Penny-trad: my "Little Darling"

I've mentioned this plant in previous posts (See: 77-07-12) but haven't written about it specifically in a post of its own, so.....

Years ago I was given an un-named seedling by my friend Duane Coyier, a retired plant pathologist. It was a self-seedling of 'Poker Chip' that Duane liked and he was of the opinion that it might have merit as a breeder. (It was eventually registered officially as 'Penny Ante', see: http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.38197) Needless to say, I put it to work in my breeding program, not so much because I thought it had particular merit, but because I had it, and I was willing to give any rose that made seed readily a chance. (You tend to use whatever you have available to you at any given time)

'Penny Ante' presents nicely shaped HT style miniature blooms in a rich yellow tinted with red. Blooms open very fast and do fade, but otherwise are quite pretty for the type. The plant is very upright and stiff and rather lacking in balance of architecture, in my opinion, a characteristic it tends to pass on a bit too easily. Still, it has turned out to be a very useful breeding plant and has some very useful traits: it blooms in truly massive clusters, up to 40 blooms on a spike, which it often passes on to offspring. It also has excellent vigor and reblooms much better than its English parent.

Ralph Moore often told me he thought the miniatures had the ability to pass on some valuable properties to future generations, including abundance/frequency of bloom. I can see now just how right he was. Although it doesn't have stellar disease resistance, "Penny-Trad" has a track record of breeding some highly disease-free seedlings, when mated with the right thing.

You just never know where your best breeders are going to come from.