Virus free 'Paul's Scarlet Climber'

Sad day today... I pulled out my big 'Paul's Scarlet Climber'. It was virused and the virus was gaining the upper hand. It was a favourite here so if anyone has a virus-free version they could spare cuttings/budwood from I'd love to hear from you. mine was planted as shrub and fits this role very nicely. Will be sad to see it go.

I am like you Simon had it up to the back teeth with growers selling Virused plants. I think some think should be done, maybe an accreditation on growers is given if clean of this damm thing . Put in a whole stack of roses for a client last year and now the whole lot have it. I dont think the problem would be to hard to solve, clean rootstock and budwood or maybe they dont care as long as they are making a buck.

Every time I buy in stock for breeding it is one of my greatest concerns as it has not poked its head up here yet and I hope never.

I've pretty much given up on getting virus free forms of a lot of rose, Warren. Instead I have decided to use them as breeding stock to make my own plants and then discard the infected ones. 'Paul's Scarlet Climber' is a good example of a rose that is really quite excellent for Australia. I t gets a bit of black spot sometimes but for most the year it is as clean as a whistle here. It's a cross between 'Paul's Carmine Pillar' and 'Reve d'Or'. 'Paul's Scarlet Climber makes a really good shrub here. It's canes are stout and the plant bushes out nicely if grown unsupported. It gets this trait from 'Reve d'Or' which can also be grown as a shrub. I reckon an improved version of 'Paul's Scarlet' could be made by going back to 'Reve d'Or' and putting her with something red and healthy like 'Sympathie'. I'd discard the ones that were too 'floppy' and only retain the ones that were stout and self-supporting like PSC is. I'd also consider something like 'Reve d'Or' x 'Slater's Crimson' to make something similar to PCS.

I think there is also an argument to try and breed better virus-free understocks. On my cross-list this year is thornless multiflora x Dr Phoeey... now I just have to get them to flower at the same time

I would put 'Reve d'Or' pollen on 'Sympathie' to obtain something very similar to 'Paul's Scarlet'. You would get one tough little cookie and from all the crosses I have done using 'Sympathie"it would easily be achieved right down to the colour. The good thing about 'Sympathie'is it receptivenes to diploid pollen, I dont think you would have problems at all.

Talking about Paul's, I am going to use 'Pauls Lemon Pillar this spring.

I am not going to mention any 'nursery' by name, but, do the members of this forum have "issues" with any one nursery or multipile nurseries. If the nurseries that have this problem are notified by "US" the purchasers, noting which rose cares this virus, we as group could pass on by word of mouth the offending rose/nursery the flick and try to source from other places, This is only my opinion, Regards David.