Thursday, May 28, 2009

R. nutkana


I love this graceful, hardy species, but I can't think of a great way to use it this year. The last thing I want to do is cross it with some modern HT or Floribunda, because thats not at all the kind of character I want out of it. What would you do if you had 2500 different roses to cross R. nutkana with???

8 comments:

  1. I don't know exactly what you are looking for but if it were me and I had your inventory I would probably cross it with one of your bracteatas first or perhaps well behaved rugosa. Just my humble opinion :^)

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  2. I do not know what exactly you want to get out of it. So I will just tell you what I was going to do with it if I ever get the seed you sent me to grow.

    My first thought is to cross it to Goldbusch and Applejack. Then I was going to cross the best of these seedlings to each other. Hopefully this would lead to some repeat bloom, winter hardiness, and some very good scented foliage.

    My next thought would be to cross it with a good ground cover rose like Little White Lies. I do not know how good Little White Lies would be as a parent but I am experimenting with it this year. But Little White Lies could tone down the size and bring the repeat gene in but I am afraid if they do cross that the seedlings will be too light colored. But a plus is I like the fact R. nutkana suckers and this could work well for a ground cover, and ground covers do not need a super flower just enough of them.

    I was also planning to cross it with Rise N' Shine, Paradise and Joycie. This was more for an insurance measure. I really want to work with this species and getting a fertile secound generation would be good. Rise N' Shine and Paradise have worked well for me. Joycie I just got but it seems to work well for everybody else. But these crosses would be just to get seedlings out of to work with further.

    My last thought would be to cross it to the musk Cornelia. This is more to see what would happen. I have been putting off getting Cornelia because of the room factor and I do not Know how it would do in this climate. But I really want to work with it. I do not know the fertility of Cornelia even and if I do get it I think I will try it on everything at least as a pollen parent. With this cross I can see just about anything appearing.

    I hope my thought help you out because you have helped me out so much. Good Luck!

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  3. Idonno, that's such a beautiful flower in itself I'd be happy with it as it is! Though I might be tempted to cross it with something like 'Midnight Blue' or R. foliolosa...

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  4. Mike,
    One of the Rugosas certainly crossed my mind, yes. Perhaps Magseed is the agent, once again.....

    Wu,
    Some kind of groundcover is an interesting idea, but I wouldn't use 'Little White Lies' because for me, it Blackspots way too much. However, 'Trier' is tempting. 'Trier' is bulletproof in my climate, and has a lot to offer a cross, not the least of which is remontancy alleles and vast quantities of bloom. Scent is also often a factor. I put R. nutkana on 'Joycie' in '07 and the resutling seedlings were nasty: shrunken heads with no vigor or disease resistance. Very disappointing. The Hybrid Musk avenue looks very attractive....thanks for the idea.

    Fa,
    The temptation is to simply cross it with other North American species, just because these are such graceful shrubs and offer superb scents. But I think it really should be a requirement to at least start inserting the remontancy factor so I have an option of coaxing repeat bloom out of it in the next generation. I did cross it with 'Midnight Blue' last year ('Midnight Blue' was the seed bearer) and got only a few seedlings that do not look especially promising. (More runts) I am using one of my seed grown R. nutkanas as the seed bearer this year and trying the same cross. We shall see.

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  5. That is sad to hear about little white lies. How bad does it blackspot?

    I do really like the idea of bringing in some of the hybrid Musk into modern roses. Not just in this cross but in so many other things. At least in the south where my sister lived at one time they grow everywhere. Most of the time these are neglected and still grow fine. And they may not be disease free but they tend to look better than other roses in these humid climates.

    Does Joycie do this alot in crosses like this?

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  6. Wu,
    In general, 'Joycie' is capable of some serious magic when crosses with very dissimilar roses. I think it was just a bad mix in this instance. :-(

    I would rate 'Little White Lies' as very poor for Blackspot resistance. In my garden, even though it is a fully matured plant, it will defoliate completely if not protected from fungal diseases. Mind you, that might be overcome with the right mate, so don't discount it entirely.

    Do you work with 'Trier' at all? My work of the past three years suggests that this is capable of remarkable things, especially if you mate it with widely different shrubs. I recommend it highly!

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  7. I haven't had the chance to work with Trier. Not even sure if I have ever seen it in real life.

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  8. What about some of Mr Moore's Hulthemia hybrids and then through the bracteata hybrids to try for lovely shrub forming, healthy roses with species vigour and a blotch?

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