Can you get your hands on seedling canina?

Pink Clouds has always made me nervous because it is a multiflora hybrid.

I gotta be honest here, I am not the most patient gardener. My kids and I planted a peach seed during Covid and it has finally reached six feet tall, but my spirit has literally withered away waiting. Growing a rose from seed, if I need to, I can do it. But I would prefer a faster method for my own sanity, and probably my husband's

HIgh Country claims they will have it.

Anything you buy is going to be small.

Thanks Gallica! I totally misread your comment last night, thought you said 'seeds' not 'seedling' - seedling is definitely more do-able for my impatient nature. So you suggest Canina then as a rootstock over Dr Huey or Pink Clouds?

Getting guaranteed unvirus Dr. Huey isn't easy. I don't know enough about Pink Clouds to understand if it would be suitable or not. That it's a multiflora hybrid has always made me nervous about it's pH tolerance.

Because of the virus issue, the usual fallback is some sort of species rose grown from seed.

For someone who has no experience (yet) with budding/grafting, its a good idea to work with an easy understock. ”Pink Clouds” is extremely easy to work with. ’Dr Huey’ is pretty easy as well. if you’re going to bud using the classic ”T-bud” technique, you need an understock variety whose bark ”slips” easily. (Lifts off the wood without sticking to it) ”Pink Clouds” is ideal in that regard. If you opt to use the ”chip bud” technique, (highly recommended) then your choice of understock is less important. I’ve used Canina (and Laxa) and they are more difficult to work with.

Once upon a time, UC Davis used to sell virus indexed Huey, but I don,t know if they still do. I’d pursue finding indexed Huey if possible.

Ralph Moore maintained a big bank of ”Pink Clouds” solely for harvesting cuttings to be used as understock - no other rose was ever grafted directly onto one of those specimens, to maintain a group of virus-free plants. If you can find cuttings of it that have been kept safe from contamination, it will be a very good variety to start with. It roots very easily and you can bud just about anything onto it. It may not perform optimally for every soil type, but you ought to find out by trying it for yourself.

Thank you Paul, I appreciate your insight. I was going to start with chip budding initially, but I do plan to also try t-budding down the road to see which method I prefer. I've reached out to Dr. Manners at FSC to ask if I could purchase virus-free cuttings of Dr Huey, if that falls through and I can't find another source I'll try both Pink Clouds & Canina

Dr. Manners tested Pink Clouds and found it was "virus free". He also tested Cardinal Humb.e and it is also virus free. I have used Hume for standards with success and there is no reason it shouldn't work for bushes/climbers. It does require nearly as much heat as Huey does (and not nearly as much as Fortuniana) to succeed in rooting and pushing buds. As Paul wrote, Pink Clouds roots VERY easily. It should be sufficiently hardy for a 7a, I'd imagine. IXL also roots and chip buds as easily as PC. What makes the multiflora types so easy to work with is their thick cambium layer compared to the other stocks. It's sufficiently thick it doesn't require as much skill to successfully leave enough in place for the cambium on the reverse of the scion to make contact with so it knits together and grows. If you can root them, I have De la Grifferaie, IXL, Cardinal Hume and Pink Clouds, all virus indexed and may have access to VI Huey (I had it, but since it demanded heat I don't have, I passed it to a friend in Santa Barbara and I don't know if she still has it). I also have VI Gloire des Rosomanes (yes, I deliberately collected virus indexed stocks to determine what worked where I am. What worked in the heat doesn't work here without that heat.). I've budded Annie Laurie McDowell to both Pink Clouds and Fortuniana and she explodes on both. The huge plant on HMF in Valencia, CA is on Pink Clouds. But, that is Zone 9b. i have no idea how the rose will perform in 7a as I raised the seedling in 9b; the plant below is 9b (a few miles from where the seedling was raised); I've grown it in 10a and am back to a cooler, damper 9b. Ironically, I found Grey Pearl is MUCH more productive on Pink Clouds than it is on Fortuniana, for what that's worth. So, if you're interested and able to root PC for a mother plant to make stock cuttings, please message me and we'll work out the details. As for RRD, how much is the multiflora aspect and how much is the load of multiflora in the areas it's a problem and the size of the plants providing perfect environments for the mites? If you have a huge plant of anything where the RRD pressure is, you're probably bound for problems.

Thank you Kim! How easy is Cardinal Hume for rooting and grafting? Funny enough it was on my wishlist - but then I saw the size & switched it out with Purple Buttons. But if it makes a great rootstock I can totally reconsider that. When you say it requires more heat to root, how much heat do you mean? I propagate in my basement with heat mats, the air is around 65 degrees but the heat mats keep the soil warm and I keep domes over them until they've rooted, would that be enough? I'm not sure if our season is long enough to root roses outdoors during the summer months. Maybe Pink Clouds is the way to go

Concerning RRD: I'm in an extremely rural area with a lot of farmland, not many roses are grown here. We do have plenty of wooded areas with multiflora growing, but I never saw any showing signs of RRD. There aren't any woods lining my property or the properties near me. The closest woods to me is about a mile or so down the road and it's downwind. Upwind to me there's just fields for at least 4 or 5 miles. I'm not sure how far the mites can travel - we do get a lot of wind coming from that direction. Closest roses to me are next door. The neighbor planted some knock outs that started looking suspicious but then it turned out they were regularly spraying the garden - roses included - with round-up. Amazingly the knockouts didn't die and I saw buds on them just last week

Thank you so much Kim! I really appreciate it. Ironically I actually already saved your chip budding tutorial, it was the most comprehensive and easy-to-follow one that I could find - the photos and explanations were really clear. I definitely need to dig some more in your blog.

It sounds like Pink Clouds is the easiest one to start with, so I'll go with that one. Thank you so much again for all your help!

You're welcome, Elestrial! I'm glad you found the blog beneficial!

MY soil and water are highly alkaline, but Pink Clouds manages to do well. FWIW.

That's excellent, thank you!