Winter Rose Hardiness At Summerland Ornamental Gardens 2023/24

The winter of 2023/24 was one of extreme climate variables and temperature fluctuations. Climate change is increasingly disrupting the east west flow of the jet stream and causing it to meander north and south in a wave pattern of alternating high and low-pressure regions. This in turn, along with occasional blocking patterns allows increasingly intense outbreaks of “polar vortex” cold snaps.

The weather in both November and December 2023 was warmer than normal with high temperatures above freezing every day in December, and this trend continued through the first part of January. While most roses in the Summerland Ornamental Gardens were hardened off, they were not necessarily fully dormant. The recorded high temperature on the morning of January 10th in Summerland, was 1 C and then the temperature began to drop rapidly. By 9:00 PM on the evening of January 11th it was -20C, and by the 11:00 PM on January 12th, it was – 26.2 C, a drop of 27 degrees Celsius in less than 48 hours.

The official plant hardiness zone for both Summerland and Penticton is on the border of 6b and 7a with normal coldest winter temperatures of approximately -19C. The low temperature on January 12th is at the low end of zone 5a. Few roses, other than Rugosa Hybrids, Old Garden Roses and hardy Canadian Bred Roses are able to tolerate that temperature without serious freeze damage, or even winter kill for many Floribunda and Hybrid Tea varieties. In addition, there were two other factors at play during this polar outbreak event. As stated above, the roses were not completely hardened off as would be the norm in the Okanagan Valley in January, and the outbreak of arctic air was accompanied by winds out of the north with gusts between 40 and 60 kms per hour on January 12th.

The winter of 2022/23 also had a less severe arctic outbreak in late December with temperatures as low as -23 C between December 18th and 24th. During this period as well, there were winds of 30 to 35 kms per hour during the cold spell. This too led to severe winter damage on many of the rose plants in our collection, particularly the Hybrid Tea and Floribunda varieties. These all required very hard pruning, to the ground in some cases. This led us to mound the less hardy varieties with wood chips this past fall in order to protect more cane in the event of another cold snap.

OBSERVATIONS

All of these abnormal weather events together led to severe winter damage to roses and other plant material such as grapes, cherries peaches and other plants that are not hardy at these temperatures. This past winter, the event was extreme enough to even do damage to many of our English Roses, and even to some of our Canadian bred hardy roses. The observed damage was a bit shocking, though not severe enough to cause excessive damage that could not be dealt with a harder selective pruning.

In assessing my own roses and visiting other rose gardens nearby, it became apparent that many of the same rose varieties that we grow had differing degrees of damage due to microclimate, even though the extreme lows were the same. Cold dry wind and desiccation are as big a factor in damage to roses are the record cold temperatures. Two fellow gardeners and volunteers at the Summerland gardens live within a kilometer of my home. One gardens on an exposed bench above the Skaha Lake, the other in a very protected gully that is sheltered even in severe wind events. My own home is on an exposed knoll and very exposed to wind. My own roses were severely damaged, and I was forced to cut them back hard, three plants to the ground. I am not certain how well they will grow back. The same can be said of the gardener on the lake bench. She lost several Hybrid Tea plants, including a Peace Rose that had been in the same location for decades. The gardener in the sheltered location had little damage to her roses, most of which are young plants of David Austin English rose varieties.

The rose collections at the Summerland Ornamental Gardens consist mainly of hardy shrub roses, including many Canadian bred hardy modern roses, Old Garden Rose Varieties, Hybrid Rugosa varieties and species roses. Damage was most serious in the Hybrid Tea and Floribunda varieties that we grow, as would be expected. These had to be pruned back to below the level of the mounding. The English Rose varieties, as well as some of the other modern shrub roses had varying amounts of freeze damage requiring harder pruning than would be the norm in our zone 6b hardiness zone. Most of the Canadian bred roses had superficial to no winter damage. The Rugosa Hybrids, Old Garden Rose varieties and species roses we grow had no damage, none!

Both the City of Penticton and the Town of Oliver have rose gardens. These gardens are both largely planted with Hybrid Tea and Floribunda varieties. Many of the plants in both gardens are old plants. The Penticton Garden contains more than 200 roses. The plants there are mounded each winter to a depth of approximately 25 cm (12 in.).

Inspection of that garden this first week of April revealed that the plants all survived the winter and were budding out, though they were all pruned back to 12 cm or less, which is considerably shorter than would be the case in a normal year. The rose garden at Oliver was also mounded, but not nearly as heavily. Inspection showed that approximately 50% of the roses were dead and will have to be replaced. These plants again were old plants that have survived winters for a decade or more.

There are small collections of David Austin English Roses in both gardens, these plants all survived the cold winter in much better condition than their more tender neighbors. The English Roses in Penticton were not mounded and survived the winter in situ, as did shrub and landscape roses planted as accent plants in the border around the perimeter.

DISCUSSION

Modern rose varieties have been bred for the repeat flowering trait. This has meant using primarily repeat blooming species roses such as Rosa Chinensis, Rosa rugosa, Rosa Bracteata, etc. as well as early Tea and Hybrid Tea roses as genetic stock to breed this trait into these varieties. With the exception of Rosa rugosa, most repeat blooming roses are native to the sub-tropics. This means in general; they cannot survive sub-freezing temperatures. Thus, many repeat blooming roses in the Hybrid Tea and Floribunda classes are not cane hardy in temperatures much below -15 C. Hence the increased winter damage to these types of roses during extreme winter events such as those of the past two winters.

Many of the rose varieties in the Summerland Ornamental Gardens collections, while repeat blooming, also have genetics from hardier rose species close-up in their breeding. There has been and indeed still is a Canadian rose hybridizing tradition of combining the repeat blooming trait with excellent cold hardiness. David Austin English roses are also for the most part, significantly hardier than Hybrid Tea varieties due to the Old Garden Rose genetics close-up in the breeding of many of them. Many English Roses are cane hardy to -20 C or so and some to colder temperatures.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

With climate change and increasing incidents of arctic outbreaks in winter, what can rose growers do to protect plants through these events? There are several options:

Hybrid Tea, Floribunda and other tender varieties can still be grown. But do not believe the zone 5 hardiness ratings on the tags when you look to purchase these types of roses. Most are hardy to zone 6a at best, some only to zone 7. You can grow these varieties if they are planted in a sheltered location, well mounded in the fall, and planted with the graft or bud union 5 to 10 cm, (2 to 4 inches) below the soil grade. You must also accept that it is possible that you will lose some plants in the event of future severe winter weather events.

Grow hardier shrub rose varieties such as English Roses, Canadian bred hardy roses, or hardier varieties of shrub roses. Do some research on rose hardiness online on a site such as Help Me Find Roses when looking for roses you might wish to plant. Speak with rose growers in your area and ask for advice or seek out a rose society in your area. Many rose societies have web sites with information on cultivars that do well in their climate.

Grow Old Garden Roses, or Rugosa Hybrids that are iron clad hardy and proven over decades or even centuries to be hardy and beautiful garden plants. Many of these, you will have to seek out to buy from specialty online nurseries such as Fraser Valley Rose Farm in B. C., Cornhill Nursery in New Brunswick, or for those of you in the US, American suppliers such as High Country Roses, Northland Rosarium, or Freedom Gardens. These are all specialty nurseries that grow and sell many of the hardier rose varieties, including English Roses.

Below are two images of hardy English Roses, post pruning, as a visual example of how these roses faired over this past winter. The top image is The Mary Rose, the bottom one is The Pilgrim. I hope this discussion is of use to those of you who read it.

Rick Sauder, Rosarian, Summerland Ornamental Gardens. Summerland B. C.

The Simple Process of Pruning Roses

When most people think of pruning roses, they think of the ubiquitous myth related to pruning Hybrid Tea roses. That involves cutting roses back in spring to 10 centimeters (12”) and leaving only a few of the larger canes. There is nothing wrong with that method, but it is generally the method used by hard core rosarians growing tender Hybrid Tea or Floribunda type roses for large blooms or for show.

The roses in the Summerland Ornamental Gardens are all types of shrub roses. These roses are landscape plants and are meant to be hardy, easy care and to look good as a plant, rather than just a bloom producer. The primary types of roses you will see in the gardens are Canadian bred hardy shrubs, meant for the Canadian climate; David Austin English Roses, also hardy healthy shrub roses with old garden rose genetics close-up in their breeding; and finally assorted Rugosa and Old Garden Rose varieties that are often spring blooming, producing a plethora of bloom and that welcome spring with a wash of colour and fragrance.

These are all garden plants that look good interspersed with other plants, English Cottage Garden style. True, we do have several mass planted beds of roses in the Summerland Ornamental Gardens, but we also have roses in nooks and beds as landscape and accent plants.
So, now onto the simple process of pruning roses. How they are pruned depends on a few factors; how old is the plant; how big will it grow; how big do you want it to grow and how vigorous and healthy is the plant you are about to prune.

I personally have always pruned my roses using the advice of David Austin, whose English Roses are my favorite type. The roses in the Summerland Ornamental Gardens are also pruned using Mr. Austin’s method. Because English Roses are shrub roses, most shrub roses and even mature Hybrid Tea and Floribunda roses respond well to this method of pruning. Rather than re-write the book, I am sending you this link to the David Austin Roses website, titled Pruning an English Shrub Rose.

https://eu.davidaustinroses.com/blogs/news/pruning-an-english-shrub-rose

It is an excellent article written by the master who wrote the book. Pruning roses is not rocket science and in fact it is hard to make a fatal mistake. So next spring, read this article and go ahead and prune your roses with confidence and knowing they will reward you for the effort.

Cheers,
Rick Sauder
Volunteer Rosarian, Summerland Ornamental Gardens

WHEN SHOULD I PRUNE

We recommend pruning in late winter/early spring, when the first growth is beginning. This is generally between January and March. It is OK to prune earlier, but it can be more difficult to identify the less healthy stems that you will want to prune out. If you still haven’t pruned by April it is still better to do so.

HOW TO PRUNE A SHRUB ROSE

Pruning requirements vary depending on the age of your rose.

If pruned properly, your rose bush will look significantly smaller and bare. Do not be alarmed, the growth will strengthen and re-establish quickly in the spring.

Year One

We define Year One as any rose that has completed its first season of flowering.

At this stage your rose will still be establishing its roots to support growth in the future, thus only very light pruning is required.

Step 1 – cut back the flowering shoots by 7- 12 cms and any very strong shoots that are disproportionate to the rest of the plant.
Step 2 – the ‘four D’s’ – remove any dead, dying, damaged and diseased stems.
Step 3 – remove any foliage that remains. This is where disease spores can lay dormant ready to challenge your plant next year.

Year Two

Your plant will still be developing its root system and will not be at its mature size or shape.

Step 1 – cut back all stems by one third. Cut back any particularly long stems to the same length as the rest of your shrub.
Step 2 – the ‘four D’s’ – remove any dead, dying, damaged and diseased stems.
Step 3 – remove any foliage that remains.

Year Three

By the third year your rose will be a fully formed plant. Your choice of how much you cut back is a little more flexible. You now have the opportunity to influence the size and shape of your shrub.

Before pruning, choose from one of the following:

For a taller shrub – cut back by less than one third.
To maintain its current size – cut your rose back by one third.
To reduce its size – cut back by a half or even more. This will reduce the size of the shrub without impacting the amount of flowering.

Then follow these steps:

Step 1 – cut back all stems depending on your choice from above. Cut back any particularly long stems to the same length as the rest of your shrub.
Step 2 – the ‘four D’s’ – remove any dead, dying, damaged and diseased stems.
Step 3 – remove any foliage that remains.

Year Four and Beyond

To ensure your rose performs to its optimum, we recommend following the steps in Year Three.

Rose Care and Mulching

“Mulching” is the addition of a protective layer around the base of your roses. This process helps your roses to retain moisture, suppresses weeds and provides valuable nutrients for your roses as they grow. Sounds like a good idea, don’t you agree?

The Okanagan Valley is a great place to grow roses, with a couple of caveats:

– First Caveat – This is not the Coast and the winters can be harsh. We grow our gardens in climate zone 6b. Add to this the strong winds in the valley and the wind chill can easily cause winter damage equivalent to zone 5b as it did in the winters of 2015/16 and again 2021/22. This means that more tender varieties of roses, such as Hybrid Tea and Floribunda class roses, require winter care in the form of mounding to prevent extensive winter damage. That is why we grow and display mainly hardy shrub roses in the Summerland Ornamental Gardens. The hardier shrub roses breeze through an Okanagan winter without protection. But if you like to grow the more tender roses, then mounding with mulch around the plants in the fall is a simple way to help winter protect your tender roses.

– Second Caveat – It gets hot here! It doesn’t rain a lot in the summer months and thus there is a need to grow roses in a manner that conserves precious moisture and keeps the soil in which the roses are planted moist and cool. A good layer of mulch does just that.

These are some of the reasons why, when you visit the rose displays in the gardens, you will see that the plants are surrounded by a thick layer of wood chips. We have drip emitters buried under the chips to provide moisture efficiently. Wood chips are my preferred mulch and are what we use for mulch in the Gardens.

There are two further reasons that we mulch.

– The first reason is that we grow our roses organically and as the wood chips decay, they add organic material to the soil, which encourages mycorrhizae to thrive in the soil. Mycorrhizae are a symbiotic association between plant roots and fungi. Their major role is to enhance nutrient and water uptake by the host plant by exploiting a larger volume of soil than roots alone can do. We do not use chemical fertilizers, which can be harmful to the soil and the microorganisms that live in it. If you were to dig in the soil in the rose beds, you would find moist soil with lots of organic components and earthworms living happily there.

– The second reason is that a good layer of mulch deters the growth of weeds and makes maintaining a rose bed a great deal easier.

As you will see when you view the rose displays, our roses are very happy and bloom prolifically for most of the summer, evidence that the system we use is effective, I believe.

Our Organic Rose Care Process

– Early In the spring, late March or early April, we pull the remains of the existing mulch back from the plants.
– We then add a generous layer of good compost, or well-rotted manure under the drip line of each plant, and then refix the drip emitters over the compost.
– The old mulch is then raked back over the compost.
– A new layer of chips, 3 to 5 cm thick, is then added to build up the old layer of mulch which has decayed.

It is quite interesting, that even in the hot sunny Okanagan, wood chips break down to a noticeable degree, and decay over the course of the year. This is indicative of the fact, that the soil is healthy, and that the wood is being converted to compost by the weather and the organisms and plant roots in the soil. This is a natural process that contributes to the health and richness of the soil.

There are various materials that you can use with good results to mulch rose beds. These include materials such as:

Pine Bark, Cedar Bark and Wood Chips

Native hardwood chips or shredded pine or cedar bark as a mulch on top of the fertilizing compost may also help to reduce diseases that could affect your roses, according to rose expert Paul Zimmerman. Placing the wood chips on a layer of compost prevents them from leaching nitrogen from the soil as they break down. Do not use colored bark or chips for mulching roses. Lighter colored wood chips also reflect some of the intense heat of the sun away from the ground and soil beneath them.

Compost As Mulch

You can use well-rotted compost alone as a mulch, though its generally dark color absorbs heat from the hot sun in the Okanagan summers, which decreases its effectiveness at reducing moisture loss and cooling the soil under the compost. Compost, rich in nutrients, is organic matter like kitchen scraps and yard waste that has decomposed. You can make your own compost but keep in mind that the process takes about three months. Compost for roses must be free of chemicals like pesticides, herbicides and diseased organic material. There are many suppliers of bulk, high quality compost in the Okanagan Valley.

Use a layer of composted mulch such as garden compost or composted bark in a 5 cm (2-inch layer). This breaks down into the soil, enriching it after nutrients from the compost mixed into the garden soil earlier has been depleted. Composted mulch does not need a bottom layer of compost under it.

Composted Manured

You can buy bags of composted manure of various types at most garden centers, grocery chains and big box stores in the spring. Composted manure can be used as a mulch on its own, or as a base layer beneath bark or chips. Make certain that the manure you use is well rotted and composted to preclude the burning of roots or incorporating viable weed seeds into the soil. Again, the generally darker color of manure may lessen its cooling effect for the soil beneath it.

Mulching With Leaves

Shredded leaves or pine needles are a free mulch option for your roses, but you should not use yard waste that has been treated with herbicides or shows signs of disease. Like other fresh mulches, put the mulch on top of a layer of compost to keep the underlying soil enriched. Pine needles interlock and stay in place better on slopes.

Grass Clippings

Grass clippings can also be used as a mulch provided your lawn is weed free and has not been treated with herbicides or chemicals of any kind. Grass clippings should be dried prior to use. Be aware that dry grass clippings are subject to being blown around if used in windy locations. They work best when used jointly with other types of compost.

Additional Organic Fertilizer

Roses, particularly roses that repeat bloom, are heavy feeders. In my own garden, I feed my roses every few weeks with fish fertilizer. The brand I personally use is “Alaska Fish Fertilizer”; there are others. It is reasonably priced, about $30.00 for 4 liters, which lasts me for several years. It is mixed in a watering can according to directions and applied every two to three weeks to each plant from mid-June until mid-August. The results in a small rose garden are well worth the extra effort.

Always remember, “No garden can grow well without the presence of the gardener and the shadow of their being there.”

Rick Sauder, Rosarian
Summerland Ornamental Gardens

Rose Propagation PowerPoint

The Canadian Heritage Rose Garden

by Rick Sauder

“The many great gardens of the world… all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden.” –Thomas Moore (1478-1535)

The Summerland Ornamental Gardens has long had a large collection, or perhaps I should say collections, of roses. However, due to the volunteer nature of the Friends of the Summerland Ornamental Gardens, and lack of expertise on the part of the volunteer gardeners who care for this large (15 acre), garden, the rose collections had fallen into a state of benign neglect over a period of many years. In 2017, an experienced volunteer rosarian joined the organization and began the task of rejuvenating the existing rose collection. With several seasons of proper pruning, fertilizing and care, the roses throughout the gardens have come back to full health and glory and provided visitors to the Gardens with a display of blooms in June well worth a trip to the Gardens for the roses alone.

The new Canadian Heritage Rose Garden began as a concept to showcase the rose cultivars bred by Canadian hybridizers. The idea sprang from the discovery of a large bed of quarter- century old Explorer and Morden series roses buried under a three-meter-tall hedge of Mahonia in a neglected area of the Gardens in 2016. Over the next three years, this bed was cleared out and rejuvenated with spectacular results. This discovery showcased just how tough and hardy the Canadian bred roses are and how beautiful they can be when well grown and cared for. The fact that many of the older Canadian bred cultivars where never properly marketed or appreciated and that many of them are now rare and even verging on extinction prompted the idea to create a new collection to preserve and showcase roses bred by Canadian breeders. The collection, when completed in 2021, will include many extremely rare old cultivars, as well as roses from the Agriculture Canada ornamental breeding programs that resulted in the Explorer and Morden series roses. It will also showcase roses from the current Canadian Artist and 49^th Parallel Series roses, as well as those of modern Canadian rose breeders such as Brad Jalbert and Paul Barden

There are very few other collections of these roses in Canada, or in the world for that matter. There is a small collection at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, another two collections in Alberta at Brooks and at Olds College; there is also a collection in Coquitlam. The collection at the Summerland Ornamental Gardens, however, is unique in the range and variety of Canadian bred roses. Especially with respect to both older and rarer varieties. It also seems fitting that this collection sits on property owned by the Summerland Research and Development Centre to celebrate the contribution that government research and government plant breeders have played in creating these unique, hardy and lovely roses. Bred for Canada by Canadians.

Rose from the Dead

Yikes! Canadian roses are going extinct!

By Bridget Wayland, Harrowsmith Magazine

A Canadian rose is, by definition, an easy-care, disease-resistant rose, bred to withstand the ravages of a Canadian winter. It needs no spraying, or indeed much of anything except your rapt admiration.

And Canada has produced nearly 600 such roses over the past hundred years, courtesy of such hybridizers as Frank Skinner, Percy Wright, Isabella Preston, Robert Erskine and Georges Bugnet, not to mention Dr. Felicitas Svejda, creator of the Explorer roses (named for explorers like Henry Hudson and Martin Frobisher), and her Agriculture Canada colleagues from Manitoba, who developed the popular Parkland series (the Morden roses).

“I’d say 400 registered Canadian roses have already been lost.”

They’re not very old, but they’re heirlooms nonetheless, and like heritage seeds and little-known livestock breeds, Canadian roses are falling by the wayside. In fact, when the first ever All-Canadian Rose Show was held in 2008, they were lucky to get 125 cultivars under one roof from 30 rose hybridizers.

Show organizer Mark Disero, who grows 500 roses in Brant County, Ontario, was not surprised: “I’d say 400 registered Canadian roses have already been lost.” He singles out ‘Grace,’ a fine, yellow rose created in 1892 by William Saunders. “Until 1980, it was listed at the experimental farm in Ottawa and was the only place that had it,” Disero says, “but many of their rose fields have been ploughed under, so now, Grace no longer exists.”

Recreating the genetics of a lost variety is very difficult, if not impossible: Once it’s gone, it’s gone. “How do we develop new landscape roses for our climate, if we can’t learn from the past success of Canadian hybridizers?” asks Disero. “That is why saving the old cultivars is so important, so that modern hybridizers don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”

And many other roses are in same situation. “Of the 10 or 15 roses bred

by Isabella Preston, only one (‘Carmenetta’) can be found in commerce today,” says Disero. “Frank Skinner also bred extremely hardy, beautiful roses, like his 1950 introduction, ‘Suzanne.’ But his nursery is closed now. I bet within 20 years we’ll lose half the Skinner roses.”

Not all Canadian roses are disappearing. It’s still easy to find old standbys, like ‘Therese Bugnet,’ the most popular Canadian rose, and the early Explorer roses for which the patent has run out, like ‘John Cabot,’ ‘John Davis’ and ‘Champlain,’ at most garden centres. Others, however, like the Parkland series’ ‘Morden Amorette’ and ‘Morden Cardinette,’ are quite endangered. “I search far and wide, and can only find them in the U.S., Germany and Italy, if at all,” says Disero.So, if they were so great, why were they lost? The answer is simple: because

they were not very well marketed. To survive, roses need to be commercialized, not just kept in research stations. But, according to Disero, only American, British and European roses ever get promoted in this country. “It’s like Beachcombers syndrome: ‘If it’s Canadian, it’s not worth looking at!’” Disero wryly remarks, referring to Can-con TV.

As a result, Canadian roses are not well known in their home and native land. “They’re not trialled in Canada; they’re not taught in horticulture schools; they’re not used by landscape designers,” says Disero. “They’re pushed to the background at botanic gardens, when they should be front and centre. I’d even say that Canadian gardeners are losing interest in roses generally, because the roses marketed in Canada don’t grow well here.” No wonder they’re slipping by the wayside.

What can you do to help? Keen gardeners could raise awareness about Canadian roses by helping their local rose society put on an All-Canadian Rose Show of its own, or at least beef up the Canadian rose categories at local flower shows. And above all, even the casual grower should grow Canadian roses. Just be sure to purchase them from Canadian sources (see sidebar for suggestions from coast to coast), and encourage those nurseries that are maintaining them, against all odds.

So forget imported tender teas and all those chemical-dependent prima donnas that are just not cut out for the Canadian climate. Turn instead to our easy, stunningly beautiful shrub roses that are perfectly suited to an organic backyard anywhere this side of Zone 2. And act quickly, because if more people don’t start growing, showing and appreciating our hardy, disease-resistant, Canadian roses, they may soon disappear forever. After all, if we don’t save them, who will?

Canada’s long history of rose breeding

STEVE WHYSALL

Updated: January 22, 2015

Emily Carr rose

Canada has a long and successful history of breeding cold-tolerant roses.

In 1900, William Saunders started a government-funded rose breeding program in Ottawa, producing ‘Agnes’, which was introduced in 1922. In the 1960s, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada set up rose breeding programs at Morden, Manitoba and Saint- Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. Significant hybridizing was being done by Felicitas Svejda. Working with the hardy pillar rose, Rosa kordesii from Germany, and various compact repeat-blooming rugosa roses, such as ‘Fru Dagmar Hastrup’ and ‘Schneezwerg’, Svejda ended up producing 25 hardy cultivars, which were named after Canadian explorers.

Mostly pink and red roses with a few yellows, these cold-tolerant hybrids comprise a mix of climbers, shrub and rugosa types. Top climbers include ‘John Cabot’, ‘William Baffin’, ‘Henry Kelsey’, ‘John Davis’, and ‘Quadra’. Rugosas include ‘Jens Munk’, Henry Hudson’, ‘Charles Albanel’ and ‘David Thompson’. In the shrub category, there’s ‘Champlain’, ‘John Franklin’, ‘Captain Samuel Holland’, ‘Louis Jolliet’ and the yellow-rose ‘J. P. Connell’.

Winnipeg Parks rose

Between 1967 and 2004, another series of 16 hardy shrub roses were developed at Morden called the Parkland series. Many of these roses have Morden in their name, such as ‘Modern Centennial’, ‘Morden Blush’ and ‘Morden Sunrise’. Others include ‘Winnipeg Parks’ and Hope for Humanity’. Between 2007 and 2014, the Canadian Artist series of roses were introduced. Four roses, named ‘Bill Reid’, ‘Emily Carr’, ‘Felix Leclerc’ and ‘Campfire’ (after Tom Thomson), were introduced. More roses in the series, including a white ‘Oscar Peterson’ rose, are expected to be released over the next few years.

This spring, the ‘Never Alone Rose’, a hardy red rose developed from the genetic rose bank at Morden, will be sold to raise money to “improve the lives of people affected by cancer.” About 300,000 ‘Never Alone Roses’ will be offered at garden centres and nurseries across Canada. It is an effort being supported by the Canadian Football League’s Alumni Association.

Meanwhile, in Langley, B.C.’s most famous rose breeder, Brad Jalbert, of Select Roses, has introduced about 100 roses and continues to germinate about 5,000 seedlings a year in his quest to develop new and exciting roses. “By 2017, we will have launched roses on four continents, “says Jalbert. “Canada is a tiny rose market and most of my roses will find more success in other markets.” By the end of this decade, Canadian roses are expected to be the talk of the rose world with beautiful specimens for gardeners everywhere.

swhysall@vancouversun.com

Morden Blush rose.

Canada’s quest to breed super-hardy roses

STEVE WHYSALL

Updated: January 22, 2015

Rumen Conev, research scientists at Vineland, doing rose breeding

Canada is on track to becoming the best producer of super-hardy, disease-resistant roses in the world. The goal is to breed a whole series of fantastic new roses that will thrive in the coldest regions of the world. Russia and Scandinavia are the two key target markets along with cold regions of the U.S. and Canada, although the roses are also being bred with a classic “European beauty” that should make them equally big sellers in more temperate zones, such as here in coastal B.C. The breeding work is being done at Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, outside St.Catharines, Ontario, but top B.C. nurseries, such as Bylands in Kelowna and Van Belle in Abbotsford, are playing an important role as testing stations. There are also at least 10 other trial gardens throughout Canada working with Vineland to make sure the right roses get selected.

Breeding hardy roses for cold regions such as Scandinavia and Russia

If all goes to plan, by 2018 the first of the super-hardy Canadian roses will be introduced. Sales are expected to be phenomenal as there is interest in the project being shown by horticulturalists all over Europe, especially in Scandinavia, as well as Russia, where they can’t wait to get their hands on roses that can survive their harsh winters. At Vineland, between 15,000 and 20,000 “crosses” (cross pollinated roses) are made each year, resulting in 30,000 to 60,000 seeds. When these seeds germinate, the plants are closely inspected and only the top 50 selected. This number is reduced again with only the best two or three hybrids being put forward for trials.

It is an intense and complex process that has been going on for the past four years.

The results so far have been exciting with roses emerging from the program that are not only super-tolerant to extreme cold but also highly disease resistant, even to such common rose ailments as blackspot. “We are targeting Russia and Scandinavia and have already established partnerships there,” says Rumen Conev, head research scientist at Vineland.

“We want to take this program global. Success will mean selling roses in the biggest markets in Europe. We also hope to take our roses into at least 20 of the 50 states in the US. But overall, we think Russia will be our biggest market.”

One of the new super-cold tolerant roses

All of the genetic material being used to create the new roses came from work done over the past 50 years at government-funded horticultural research stations at Morden, Manitoba and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. It was out of these plant-breeding programs that the first hardy Canadian roses were developed, starting in the 1970s with the Canadian Explorer series, followed by the Parkland series, and more recently, the Artist series.

In 2009, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced that it was getting out of the plant-breeding business and planned to close the Manitoba and Quebec centres.

There was a strong reaction from the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association, which represents more than 3,800 companies in the gardening business across Canada.

The CNLA decided to step in and save the plant breeding programs along with all the genetic material that had been collected and developed over the years.

In 2010, CNLA signed an agreement with the federal government to obtain all the genetic material and royalty rights from the previous programs.

One of the new super-cold tolerant roses

Next, the association formed a partnership with Vineland to breed extremely hardy roses as well as ones highly resistant to diseases. The federal government, however, did agree to support the new initiative with a $500,000 grant to get the ball rolling. Last year, it approved another grant of $2.4 million for the program. A Heritage Fund has also been set up into which will go all royalties from the roses developed at Morden and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu over the years. This fund is expected to provide at least $30,000 a year and should safely see the program up to the launch of the new roses in 2018.

“What is different about the way we are doing things today is that we have a much better business model,” says Conev. “In the past, the government for some reason never really actively pursued collecting royalties from the sale of roses. “Today, we are making sure all our roses are legally protected to ensure all profits come back to self-seed this program.” Another key difference, says Conev, is that a lot of work has been done to set up a global testing network to guarantee that selected roses prove their worth before being introduced. “We also have a much stronger emphasis on disease resistance as well as cold hardiness.” says Conev. “There is no other program in the world making this kind of investment in developing roses that are able to thrive even in places where temperatures dip to minus 35.”

The goal, Conev says, is also to produce beautiful roses, ones that are “comparable to European plants in terms of the beauty factor.” At Vineland, the creative development team also includes market-researchers and style analysts who study consumer trends in order to identify what rose colours and styles are popular. All these factors are taken into consideration in selecting the final roses,” Conev says. And while he acknowledges the excellent rose-breeding work being done at European nurseries such as Kordes in Germany, he says the new Canadian roses will be “as hardy as the old Explorer roses and better and as disease resistant as Kordes roses and better” as well as also having the beauty of top European-bred roses. Says Conev: “We’re right on track and we have some very good plant material in the pipeline.”

Winnipeg Parks rose

At the turn of the century, before there were garden centres and retail nurseries, a lot of plants were bred at government-run agricultural research stations, dotted across the country. The last rose to be released from the Government breeding program is the “Olds College Centennial Rose”. Olds College Rose was named after the 100th anniversary of Olds College, Alberta. It has beautiful peach coloured, double flowers from June to September. This hardy rose was developed by Morden Research and Development Centre in Manitoba. This rose was bred by AAFC hybridizer Larry Dyck in 2000 and released in 2013 as CA-31 before its renaming.

Olds College Centennial Rose

The Canadian Explorer rose series — 22 cultivars in all — was one of the best collections produced between the 1960s and 1990s. The roses were bred with the express purpose of being super cold-hardy, making them ideal for growing anywhere in Canada. When the government closed its research stations, the Canadian National Landscape Association took over the breeding stock and began to develop its rose collection.This was launched in 2007 with the Artist series. ‘Felix Leclerc’ was the first rose to be introduced followed by ‘Emily Carr’ and ‘Bill Reid.’ The last introduction was ‘Campfire’, a rose honouring a painting of the same name by artist Tom Thomson.

Bill Reid rose.

Morden Blush rose.

Inn 2016 the hybridizing operation was moved to the Vineland Research and Inovation Centre in Vineland, Ontario. The rose program at Vineland focuses on breeding cold hardy garden and landscape roses, developing disease resistance screening techniques and understanding consumer preference and markets for Canadian roses. The first commercial releases

from Canada’s National Hardy Rose Program are part of Vineland’s 49th Parallel Collection. The roses are low-maintenance and continuously bloom all summer long. They are also disease resistant and winter hardy to -40ºC meaning there are no shrinking violets in this collection. The roses are products of Canada’s national rose program established in 2010 at Vineland in partnership with the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association. The first release in the collection, Canadian Shield^TM, was named Canada Blooms’ 2017 Plant of the Year. The second release, Chinook Sunrise^TM will be available in 2019, followed by Aurora Borealis^TM in 2021.

Chinook Sunrise Rose

The Canadian Heritage Rose Garden,

Some of Our Rare Heritage Roses

Victorian Memory, aka: Isabella Skinner Climbing Rose

Repeat-blooming climber that may exceed 10 ft. “Victorian Memory,” a zone 3 or 2 rose found growing in Denver (probably ‘Isabella Skinner’), with pink, ruffled flowers whose fragrant petals litter the ground.

Prairie Peace,

Yellow blend Hybrid Spinosissima. Bred by Robert Mackay Erskine (Canada, circa 1975). Hybrid Spinosissima, Shrub. Yellow and salmon-pink, light pink blending. Strong fragrance. 25 petals. Semi-double to double, cupped bloom form. Spring or summer flush with scattered later bloom. Height of up to 10′ (up to 305 cm). USDA zone 2b and warmer. Very hardy.

Erskine wrote to Percy Wright:

June 23. A rose seedling (Beauty of Leafland x Hazledean) has 3 beautiful pink and yellow double flowers open today. It is about the color of the Peace rose so I may call it “Prairie Peace”.

Suzanne/Spinosissima breeding

Bred by F. L. Skinner in 1950, this is generally

considered to be an F2 hybrid of (‘Stanwell

Perpetual’ X R. laxa). It is a tetraploid, which is what you

would expect, given that both parents are tetraploids.

‘Suzanne’ has played a significant role in the breeding ofthe Canadian Explorer series of roses, contributing both disease resistance and Winter hardiness. The key hybrid in creating the Explorer roses was a seedling by Robert Simonet of ‘Red Dawn’ X ‘Suzanne’, with deep pink semi double blooms. Ian Ogilvie and Felicitas Svejda at Morden and AgCan took this hybrid on for breeding and in combination with R. kordesii’ and others, created the Explorers. ‘John Davis’, ‘WilliamBaffin’ and ‘Champlain’ all include ‘Suzanne’ in theirpedigree.

Louise Bugnet Rose

White, near white or white blend Hybrid Rugosa. Bred by Georges Bugnet (Canada, before 1960). White, green undertones. Light purple steaks on underside of outer petals. Moderate fragrance. Medium, double (17-25 petals), in small clusters bloom form. Occasional repeat later in the season. Thornless (or almost). Medium, semi-glossy, wrinkled (rugose) foliage. Height of 3′ (90 cm). Width of 5′ (150 cm).

USDA zone 2b and warmer. Very hardy. produces decorative hips.

Martha Bugnet × Thérèse Bugnet (Rugosa, Bugnet, 1950)

Georges Bugnet named ‘Therese Bugnet’ after a favourite sister and the rest of his roses were named after his daughters. (courtesy of P. Olsen)