It only took one Minnesota winter to get me hooked on breeding hardy roses. For northern gardeners, winter survival has to be the bottom line. (Of course fragrance, health, and rebloom etc. all have their place as well.)
How do your conditions affect your goals? Are you breeding for especially dry or wet conditions? Windy, salty coastal climate? Extreme heat and humidity? Are you trying to breed roses that are resistant to your local pest/disease plagues? Did you start breeding roses and then move to a different climate, and change your goals accordingly? What are your breeding strategies to meet these challenges?
Enquiring minds want to know!
Zone 3 here … that pretty much sums it up! Hardiness is of course my main objective, though disease resistance is always of prime importance to all rose breeders. I want to create a range of colors and forms that compares favorably to tender floribundas and hybrid teas, though laughing at whatever my winters can throw at them. This rose has given me very much good encouragement.
Terry 
OK, Terry, you can’t just leave us hanging on this one! It’s beautiful, even the foliage and bud form. What is it? From what did you raise it? Talk about inquiring minds! Kim
Zone 8 here - but with the warm days and cool nights, mildew can and does rampant. Always on the alert for it, thus one of our main breeding objectives has been for disease resistance. We usually don’t keep anything that shows mildew early in its seedling life. Will use some of Mitchie’s seedlings for crosses this season that are some of the most mildew resistant she has had since she started hybridizing back in the early 90’s.
Probably the #1 thing, other than blackspot, that I really try to avoid is die back.
Living in Minnesota as well, winter hardiness is the primary goal. But the more roses I grow, the more the need for better disease resistance has become apparent, so that has become just as high of a priority. Constant bloom is a goal as well, a plant that puts out only two flushes a year just doesn’t cut it. Another goal is for different color combinations, like bicolor, stippled and striped roses, anything other than boring pink.
I agree with Kim, Terry you can
Terrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy! Fess up. It is a beauty!
Jim
Terry, your rose is gorgeous! Please tell us more. How have you gone about breeding for health and hardiness–and beauty? Are there any particular rose families or species you are working with?
I’ve recently benefited much from visiting local public gardens. Going around UMore Park last summer with David Zlesak was an education in itself. And this fall I went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum twice. Their shrub rose garden was great for seeing the flowers, hips and growth habits of many shrub roses and species. The gardeners were at work clearing suckers from around the species, and they gave me some! I’m looking forward to using these (R. acicularis, R. amblyotis, R. laxa) in the future.
And of course, I love my Rugosas.
Jadae, how do you breed against dieback (and blackspot)?
John and Mitchie, any tips for the rest of us that want to breed for mildew resistance?
Beautiful flower and plant. Looks a little like easy going.
Patrick
Sorry, I meant easy does it. Too many easys going around.
Patrick
Terry,
This is gorgeous! And it survives in zone 3? Wow.
Die back presents itself yearly here. It is easy to select against in even choices of parents. A prime example would be Brandy or Saint Patrick (or most tea roses, LOL).
Blackspot, obviously, has its own complex story. I can select againt local strains but I have to rely on virtual communication to try to avoid parental choices that are globally prone.
Betsy,
Breeding for disease resistance is tuff, but what we do is to look for parents that exhibit those characteristics. A good source to look is a public garden where there is no spraying at all. Those that do not show mildew offer some potential. I used to go by a rose garden near the state capitol in Olympia and could spot those bushes from a distance that were fairly clean. The parentage of the ones I am referring to are Ping Lim’s ‘Love & Peace’ and ‘Blue Peter’. This cross gave Mitchie some of the best she has ever had. We will definately use these this season.
“How do your conditions affect your goals?”
To the extreme!
As I am living in a zone where OGRs like i.e. teas, chinas and giganteas thrive. Just as most modern if out of oasis condition (dry and airy environment) more or less dwindle.
And as first finding was that in my conditions combining moderns with said OGRs is a poor option. These genes were early incorporated. No longer working out of original genetical environment.
I am breeding for very high species desease tolerance. Higher than Knock Out or Baby Love that fail here.
Until now, the major fungi haven’t been that much of an issue due to climate. There would be short periods when they would raise their heads, but usually they’d end as quickly as they’d start. Now, there is humidity much of the year and I’ve had to revamp what I am using to incorporate better disease tolerance/resistance in the mix.
Initially, I had to use what Fedtschenkoana would cooperate with. Basye’s Legacy would cross with anything, but not all the crosses were repeat flowering and even fewer were thornless or nearly so. That limited what I continued with also.
Now, my plan of attack is to create some breeders with (hopefully) improved garden disease resistance using Buck’s Maytime and selected minis such as Cal Poly, Cinderella, Pink Petticoat, Apricot Twist, Blue Mist, Popcorn and Rabble Rouser. Maytime has some of the best mildew resistance around. Dr. Lammerts proclaimed it “immune” to powdery mildew. The minis are the consensus of polling I did to determine which ones had superior black spot resistance.
Legacy is nearly immune to disease in both climates I’ve grown it in. I’ve yet to observe it catch anything, period. I hope that by crossing Maytime with the minis, I can create cleaner breeders to use with the Legacy hybrids, mine as well as Ralph Moore’s. The newer breeders I also plan to use with the Fedtschenkoana hybrids now that they appear to be more successful with a wider range of roses.
Use Rabble Rouser as pollen. It’ll save you heartache.
Thank you! Not having worked with it, that’s the kind of information needed! Much appreciated. It’s definitely going to be an interesting change.
No problem. Imagine my frustration the year I learned both Rosa virgiana and Rabble Rouser liked to be exclusively pollen donors. I crossed them with one another to a grand total sum of 100% failure 
I was thinking re: selecting against die-back, and I wondered if doing also selected against nematode resistance. Its a fleeting thought about the relationship between the species that a generaly nematode resistant and species that can pass on die-back easily. There seems to be a lot of cross-over, although there are some American species that do possess either negative trait. There are also some species which possess both negative qualities too, namely Rosa foetida and its kin. American Honor is my favorite HT ever. Its a long story, but it can get minor die-back. Each generation prior has one parent that specifically has die back. American Honor → Sheer Elegance → Pristine → First Prize → Golden Masterpiece… (like most Pernetianas do) in the PNW. I think part of the popularity of roses like Sutter’s Gold and Golden Showers was that they are Pernet-types that didnt display the typical nasty Pernetiana habits like die-back. They were, instead, very green, twiggy and linear at the same time.
Kim,
Interesting comment on Maytime. Mildew has not been a big problem for me in Virginia and New York-the bugger is black spot. I shall have to baby my Maytime in NY since it is down to about one cane.
Die back on most things hasn’t been an issue here, other than specific OGRs like Anna de Diesback. Rust and black spot are far more likely to be problems on species crosses. What I’ve noticed more than a passing relationship about is trying to match foliage types for better resistance. Softer, more “glandular” foliage when crossed with hard, glossy types often seems to result in greater disease issues than when bred with a type resembling it. It seems that very often, instead of following one or the other parent, it’s a hybrid between the two and not as efficient as either. I realize I have not come close to exhausting all possibilities, but it “feels” as if the best success comes from matching foliage types, glossy with glossy, matt with matt, etc.