This is the first of a group of 'Midnight Blue' X L83 seedlings to flower, last year's crop of seedlings. L83 seedlings rarely flower in their first year, undoubtedly a trait carried over from its R. rugosa ancestry. This is a particularly richly colored flower and I am picturing a 4 X 4 foot shrub at maturity, loaded with hundreds of these intense magenta-purple flowers. If it repeats decently, this just might be worth space as a garden shrub! (as opposed to being used strictly for breeding, which is how I see it at the moment)
Lovely colour too... I think it's strange how a lot of rugosa hybrids seem to result in wrinkled petals too. Hybrid rugosa like 'Dagmar Hastrup' have perfectly smooth wide petals and the instant you put something modern into the mix the petals start to wrinkle up...
ReplyDeleteYes, I noticed the curious Rugosa wrinkling of the petals. I see this trait show up two and three generations away from Rugosas. Sometimes it has a crippling effect on the blooms, especially if the blooms are very double. Fortunately thats not the case here ;-)
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