Is it possible to breed a rose having petals that are white or yellow with a red reverse? There are plenty of roses that have red shading on the reverse but I’m wondering has there ever been one that’s solid white or solid yellow on top and solid red underneath like, say, Austrian Copper or Love inside-out.
HMF comes up with a handful that turn out to be blends, and descriptions of some older roses said that they fit that bill but actually don’t.
Where would you even start?
I think a reverse bicolor is possible in yellow, white or mauve. I am just not sure as to how successful it can be because of A. the difficulty/rarity and B. there seems to be a relation between the face and the reverse in reverse bicolors.
For those not familiar with the term, examples of reverse bicolors are roses like Duet or Belle Epoque. The majority of the known, obvious ones are apricot/red and pink/red. There may be many reds that are technically reverse bicolors but we cannot actually see it in action. The majority of these types of roses seem to have a relation to the invention of the orange-red modern rose.
Rudolph Timm was reportedly white with a red reverse. The one time I actually saw one, it was white with a “reddish” reverse. More like the water staining Iceberg develops in cold, wet.
I’d imagine reversing the red/yellow combination would come with some pretty fouled up foliage and plants. My thoughts are the brilliant yellow of Foetida bicolor begins to attract pollinators and other insects as many are attracted by yellow tones. Don’t believe it? Wear a yellow shirt out in the garden on a spring day! The saturated red/orange of the petal faces reflect a lot of light in brilliant sun like a beacon signal so the pollinators can zero in on their target. Reverse them and what other strange signals will the plant carry?
lol my sister had brilliant, natural dark red hair that radiated in the summer sun. I can still see her fleeing from the bees while cussing as I sat there by the roses, unbothered, lol. I am sure hair and petal colors translate differently to insects, but I still find it hilarious.
Pretty Lady is a reverse bicolor btw. Its color is mutable based on weather but it is generally vanilla cream with a pearl pink reverse. The reverse is always darker unless the sun is bright enough to lighten the blooms wholly. That is why I attempted it with Sevilliana, along with various handpainted, purples and other reverse bicolors. I wanted to see if the traits were linked in stippling. They did not appear to be. In fact, it was … American Honor (out of like 20 other pollen donors) that led to stippling. American Honor is a phototropic blend. Not even the likes of Neon Cowboy or Space Oddessy helped. I also tried Burgundy Iceberg, which acted as if it was Iceberg. Stippling seems aided by what aided handpainting with McGredy – bicolors and blends which are contrasting, and a crap ton of peonin. I had wrongly assumed it was cyanin aiding the stippling. Silly me. I am sure there is even more to the story, which I really do not have the patience to try again for. The funny part of this story is that it was Sevilliana x Pretty Lady that I kept because of its extreme health, super strong sweet scent and graceful beauty. It’s white tinged baby pink =/ No stipples, lol.
The lesson: colors are hard to initially predict but one cannot know until they have the guts to try.
Which reminds me, someone should seriously breed a neon yellow and red landscape shrub rose and market it to McDonalds for patenting as 'Ketchup and Mustard Forever. I n oticeed someone once marketed and patented a red/white rose called Target 
Oi vey! It was bred from Prominent, which should have been named ‘Can’t Touch This’
I always imagined that Rudolf Timm was like a gross bloom version of Double Delight, where the red “appeared” to be on the reverse when the blooms were new.
I had an Indian Love Call X Sevilliana cross years ago which was stippled. Oddly, none of the Lynnie X Sevilliana seedlings show any, but one Lynnie X Sunny Today shows lighter spotting.
Its weird isnt it?
Sevilianna was pretty much a floribunda for me. How big is it in California? And how does it behave culturally?
It has stayed three and a half feet or so most years. As with many of his roses, it is a floribunda, no matter what it’s classified. I just treated them all like everything else, unless they rusted as badly as Wandrin Wind or mildewed like Serendipity. I LOVED Gentle Persuasion, Prairie Harvest and Prairie Star. No matter how good or how bad the plants, I really enjoyed all the stippled ones.
I think this should be possible; R. arkansana has a much darker (though still pink) reverse than obverse, that might be a good place to start.
Stippling seems aided by what aided handpainting with McGredy
Peter Harris told me that McGredy’s stippling trait no doubt came from Kordes Fr
How beautiful!
It’d be interesting to test the chemical values for all species that stipple.
The reason I used Purple Heart was becase it stipples when it becomes hot or when autumn hits. It will become hot violet pink with purple veins and stipples. It looks cool, lol. I wanted to know if there was a relationship of any sort with stippling.
Yeah, most Buck types are floribunda-ish. Some are more like twiggy HT’s for me, like Hawkeye Belle. The main difference is that they tend to branch better, have more vigor and/or not have standard cluster types. Double Red Knock Out is the cleanest “floribunda” around, haha.