72-08-11

I finally located a photo of an open bloom of 72-08-11 (Condoleezza X William III), mentioned last Spring in a blog post. Not much of a photo (low res from my iPhone) but you get the idea. This reminds me of 'Great Maiden's Blush' in color and form, and it has a decent fragrance as well. See the spiky mossing on the bud in the upper left?

I plan on working a few of this group of 72-08s into breeding this coming spring, assuming any of them have fertility. Who knows, maybe the Spinisissima genes will be a new resource for winter hardiness and disease resistance.

72-08: mossy Spinosissima cross updated.

A couple of weeks ago I posted here about a Spinosissima cross I made in '08, of which several seedlings were preparing to flower for the first time. Well, I just wanted to submit a quick photo update to show the progress of the buds of one of these. As you can see, the buds are mossed in a most peculiar manner, with spikes on the receptacle! I will be using its pollen (assuming it presents any) in some crosses this Spring to see if I can recover remontancy in the next generation. I have hopes that some of this cross will be fertile and might add something to the shrub architecture and hardiness of my work.

Spinosissima Surprise.

72-08-11: 'Condoleezza' X 'William III'

I made this cross in late May of 2008, on a whim. I wanted to determine what, if any, fertility the Spinosissima hybrid 'William III' might have. It is a remarkably sturdy, disease free rose with great charm in a garden setting, and exquisitely scented purplish-pink blooms. I figured it might have some merit in breeding for improved care-free shrubs. I chose 'Condoleezza' simply because it is my "indicator" rose for breeding. If 'Condoleezza' won't take a specific pollen, nothing will.

What I got was about 7 well developed hips full of seed, and nearly every one of 'em germinated. The result was about 70 seedlings, of which I selected about 30 to grow on. (I made selections based solely on vigor, health and attractive growth habits/foliage, as none of these would bloom will the next year) Well, these are now leafed out and the first three are showing buds. Much to my surprise, all three are Mosses! ('Condoleezza' is very hit-or-miss when it comes to transmitting the mossing trait) Shown here is the most well developed of the three, clearly illustrating well mossed buds. Suddenly these seedlings are far more interesting to me as far as taking them forward into another generation is concerned. I will post more images as these grow.

More info about 'Condoleezza' here.

10-05-05: an orange moss.

10-05-05: 'Condoleezza' X ('Sequoia Ruby' X 'Scarlet Moss'). The pollen parent, which is extinct thanks to Gophers, is a sister seedling to 'Unconditional Love', one of my commercial releases.

I view this rose as one of those "close-but-not-quite-finished" seedlings that will hopefully be a stepping stone towards something more to my liking. This is a heavily mossed rose in a very attractive shade of orange with a Chinese red blending, becoming more red as the flower ages. It sets seed easily, although this will be the first year I have had an opportunity to evaluate its offspring. (I'm hopeful that it will bring something good to the line)

The plant is a compact, shrubby thing, having grown to 2.5 feet so far, but since it has lived its life in a pot, it may get significantly larger if grown out in the open garden. Blooms are about 2 to 2.5 inches each, with 8 to 12 petals and a few petaloids. The petals are a strong, clear yellow at the base, which may be an indication of its potential as a breeder of yellows.

While I think the Ralph Moore mosses are marvelous plants, I feel there is a lot of room for improvement on the group. In the pursuit of dwarfism, I think Ralph made compromises when making his selections. Certainly some of the "mini mosses" are wonderful breakthroughs in breeding, but most leave something to be desired as far as plant architecture, disease resistance and stability of color goes. As I say, lots of room for improvement. What would I like to see happen with this group of plants? Well, increase in both the plant stature and in bloom size, for one; I am imagining a rounded shrub of about 4 X 4 feet, well articulated with foliage to within a foot of the soil. (In a similar line of breeding I have accomplished this goal already with 'Treasure Trail', a very attractive pink-yellow blend moss that is about 3.5 feet wide and tall.) I would also like to see a significant improvement in disease resistance, This I believe can come through 'Scarlet Moss', which has the wonderfully sturdy 'Dortmund' represented on both sides of its parentage. Take note Hybridizers: both 'Scarlet Moss' and 'Rose Gilardi' have 'Dortmund genes in them and both are potentially the best breeders to pursue for improvments in the moss genre.

Improvements in color intensity and stability are also very possible and again, 'Scarlet Moss' and 'Rose Gilardi' are likely to be useful in this regard. Although the odds of success are slim, I have made one more attempt in 2009 to use Moore's old breeder "Orange Moss" in combination with seedling 10-05-05 and its sibling 10-05-09, a clear yellow. "Orange Moss" is a poor choice in that it rarely breeds any strong colors, and it has a dreadfully weedy growth habit. (Read; tall and lanky) However, I gave it a go with these two seedlings, hoping the stronger color genes of the 10-05's and their compact growth habit might tame "Orange Moss" and pick up on its lovely coloring. We shall see. Its all just wishful thinking until the first seedling flowers!

Suzanne/Spinosissima breeding

This year I have acquired the Spinosissima hybrid 'Suzanne' for breeding purposes. Bred by F. L. Skinner in 1950, this is generally considered to be an F2 hybrid of ('Stanwell Perpetual' X R. laxa). It is a tetraploid, which is what you would expect, given that both parents are tetraploids.

'Suzanne' has played a significant role in the breeding of the Canadian Explorer series of roses, contributing both disease resistance and Winter hardiness. The key hybrid in creating the Explorer roses was a seedling by Robert Simonet of 'Red Dawn' X 'Suzanne', with deep pink semi double blooms. Ian Ogilvie and Felicitas Svejda at Morden and AgCan took this hybrid on for breeding and in combination with R. kordesii' and others, created the Explorers. 'John Davis', 'William Baffin' and 'Champlain' all include 'Suzanne' in their pedigree.

All of these Explorers are fine roses, but the question is, what else can 'Suzanne' offer us? I have done some preliminary work in yellow using the fertile triploid 'Golden Angel' crossed with 'John Davis' and obtained some buffs and soft yellows that appear to be fertile (have set open pollinated seed). The next step is to cross the best of these yellows with each other to intensify the yellow (hopefully) and then start working 'Suzanne' into the mix. With this in mind, I have also a selection of Spinosissima hybrids this year that are 'Condoleezza' X 'William III', from which might come some non-pink hues if I'm lucky. I will select from these seedlings next year when they bloom and incorporate these with 'Suzanne' and the buff colored 'John Davis' hybrids. 'Condoleezza' has shown itself capable of producing clear yellows and peachy tints in breeding, so I am hopeful something of this sort might appear.

I think the Hybrid Spinosissimas are very beautiful and valuable landscape-friendly shrubs that should be explored in breeding to expand their color range while retaining their hardiness and disease resistance. In a decade or so, I just might have made some progress in this area, with repeat bloom thrown in as well!

'Suzanne' on HMF

Mistakes were made, part II

Some would say that hybridizing is mostly luck and happy accidents. I would tend to agree with that. Consider this rose. I call it simply "Floor Moss". Why? Because it was a chance seedling that grew in the gravel floor of one of my greenhouses, under a bench just at the edge of one of the aisles. I first saw it about four years ago when it was about 4 inches tall, and I thought to myself just leave it be and see how it does. I figured that if it survived on near total neglect where it was, it might be worth keeping. Well, it grew like the proverbial weed and flowered for the first time in 2008. This year it has had 8 blooms and at least that many still to come. Yes, its a Moss hybrid and I suspect it is a 'Condoleezza' hybrid, as I was doing a lot of crosses with it back then. In fact, since it is a once-blooming Moss, I have a feeling that its other parent might be "Nutshop", Ralph Moore's Moss bred from 'Schoener's Nutkana'. The bicolor pink style of this flower supports that possibility. Of course, I will never really know.

Anyway, I will probably put some pollen on this rose tonight, to see if I can recapture the remontancy in the next generation. I have already proven that it is fertile; I collected open pollinated seed from it this Spring and they germinated easily.

In search of better moss shrubs: 90-02-02

This seedling is another of my moss shrubs, bred in 2002. It came out of a cross of 'Condoleezza' X "Nutshop", back when 'Condoleezza' was still just an un-named test variety Sequoia had sent to me for evaluation. The pollen parent, "Nutshop" is also a Moore moss shrub bred from ('Schoener's Nutkana' X 'Christopher Stone') X "Orange Moss" and its code number is 25-59-7. It earned the nickname "Nutshop" from Burling Leong and Kim Rupert who found it growing on the Sequoia Nursery property years ago, overgrown by other plants and long forgotten. "Nutshop" is a once blooming pink and yellow moss rose, with good shrub architecture and dark, almost black mossing. It passes on repeat flowering to many of its offspring if mated with the right rose. I have used it only as a pollen parent, although it does set open pollinated seed.

I have been watching 90-02-02 for years now, always hoping it would perform better with each passing year, but I have to conclude that its a dud. It is a low growing plant (under 2 feet) with awkward growth and mediocre, sparse foliage. The mossing is quite good and the buds when half open are a beautiful flame red with a yellow reverse. The blooms have a unique "orange juice-ish" scent that was no doubt inherited from "Orange Moss". When full open, the blooms fade to a pink and pale yellow combination which unfortunately tend to scorch in the sun. Hence, a dud.

However, this cross was only a test cross and only a half dozen seedlings were raised. I don't know why I never pursued it further, since this seedling shows potentially better things might be had from such a cross. This could be an instance where a much better seedling might be had if I grew out 100 seedlings or more to select from, and so I think I will repeat the cross again this year to see if something better might be had.