SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING HARDINESS AND HYBRIDIZATION

HYBRID HORSE CHESTNUT FLOWER

HYBRID ROSE 'KNOCKOUT'

WILD PRAIRIE ROSE

Tuesday, 8:00 AM.  57 degrees at the ferry dock, five degrees cooler on the back porch. Wind N, light with stronger gusts.  The sky is partly cloudy with some high overcast, but is clearing.  We got .2" of rain last night, the humidity is 82% and the barometer is rising, now at 30.0".  We will have several days of nice, if cool, weather.
   We are leaving shortly for tomorrow's meeting of northern Wisconsin city foresters in Wausau.  It will be of particular interest to me because we will be touring the site of a newly developing public garden there.  Buddy, who is still convalescing, will stay at the vet's kennel in Ashland.
   The hybrid buckeyes and horse chestnuts are closely related, and the nomenclature can be confusing. Both are in the Hippocastanaceae family, which translates directly from the Latin to "horse chestnut." The above flower photo is probably of  'Ruby Red' horse chestnut. The tree has been growing in Bayfield for at least twenty years.  It is normally very winter hardy and blooms well; this year the blooms have been few and not as lush as usual, and the tree looks scruffy.  We also have a number of 'Fort McNair' hybrid red buckeyes planted along Bayfield city streets that have been quite dependable, but this year the blooms were few, and the trees suffered winter damage.  Last winter was severe in many ways; extreme cold, heavy snow load, damaging winds, ice and road salt.  If we return to more normal winters these trees will do well again; if extremely harsh winters are the new norm we will have to revise our opinions of these hybrids.
   Speaking of hybrids, the rose has been selectively hybridized for hundreds, if not thousands of years.  Roses are hybridized and selected for many qualities; size and form of  bloom, scent, hardiness, quality and color of leaves, lack of thorns, etc.  Many, if not most, commercially grown roses are not only hybrids, but are grafted onto separately grown root stocks for increased production, hardiness, etc.
The whole rose subject is far too complicated to go into here, and in any case I am not a rose expert, so I shall only make a few comments to emphasize the great differences between the wild rose progenitors and their hybrid relatives.
   The wild rose pictured above is probably the prairie rose, Rosa suffulta,or  perhaps R. caroliniana.  It certainly has beauty and utility in the native landscape, but from the standpoint of the usual human concept of beauty it is a far cry form one of the newer and most successful hybrids, 'Knockout' (hybridized by Bill Radler of Hales Corners, Wisconsin).  Keep in mind that most, if not all, horticultural hybridization and selection is still the result of the ancient art of cross breeding and related horticultural practices.  There is little or nothing concerning "GMO" (genetically modified organisms) going on with roses or most other horticultural crops; just years of hard work and waiting for the results.  In the final analysis, "A rose is a rose is a rose."