Anyone heard of Green Ice

You may be interested in this little rose Simon - its a mini but spreads. Bought it from Bunnings as a seedling for $3. Has white small ruffled blooms which turn to green much like the Viridiflora rose ... may be a cross, but certainly a mini. Will take pics and post when it gets some.

Any info would be good, am growing it in a large hanging basket at the moment (1wk old).

Hi Rita,

I actually have about 100 of them Last winter I pruned my four main plants very hard so I could move them and struck all the prunings. I'm trying to get them growing well and bigger for my children's school fair for the plant stall to help raise money for the school... If you get a chance to go and have a look on HMF and look for a little rose called 'Kindred Ice' you will see I have one seedling from 'Green Ice' that is the only listed descendant of it (see link at the bottom). The one you bought is NOT a seedling if it is listed as 'Green Ice'. 'Green Ice' is one of Mr Ralph Moore's earlier miniatures and is a beautiful healthy mini that has stood the test of time after neing introduced in 1971. Growing it in a hanging basket is one of the best ways to grow it as the weeping branches will grow many many more laterals as they bend over the edge and it will, in a short time, be smothered in blooms. The blooms tend to get pink fungal spots for me here... they don't like getting their flowers wet It is largely infertile but I have been successful in making one cross with it this year (with 'Veilchenblau'... it seems to accept hybrid multiflora pollen) and the little pot-grown cuttings (that are doing it tough here because I'm hopeless at growing things in pots... they just need too much attention and I have too much on my plate to give it to them in sufficient quantities ) have also formed a few open pollinated hips. 'Kindred Ice' has inherited all of 'Green Ice's health and vigour and but has larger shell pink flowers that don't spot. Here's a link straight to 'Kindred Ice'. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. I have a few cuttings of 'Kindred Ice' in because I was concerned that there was only one plant of it in extistence... with any luck they will have struck. This is going to be the first rose I introduce I think... once I have grown it for a few more years under trial conditions and send it to other places for testing. It's such a nice little rose that is ideal for rockeries and hanging baskets itself with a faint wiff of a perfume.

'Green Ice' strikes ridiculously easily from cuttings. When I pruned mine last winter I snipped them into 3-5cm long stems with two to 3 buds each and set them all in flats. A very large % of them struck and are now about 15-20cm tall. It would look really good on the top of a retaining wall, enmasse, spilling over it or tumbling over rocks in a steep rockery... used in the same way as your photo of 'Snow Carpet' on HMF. It is, however, one thorny customer and it takes no prisoners! Once it grabs you it aint letting go 'Kindred Ice' is, fortunately, completely thornless so far... unusual for a wichurana hybrid.

Thanks Simon, I am so lazy these days, should have researched HMF in the first place, but thought of you first and was sure you would be on top of this one.

That's exactly the reason I bought it ... the small foliage and its habit so reminded me of the 'Snow Carpet' I grew in my other garden. I so loved that little rose, but was keeping a keen eye on its growth as I saw it in Gretchen's nursery out at Kurrajong and it was a mound to be reckoned with!!

I would be happy to 'trial' your 'Kindred Ice' up here if you are looking this way. I certainly would never have wanted to feel faint anywhere around it.

Your CM is growing in leaps and bounds now that it's in the ground. it has has several flushes since planting it last September and like you advised, it tends to be prostrate which I love as it is growing at the feet of St Cecilia, Evelyn and The Reeve - across from it is Lilian Austin who shares a similar colour.

Are you getting some rain down there? We have had about 3 inches now - the most in a few years that I've seen and the first good downpour since planting my new roses garden here.

No rain here... it's dry as a bone here at the moment though the soil is still quite moist deeper down as I have been watering heavily. The growth habit of your CM is unusual to me as the parent plant is a mound forming plant, though it is grafted. Bruce told me some time back that sometimes when you are grafting climbers if you take a bud from the wrong place... say a none-climbing portion of the the plant... that it the resulting plant can lose the climbing tendency. This, I as understand it, is only a problem with sported climbers as sometimes some portions of the plant can revert to its non-climbing form where as natural climbers grow more true to type from pretty much any bud. I have also read that in Wollomi Pine trees, if you take a tip-cutting from the terminal bud the resulting plant will grow upwards as you would expect but if you take the tip-cutting from a lateral branch the resulting plant never assumes tree-like form. Instead it grows like a prostrate creeper (personally I love the idea of a protrate Wollemi but can understand why they don't do it as a rule ). Since learning of the Wollemi's tendencies to do this I have often wondered whether roses also behave in such a way??? Clearly the growth of your CM doesn't solve this question... but it is interesting isn't it??? I have a feeling that it might be a climate thing and in your warmer climate CM is able to put on more luxuriant growth and its wichurana background means that it doesn't have the structural integrity to support it. When the branches grow along the ground does it behave like a pegged out rose and throw lots of vertical lateral buds? Maybe you could train your Cm as a pillar rose or a climber???

I have a very very small plant of 'Snow Carpet' down here that I am trying to rescue. I've had it for two years now and have nearly lost it a few times... it's barely 10cm x 10cm and not more than 5cm tall. It is looking more healthy at the moment than it has in a very long time and I am hoping that now that I have put it in the ground again (under Fort Knox-like conditions... in a cage so nothing can harm it), it will begin to establish and then start to grow. If I manage to rescue it and nurse it back to health so I can see some of the vigour it's reputed to have I will put some in for you and send you a plant.