Recommendations for Thomas Affleck

[Rob Byrnes NJ zone 6b]

Has anyone used this one in breeding? I understand she is very healthy.

Rob

[Rob Byrnes]

reposting and hoping someone has a response. Just received this one today and wondering how successful she will be as a parent either way.

[Peter Harris]

Rob,

I bought Thomas Affleck from Chamblees in 2005 and used it in some crosses in 2006 and 2007. It did set some hips, although not with large numbers of seeds, perhaps because of the pollen I was using. As I recall, the hips were shaped a lot like those of its parent Carefree Beauty.

I lost my plant in 2008--I don't remember the reason. I think I still have one seedling from TA x R15-01. The seedling has a pretty flower, and it repeats, but its petals are thin. As I recall, most of the relatively few seedlings I had from Thomas Affleck had fairly thin petals, but crosses with thick-petaled parents could cure that problem.

TA's pollen parent, Basye's Blueberry, makes TA potentially valuable as a parent.

Peter

[Rob Byrnes]

Peter,

Thank your for your reply and For sharing your experience. When I learned about TA's parentage I had to order it. I will be using TA with miniatures and hope to maintain disease resistance and hopefully reduced/no thorns in miniatures. Thanks again.

[mwesson]

Rob,

Did you ever have any success with Thomas Affleck? I've considered this one several times but there's not a lot of information on it. Thanks.

Mark

[MidAtlas]

It might not be an entirely fair test, but I purchased a Thomas Affleck along with several other "Pioneer" roses this season and watched them during the growing season to evaluate their performance and to decide whether and where to plant them here in my Maryland garden. TA was severely affected by black spot and basically grew backward all season. The reports of its health elsewhere online are encouraging, but I'm not sure that this plant looks as if it could actually recover and become healthy here.

Basye's Blueberry and Basye's Legacy, both now in their second year, were also leafless for most of the growing season but managed to increase in size a bit.

Stefan

[mwesson]

Thanks Stefan. I grew Basye's Blueberry nearly twenty years ago (in Alabama) and it did very well for me. Carefree Beauty did reasonably well for me here in Mississippi, so I hoped their offspring might be useful.

Mark

[MidAtlas]

If it helps any, I'm a lot more impressed with Cole's Settlement; I have a feeling that the Heritage parentage is helpful. Although it wasn't completely disease-free, it was pretty healthy, vigorous, and almost constantly in flower--with very attractive blooms. It also sets hips well.

Stefan

[Rob Byrnes]

Thank you for the recommendation Stefan. I found TA to be BS prone in my garden.