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cupshaped_roses

Repeat flowering sport of Belle Amour

cupshaped_roses
11 years ago

A cane on one of my neighbours Alba/Damask hybrid? Roses - Belle Amour - has been repeat blooming for 3 years - I budded 3 plants but the last 2 seasons they have not repeated? Like the cane do on the rosebush.

I do not understand this - they shold be repeating too - granted the plant are young still - but the repeat flowering trait from the sporting cane - should be reproduced. We have have tried to root some cuttings - but there is precious little lateral cane left and they have noot rooted and died during the winter. I will give it another try to bud again, when we see it repeatflowers again this - year - it may be the last chance we get to try to propagate the sport. Can repeat flowering rose sports revert back to the same singleflowering parent? I understand that it happens on one plant - but the 3 of them?.

Comments (8)

  • melissa_thefarm
    11 years ago

    How very, very interesting, Niels! I do love 'Belle Amour'.
    I've tried a number of times to propagate BA from cuttings and have never succeeded. I'm successful with many roses but also have plenty of failures, so that's not unusual. Last fall I got some non-rooted suckers off my plant and planted them, not very optimistically, but it looks as though they have caught! I also managed to layer 'Koenigin von Daenemark', another rose I find hard to impossible to grow from cuttings. Would it be possible to attempt layering this branch?
    About the failure of the repeat-flowering to transfer to the babies, I have no idea about that. It certainly does seem odd, though.
    Good luck!
    Melissa

  • cupshaped_roses
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Yes - seeing flowers in September - on a onceblooming rose - is interesting. But "Sport-fishers" know what this can mean. It is the only repeatflowering sport I have seen/found - even though I have found some colour sports - that are much more common it seems.
    And Belle Amour is an interesting rose.
    It is not possible to layer the cane since the cane is so stiff and the shrub - so dense and large and it is one of the inner canes. I took the budeyes from one of the lateral canes that rebloomed - and there is not much to work with - I had really hoped the plants would rebloom too - but no - so will have to attempt budding some new this year and hope ...

  • gothiclibrarian
    11 years ago

    This is likely a long shot, but could you take something taller and long like a tub and get that stiff cane to bend into it to try to layer it above ground?

    Not sure if I am making ANY sense...I've seen above-ground layering done with hydrangeas using pots but I know that with a very woody alba even that might not work with anything short of a giant claw-footed tub.

    ~Anika

    Here is a link that might be useful: GothicLibrarian.net

  • Plater
    11 years ago

    Hello there. I'm experiencing the same thing here in southern Sweden right now - one branch on Belle Amour repeating. I'll probably wait until next year to observe if and what parts of the branch will repeat, and eventually budding it as well. I'm very curious to see if you succeed in getting the sport budded.

    (Picture taken today, 120921)

  • AquaEyes 7a NJ
    11 years ago

    What about air-layering? What you do is make an incision into the cane without completely severing it. Dust the wound with rooting hormone, and then slip a thin sliver of something (a match, twig, etc) inside to keep it open. Pack some wet sphagnum moss around it, and wrap in plastic. Then slip a paper bag over the plastic to keep it from cooking in the sun. When roots can be seen to form under the plastic, sever the cane and plant it in a pot to grow on.

    :-)

    ~Christopher

  • fogrose
    11 years ago

    I find this very interesting. Belle Amour is a favorite rose of mine. It is known to either repeat or have a long bloom season here in California but surprised it would occur in Sweden unless this is due to climate change around the world. Who knows what might start happening with the roses.

    Niels, where is your garden located?

    Diane

  • cupshaped_roses
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    How interesting to see you got a repeatflowering cane on your Belle Amour too Plater! Southern Sweden is the nice part of Southern Scandinavia - usually a climate zone higher than most other areas around here - due to the Baltic Sea. The last 2 winters have been long and cold - and summers have been cold and we have gotten much more rain than usual.

    I am not sure we have seen much of a climate change - even though the average mean temps probably are rising slowly - but it is too cold here - and the growing season too short that I think it would affect some roses like Belle Amour to repeatflower - compared to places like Suthern California with a much longer growing season Diane.

    I live in Denmark on the Jylland peninsula near the second largest city Aarhus.

    I have budded 5 plants with eyes from the repeat flowering cane and it looks like 2 of them are growing - while 2 look dead and 1 looks like it will grow too (the eye has swelled up) So now it will take a year - or probably 2 to tell if they will repeatflower too. The 3 first plants do not show signs of repeating.

  • Plater
    11 years ago

    If it was due to climate change I'd expect more of my once-flowering rose bushes to display this behaviour. I'm quite curious about the mechanism behind once or repeat flowering. Flowers are always produced from new shoots after all, albeit only on shoots growing from old wood. So how far down the old wood does the magic happen? How far down can you prune old wood and still see flowers?

    I'm still very much doubtful that this is some sort of mutation, in the style of New Dawn, that can be reproduced, but what other explanations are there?