A Successful Cross!

This blog post highlights a "family" of new 2017 seedlings coming from a cross that I made last year between two of my unnamed seedlings.  It was the first time that I crossed these two roses and I wish that I had made the cross earlier because there are so many in the group that I really like.  I've had the seed parent for 10 years.  It came from a cross between the seed parent of 'Thrive!', code named G168-2, and 'Julia Child'.  The pollen parent used for this family of seedlings is 5 years old and it came from a cross of a seedling of 'Thrive!' combined with 'Double Knock Out'®.

The entire cross is coded as follows:

[('Marmalade Skies' x 'Baby Love') x 'Julia Child'] x <|'Thrive!' x {'Halo Today' x ['Geisha' x ('Tobo' x 'Singing' in the Rain')]}| x 'Double Knock Out'®>.  

Please note that the seed parent coded above is pink, while the pollen parent is blue.

Of course since 'Thrive!' has 'Marmalade Skies' X 'Baby Love' in it's ancestry, the seedlings used in the cross have some recent ancestors in common.

The reason for this post is to underline the importance of "finding" good crosses.  I have made plenty of crosses that I thought would produce good seedlings, only to throw out the entire batch.  So the process really is one of trial and error.  I suppose it is part of what makes rose breeding so fun!

Each of the following seedlings came from the cross noted above.

There is a clear family resemblance among these different seedlings.  The family includes a few that are pink and some that have only 5 petals, but these five have the traits that I am looking for.  They all seem floriferous and are resistant to powdery mildew.  The next step will be to test them against black spot and other diseases outside.  The least vigorous of these may be discarded before the end of the year.