Winter beauty in the rose garden.

I cannot be said that the garden....any garden, has nothing to offer in the Winter months. Roses, with their thorns and architecture, and even the occasional withered bloom or bud, are often a visual treat on a frosty morning.

Pictured here is a seed grown plant of R. sericea ptericantha, the Wingthorn Rose.

Happy New Year to all, and may 2011 be kind to you and your gardens.

Up they come!

The second seed has germinated: 'Golden Angel' X 'Champlain'.

This year I started sowing the seeds very early. First was open pollinated seed from 'Magic Wand' and a week later was this cross, 'Golden Angel' X 'Champlain'. The photo was taken yesterday morning, and by the end of the day two more seedlings were starting to emerge, so undoubtedly many more are on their way.

Regarding this cross: I have found that 'Golden Angel' (yellow miniature from the 1970's, by R. S. Moore) is quite malleable in breeding, often taking on characteristics from the other parent, to the point that none of the 'Golden Angel' traits are visually apparent. Of course, you do get a fair number of miniatures or dwarf plants, since the miniaturism trait is a dominant, but many are shrubs that show no miniaturization whatsoever. With this in mind, I made this cross using the Canadian hardy shrub 'Champlain' as the pollen parent. The hope is to obtain some very Winter hardy orange-red shrubs that bloom frequently and generously, and have attractive, compact plant architecture. It is also known that 'Golden Angel' can sometimes give highly Blackspot resistant offspring, so in combination with 'Champlain' the odds of achieving this might be improved.

Inheriting doubleness.

Looking at the AgCan breeder L83 you would never guess it would be capable of producing double offspring. And yet, it frequently does. Many of my selections from three crosses made in '07 are at least semi-double (15 petals or more) and some are intensely double. Take this seedling 77-07-03 for example; double in the style of many of the Old Garden Roses displaying "quartered" blooms, packed full of petals arranged in a swirl. This seedling also happens to be a pretty good repeater (compared to its somewhat reluctant siblings), grows with abandon and yet is maintaining a shapely, restrained architecture. So far it has shown complete immunity to all diseases. If that continues to be the case, then this selection may have a future in commerce. If it has Winter hardiness, as many L83 seedlings do, then even better!

FYI, as the tedium of my routine settles in, what with all the weeding and watering and dull chores to do, I am posting less and less often these days. I need a vacation, to be honest, and yet I have to maintain things. So, don't expect a lot of detailed blog posts in the next month or so; I'm just not enthused about adding yet another task to my to-do list at the moment!

"Magseed"

I've been talking a few times recently about the results I am getting using Ralph Moore's breeder "Magseed", so I think its time I spoke a bit about it in more detail. This is a sister seedling to 'Linda Campbell', ('Anytime' X 'Rugosa Magnifica') the remarkable Hybrid Rugosa that can be grown to perfection in almost any climate. It is reported to prosper in zones as cold as USDA 4, and is probably good to zone 3 in a protected location. 'Linda Campbell' is however, sterile. Most first generation Rugosa hybrids are. (I regard 'Rugosa Magnifica' as a "pure" Rugosa, and that would make 'Linda Campbell' the first outcrossing into a very different line of breeding) "Magseed" on the other hand is quite fertile. As its name suggests, it does produce seeds, but it is far more fertile as a male (pollen) parent. It tends to make one or two seeds per hip, so unless you have a very large, mature specimen, work with it as a seed bearer is going to be very slow. Better to use it for pollen and work with a generous seed bearer.

I firmly believe that ideally, you should look at no less than 100 seedlings from any one cross to see the full breadth of what that cross can represent. Of course, you don't always get that opportunity; I make some crosses every year that result in hundreds of seeds, and then only five germinate. Bad combination of genes; can't always be avoided. I will make a few crosses using "Magseed" as the seed bearer, but the majority of crosses will employ it as a pollen donor.

What does it offer as a breeder? Well, based on my selections to date, it tends to breed large (6 feet plus) upright shrubs with bold, dense foliage, thick thorny canes, large blooms, good color (including some bicolors with paler reverses or a picotee petal edge coloring) and if you are lucky, a decent fragrance. Some of the hybrids I am currently evaluating have excellent Blackspot resistance as well. (I will describe 105-04-08 and other "Magseed" offspring in upcoming posts)

I think "Magseed" has the potential to breed a new race of hybrids that offer excellent shrub architecture (very important to me), improved Winter hardiness and hopefully, immunity to Blackspot, the bane of Rosedom.