another rose I can suggest is rugosa Snow Pavement (aka Schneekoppe). Fragrant, repeat/continuous blooming, cane hardy. Fertile, accepted almost all pollen types for me (except for Scarlet Pavement). Self sterile. Does not sucker for me so far. Appears to be a bit more readily available commercially.
Roselynn: thank you for sharing your experience wiht Wasagaming. Also, for the suggestion of Snow Pavement: it is a beautiful rose and looks like both pink and white have come from it.
Interesting to note the clove fragrance.
Duane (mntlover)
Thanks, Roselynn, for the suggestion of Snow Pavement. I have a number of interesting seedlings of Henry Hudson growing, but no longer have Henry Hudson itself to play around with. It didn’t seem to set hips super easily, and I haven’t seemed to be able to get one lately (haven’t tried too hard). I see that my wholesale supplier has some Snow Pavement so I might try that instead.
I once had a Wasagaming…it was gorgeous in bloom. I wonder what ploidy it is and if there is any chance of recovering repeat bloom in one generation. Might have to try that one again, too.
This seedling is hardy to the tips… Zone 2 USA… and is fertile but I haven’t worked with it yet as I was just waiting for it mature vegetatively. It has the wonderful rugosa fragrance without a repeat so far…but a faily extended bloom period…so far an aggressive compact shrub…doesn’t throw larger canes like Wasagaming.
I was going to not reccommend it as a seed/pollen parent until I read Roselynn’s post. The self infertility she describes would explain why I only found one hip in that abandoned large patch. That also suggests that the solitary hip had to be from another species/cultivar…now things get interesting. Wasagaming has a rugose leaf pattern but the seedling in the photo is departing somewhat from that…but it’s siblings planted in the same bed often have rugose-type leaves.
So this fall I had a similar circumstance happen to me with the George Bugnet rugosa/hybrid Reta Bugnet…a single hip again…was able to get about 20 seedlings growing under growlights this winter from that hip…again a range of vegetative characteristics…but now with Roselynn’s info, my pollen parent is conceiveably from the roses nearby. The roses nearby are my seedlings grown out from OP hips I collected about four years ago from a hardy Canadian-bred prairie rose collection established by Margit Schowalter et al. in Alberta.
There is no question in my mind that there would be a life time of work breeding with these rugosa/hybrid roses…but it’s such a slow process in our cold climate.
Here’s a photo of two roses in the far north that I consider special…in my front yard…Wild Edric (foreground) and Lillian Gibson (background)
Wild Edric & Lillian Gibson 2017.jpg
I got a number of big hips off Wasagaming x Campfire this year, but nothing is germinating yet. Some years Wasagaming produces zero hips, other years it’s quite willing.
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Beautiful pic! Thanks for sharing. It certainly seems worth the work.
Duane
Donald, if you get any juvenile bloomers from that cross please let us know!