I was partially right on the missing lineage. Per the Canadian Rose Annual (1992):
"PERFECT MOMENT (JACK DAYSON), HT (Reimer Kordes '89 int '91) [New Day x (Mercedes x unnamed seedling)], (rb) dark chrome yellow/brushed fire red, 30-35 petals, AARS '91."
Color Wonder ->Anabell ->Mercedes->un-named seedling. So 3rd generation Color Wonder seedling.
I have about 350 rose bushes so I have scads of roses all the time. I bought Perfect Moment last year and it did okay but not great. However this year it has really started to turn on the jets. I just cut three roses for a friend whose daughter was getting married and I supplied the roses for her. We cut 5 big vases full of HT roses for her. It had been raining pretty solidly for two days. The three Perfect Moment roses I cut were the most beautiful HT roses I have ever had in my garden. With 350 rose bushes that means I have seen alot of roses in my 10 years of growing them. The blooms were huge 6" across, completely saturated with stunning red/orange and yellow color, had perfect exhibition form with drilled centers, a nice light fragrance, stems 20+ inches long and strong and straight as an arrow though very thorny, deep green shiny perfect foliage, and the rain for two days hadn't had one iota of affect on the bloom or bush in any way. These three roses were stunning. From the top of the high center bloom to the base of flower was at least 4" tall. This rose may very well become my new all-time favorite rose of all. The only drawback so far about the rosebush is that I think it is a bit stingy with it's blooms. But, the saving grace to that is that I can always buy more bushes if I want more flowers, and I probably will. I see on the Lineage tab that there are no listed descendants, so I am guessing it may be sterile but I hope not. I would love to use that rose for breeding in my hybridyzing program. I would use it either as a pollen or a seed parent, it doesn't matter. If any rosarian growing this rose has ever tried to breed with it I would appreciate the heads-up so I can get an idea what has been done with it in the past. I live in zone 5/6 border and I don't winter protect. This past winter was a particularly cold and nasty one and this rose seemed to do just fine, so I am assuming that it is a rather winter hardy rose. Also, we had one of the hottest and dryest-though humid-summers this year we have ever had here. This rose seemed to be pretty much unaffected while many of my roses were severely affected by the heat by dropping alot if not most of their leaves when they went into "drought mode" whereby they drop leaves to prevent themselves from losing what precious moisture that they had through the leaves of bush. Also, while the flower size did diminish a bit, they didn't shrink or lose petalage like many of my roses of all types and kinds did during this extremeley long and trying summer heat. I think I would easily recommend this rose for about anyone who loves beautiful roses and especially if you are looking for a good cut rose for vase. I saw the blooms today which is four days since they were cut and they still look just as fresh and new as they did then when we were cutting them in the rain. John
This is the best cutting rose in my garden. The color is red tips with an orange base. It is really a stunning rose! The stems have ample, dangerous thorns, the bush is a healthy dark green. If I moved this would be the one HT that I would move with me!
