Well another harvest season has begun! The hips on my earliest ripening seed parents have turned color and started to fall, indicating that the hips are ripe and that they had better be picked or lost!
I think that our warm temperatures have helped to hasten ripening. Our coolest daytime high temperature in the last 34 days has been 94º F. Twenty four of these have been 100º F. or hotter. This has provided ample opportunity to assess the blotch heat stability of the newest Hulthemias from 2012 when grown outside the greenhouse. The three below are real standouts. Photos were taken in the last 2 or 3 days.
I have been very pleased with the "Basye's Thornless" seedlings that made their appearance this year among my 2013 seedlings - especially a couple of the fully remontant (repeat blooming) Hulthemia hybrids. The first photo is of my favorite.
It is from a cross of "N144-2" X "Basye's Thornless". The Hulthemia seed parent, "N144-2", came from a cross of 'Pearl Sanford' with one of my earlier Hulthemia seedlings. As can be seen in the photo, this seedling blooms a lot. And like most of the "Basye's Thornless" seedlings, it seems to be quite vigorous and fertile. "Basye's Thornless" is a pink, 5-petalled, once blooming, thornless rose bred by Dr. Robert E. Basye and has good black spot and powdery mildew disease resistance. HelpMeFind has good photos of it - click "Basye's Thornless" to see it. Also worth noting, "Basye's Thornless" appears to be the same rose as 'Commander Gillette' and "Basye's Legacy".
Though my main interest last year was in crossing "Basye's Thornless" with many of my Hulthemia seed parent seedlings, I also crossed it with several non-Hulthemia seedlings. Below are 3 coming from a cross where "L56-1" was the seed parent. "L56-1" is a seedling of 'Thrive!' that I have mentioned elsewhere.
By now, you are probably seeing the pattern, that "Basye's Thornless" produces lots of pink seedlings. Pink is definitely very strong in this line which is why I was surprised when I saw the following seedling that came from a Hulthemia cross (no blotch on this one), but it's white.
Yellow is an even more difficult color to get. In the 3 photos below, you can see some yellow coloration. These seedlings might be useful to get yellow thornless seedlings in the next generation. The first one has 'First Impression' as a grandparent. The second one is from a yellow Hulthemia and is showing just a hint of the Hulthemia blotch (it also has 'First Impression' in it's lineage). The third photo below is a bit blurry, but I included it because this one has the most yellow coloration of them all seen at the base of the petals.
Below are a few more from Hulthemia crosses that are showing better blotches. The second and third ones shown below are sister seedlings from the same cross. The third one appears to be closer to a mini in size and is another one of my favorites.
In this years crop of "Basye's Thornless" seedlings, it appears that 75% or more have been non-remontant (meaning that they will not bloom this year and may take 2 to 3 years or more to bloom for the first time). The majority seem to have few or no thorns, but I have noticed a significant number of them having little bristles, or stubble that actually does not feel very sharp, so they are almost as easy to handle as the thornless seedlings.
In closing this post, here is a more recent photo of the seedling show at the top. I am very happy with it's apparent good repeat blooming power.
Last year I was so impressed with the open pollinated seedlings that were produced from 'Darlow's Enigma' that I made several hundred crosses using it both ways, as a seed and as a pollen parent. I found that it cooperates much better as a seed parent. The majority of the crosses using it as a pollen parent failed, however, there were a few that produced seedlings that were clearly from 'Darlow's Enigma'. The first seedling shown below is one from such a cross. This was from "L56-1" X 'Darlow's Enigma'. "L56-1" is a seedling of 'Thrive!'. This photo of the young seedling is a bit washed out, but it does hint at this seedling's floriferous potential (one of the main traits for which I am most interested in using 'Darlow's Enigma').
Of course I used it predominantly in crosses with mixed Hulthemia pollen. There are about 15 or so that I am still watching, but the three below are a few of my favorites. The first is special because of the size and intensity of the blotch. Unfortunately it is also very thorny (as are most of the ones coming from the mixed Hulthemia pollen crosses).
The next one has a smaller blotch, but is quite vigorous and floriferous, and has the fewest thorns of this group. It's blotch will be larger and more intense when it matures. Overall, it is my favorite of the 'Darlow's Enigma' seedlings from this year.
The last seedling, though coming from a cross using mixed Hulthemia pollen, has no blotch. However, the first time that I saw it bloom I knew that I would have to let it mature to see how it performs as a grown-up seedling. The petals have almost a glowing quality to them. It will be interesting to see whether this characteristic is preserved when grown outdoors.
