"Pickering Four Seasons" x lots of stuff (and the reverse)
*If* PFS is a long lost champion seed bearer, then it's doubtful how much I can do to improve it. Although the foliage is rounded like a fedtschenkoana descendant, the plant otherwise looks very gallica. What to cross it with? Leda and Duchess of Portland could get immediate results, but neither is famous for its big hips. More gallica will be tested, but seems unlikely to accomplish much. Hebe's Lip might help fertility a little. An really old damask (any of them, since bifera, white or pink, mossed or unmossed, are all sports of the same plant, as are Kazanlik, York and Lancaster, and others) would restore damascena traits, but probably reduce seed yield. I'll most definitely try musk x PFS, and would try fedtschenkoana with PFS if I had some yet, but this year will mainly be about seeing what PFS' potential is. If it's as good as I hope it is, there may not be anything for me to do, other than to declare victory and start making the reblooming centifolias* and agathes of my imagination.

St Nicholas x Salet (and the reverse): St Nicholas is supposedly a gallica-damask cross, but the foliage just looks wrong to me. The leaflets are VERY pointy, slightly rugose, and slightly shiny. Its faint scent doesn't impress me as all that damask, either. For the time being, I'm only crossing it with other roses which I have questions about. Salet, Rene d'Anjou, Umbra, maybe Rose de Rescht or even Comte de Chambord. Oh, also...

St Nicholas x James Mason (and the reverse): James Mason is half gallica, half HT, and a copious seed bearer compared to any pure gallica. Consider this a concession to the David Austins of the future. "Adeline" is a similar "fertile Myrtle" among mosses, and while its ancestry is unknown (there is only one plant identified as such, at SJHRG), I have seedlings of it growing, and might try crossing with those, too, if they bloom this year.

Musk x everything and the kitchen sink: some folks weren't content with the idea of breeding a Portland (gallica-damask) seed parent, and wanted to try to recreate rosa damascena from scratch. I don't see that as being the same project, but am curious enough to try to help. My biggest concern is, what will work? Unless Mme Plantier or Ispahan qualify as noisette-free, I can't think of a currently existing Musk hybrid without any chinensis. The European species roses I grow are all tetraploids or more, like pendulina, majalis plena, canina, corymbifera and eglantine. The top priority will be what I consider to be suitable gallicas -- Rosa Mundi, Hortensia, Tuscany Superb, Alika, maybe Perle de Weissenstein, Empress Josephine or Conditorum. Portlands will be tried, too, since most are over 50% gallica. I'll hit them with mixed pollen from some others as well, because I really have no idea what will take. If Musk likes Maiden's Blush or r. corymbifera 'laxa', well, then that's what I'll get. Not ideal, but the original muskxgallica seems to be long extinct, so I'll take anything close for now, with the intention of getting closer in subsequent generations.

Mme Plantier x St Nicholas: Because, despite fragrance testing, I'm still not so sure about Mme Plantier that I'm willing to bet the entire project on it. If it works, more English roses of the future.

Complicata x various things: Complicata's shiny, sharply dentate foliage reminds me a lot of rosa macrantha's, and makes me worry about arvensis ancestry (among other things). I want to make sure it doesn't make Jergen's lotion scented babies before I invest in it too heavily.

Responses to some suggestions:

Rosa californica plena is a beautiful plant, but a bit too non-European for me to want to include in Portland breeding stock. I will, however, try some crosses with rosa majalis plena, which is its European cinnamon rose cousin and look alike. Rosa fedtschenkoana is a cinnamon rose too, meaning that damasks are half cinnamon rose, so while it's a definite tangent I don't think it's entirely out of place.

The Rose of a Thousand Spines: I'm sorry to say that intensely thorny roses with black hips aren't my thing, so I grow none of the burnets, but have collected some pollen from Stanwell Perpetual, and will use it. Would use Paula Vapelle too, but have failed to source any so far.

((musk x gallica) x fedtschenkoana): Okay. okay, count me in. I don't yet have fedtschenkoana, but a fertile musk cross is plenty to work on while I wait.

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*Did you know that centifolias are the world's most prolific rebloomers, going 12 months a year, and that they consistently set big hips? The only hitch is that you have to live in the right microclimate, like Kashmir. That's why one can still get essence of centifolia from India and Pakistan, where they do MUCH better than reblooming damasks or bourbons. They definitely belong on the list of conditional rebloomers.

Ingrid

When I brought Portland breeding up towards the end of May, the thread grew to 25 posts in the first day, but since it's been just us and the sound of crickets in this thread, I'm guessing I'll be continuing this as a solo project. I'll probably post updates every 6-12 months, depending on how interesting the offspring are looking.

And since no thread on breeding is complete without a picture of a seedling, here's a dinky moss. Disease free despite having never been sprayed, but that's all I can say at this point.