a good year for the roses

Man, what a winter. July and we are still talkin' about it. I guess we will always. A once in a lifetime winter, one can only hope and pray. With the extended temperatures below freezin' and zero you had to expect damage to plants and loss of some others. We are now quantifyin' the extended wrath of what became the winter of the "polar vortex".
So I had a dream of ownin' my very own nursery and in October the local representative of a big box home improvement chain dropped prices on all their remainin' stock of plants in order to make room for the seasonal shipment of Christmas trees. I got all the crape myrtles for a dollar apiece, the peonies for the same price, the last two white rhododendrons, and I was makin' my two year old a butterfly garden so I picked up the last of the Buddleias. She showed a proclivity for chasin' and catchin' them that belied her age. And they had a rebloomin' Azalea and a price of $5 on the Japanese Maples (mislabeled as they were).
I ended the day with ten each of the crape myrtles and Buddleia, eight peonies, one Azalea, the two rhododendrons, seven Japanese Maples, and a weigela. But, when the seasons changed the weather changed suddenly, drastically, and permanently. Then we soon learned what a " polar vortex " was.
As delicate as they appear the JMs outperformed every plant on the property, even established plants. The devastation was total.
Come spring, replacements were sought out. I had been growin' indoors, under lights all winter in preparation for a grand openin' and in anticipation of the greenhouse I planned on buildin' when the sun came back. A trip to the big box store tempted my starved soul with big, fragrant hybrid tea roses and i impulsively collected one of each color.
Now, whenever I acquire a new plant, I consult all the usual suspects and exhaust every source I can find. In a moment of divine intervention I came across a video by Paul Zimmerman and Brad Jalbert and found Paul Barden's now idle blog and the rest, as they say, is history.
Who knew that major breakthroughs and history makin' developments in plant genetics could be made by normal amateurs like Will Radler or me? Well, you probably did know, but I was clueless. A year ago, I didn't even know what a rose hip was.
When I received the David Austin Roses catalog and realized he breeds all those beautiful plants himself I decided to embark on the current journey. Man, I feel like a real scientist contributin' my own discoveries to the world.
Fortunately, it has been a good year for the roses. They like it hot. More importantly, all my roses are new plants because I refused to grow them for so many years. Status quo and not wanting to conform to the norms of society and all.

R. Gallica and I am unsure of the darker one. Maybe Dr. Huey?

This is what I had to work with. That is, before I went shoppin'. There were a couple of 'Knockout's on the property as well, the original single 'RADrazz' and a yellow one 'RADsunny', which I just ignored initially because of their ubiquity. 

 'JFK'

 'Ambassador'

 'Sonia' 

Apparently the best selling rose of all time.

'Chrysler Imperial'

Knowing absolutely nothin' about what I was doin', not even knowin' why I was doin', I proceeded to buy these hybrid teas. Technically, 'Sonia' is a grandiflora. Turns out, I was doin' somethin' wrong and right at the same time. Propagation is problematic with the hybrid teas from cuttings, which is how I planned to move forward. I humbly submit that I am a gifted propagator, except that I have not yet attempted graftin'. But I figure if I can consistently root Japanese maples from cuttings then anything is possible.

Luckily, these roses were exactly where I needed to begin. After more research into genetics and breeding theory and learnin' about how leadin' breeders of today work it looks like I lucked onto the right path. Even David Austin uses the hybrid teas crossed with his "English Roses".

My stroke of idiocy paid off quickly. Seems like they were good father plants when I crossed their pollen with r. gallica and they seem to be decent mother plants as well. 

 I am a novice admittedly, but, to me that looks like a pregnant hip.

Then I had what I considered a moment of genius inspiration. If the 'Knockout' family was such an improvement and displayed disease resistance and was remontant and the gallica I was utilizin' was blackspot susceptible and a one time bloomer, why not cross the two? If all it accomplished was addin' a fragrance to the 'Knockout' then that was somethin'.

The one pictured is 'RADtko' the double. It happens to be an excellent pollen donor but as a seed parent it is a bust. At first I couldn't understand why. But now, I know. One of its attributes is bein' a self-cleaner, which means when the bloom is done it dries up and drops off.

So now one of my gallica bushes is covered in handmade tags with very scientific lookin' numbers and dashes on them.