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.