... growing and hybridizing all kinds of plants in zone 6b Maryland since the 1980's.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

(Rosa rugosa x Rosa glauca) X Rosa rugosa

Not a great picture, but it does at least show how this particular seedling is reblooming in typical rugosa fashion - see new blooms at upper right and regular season hips not quite changing color yet but pretty well developed in center. It's from backcrossing rugosa pollen onto the F1 hybrid rugosa X glauca. That F1 is not reblooming but has nice blue-gray-green foliage. My hope was to regain the rebloom of rugosa and keep the nice foliage color. Well, I got the first but not the second. The foliage looks almost identical to typical rugosa. Maybe at least this one's dragging along some interesting hidden glauca genes. And whenever my rugosa X glauca recover from being moved and get to blooming again, I plan to try the backcross again but with bigger population of seedlings this time, because even among the half-dozen that this one came from, there was one (wouldn't you know it would die) that was nicely glaucous even at the seedling stage. Maybe I'll use one of the double-flowered rugosas I just got this year as pollen parents when I do the backcross, to stack the deck in favor of the seedlings being even more interesting.

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