Pretties, some new, some old....

I've been remiss in adding new content and with all the new (and old) roses flowering in back, I should get on the stick and put some new photos up. I apologize and I hope you enjoy! 

I apologize also for the highlighted rose names which are linked to their pages on Help Me Find-Roses and other sources which will show you more about them. I prefer to highlight them in red, but this site is fighting me about changing the color, so many of them appear gray, like Grey Pearl, the first word in the next paragraph. So, please watch for them and feel free to click on them to see more about that rose. 

Grey Pearl is a rose you have to exercise control over. Allow it to flower all it wants and it will grow backwards until it flowers itself to death. Once you've "encouraged" it to produce the plant you need, you can allow it some blooms. These are ones I missed pinching off, so the two plants pushed them out in the windy heat. 

This shot is illuminated by the LED under counter lights in the kitchen.

 And these are all with flash.

Then, the second day, look how they matured! 

 Opening them indoors has also shown me they do have some scent. While not "extremely fragrant", they do have "fragrance". 

And, now for something completely new and different! I have been breeding for "Tea-like" plants and blooms and now have some results to show for the efforts. Nessie is a monster climber I created quite a few years ago. It's taken me  eighteen years to finally put her to work, but she has finally produced some remarkable babies. 

Nessie is a product of (Montecito X Mlle Cecile Brunner). Montecito was R. Brunonii X R. Gigantea. This first group of seedlings resulted from using pollen from Faith Whittlesey, a "Tea" created by Viru and Girija Viraraghavan. Faith was produced from [Reve d'Or X ((Echo X R. Gigantea) X Marie Van Houtte)], so these seedlings have quite an involved pedigree. 

All three are repeat flowering with decent foliage and very good scent. They are in their second year and growing in two gallon cans. 

As you enjoy them, remember they contain these ancestors... 

[(R. Brunonii X R. Gigantea) X Mlle Cecile Brunner] X
[Reve d'Or X ((Echo X R. Gigantea) X Marie Van Houtte)]

This is the double, pink seedling.  

This is the white seedling. It is more upright and should be a taller plant than the pink one. 

The third sibling, the semi double, blush pink. 

It may, or may not, produce more petals with maturity. It will be fun watching it to see.

Sometimes it's worth raising self set seed to see the "what if?" behind the plant. Mme Antoine Mari is a marvelous Tea which has been used for breeding by others. I wanted to see what it may do if left to its own devices. This is one of the results. The foliage is very serrated with lovely new growth coloring and some pretty outrageous sepals. 

I have also spread quite a bit of Lamarque and Secret Garden Musk Climber pollen around. Oddly, the very double Lamarque has made quite a few single to semi single seedlings while the single Secret Garden has produced more double ones. This is Irish Hope X Secret Garden Musk Climber.

To wrap up this post, I will offer an unusual seedling. I had originally crossed Secret's Out, the white sport of Secret, with my April Mooncrest, in hopes of producing a crested Hybrid Tea. It almost worked. The result needs more cresting, but it has decent foliage and good scent with a pretty bloom. Last year, I decided to hit it with a floribunda seedling I created from (First Impression X April Mooncrest) X Art Nouveau. Art Nouveau was bred from the very odd old Hybrid Perpetual, Roger Lambelin. I keep hoping to raise something along the lines of Ronnie Rawlins' Lightning Strike or his new Bonkers.

This inherited good scent from the scented parents. It didn't inherit any crested sepals. It did inherit the Art Nouveau "petal defect" and a red petal base "blotch" from First Impression through the First Impression X April Mooncrest seedling, which also expresses it. This one has a "star" as its petal base blotch. Definitely one to watch as it matures!

 This is the red fade to the petal bases of First Impression X April Mooncrest. It is where this seedling inherited what has become its red "star".

 



It's going to be fun seeing what this odd pattern might be able to be developed into!