My first attempt at hybridizing

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DBoweMD
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Post by DBoweMD »

Korean Snow is very fertile for me.
Mine is in a pot and doing well in window light with northwest exposure. It has taken crosses from most things I have tried.
Its seedlings sometimes are streaked.

Krossa Regal is well known to be sterile as a pod parent, I think also sterile as a pollen parent. In the same family however, Elatior formed a few pods O.P., and Elatior pollen took on several other plants. I have Victory sending up a late scape, which should perform exactly like Elatior.
Nigrescens formed pods, about 25% of the flowers maybe. I also have Nigrescens pollen on some plants. from 2 seasons ago I have seedlings from the cross Pee Dee Gold Flash x Nigrescens that have characteristris from both parents, and all look different from each other.
I repeated this cross in both directions and seed pods formed.
Invincible has performed well for me as a pod parent this year, with window light in a big pot. It's nearly finished.
Keep up the good work!
gootziecat
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Post by gootziecat »

Dee, I have two pods on Korean Snow. They're hanging in there so far. I haven't had very good luck with pods in general this summer. Most of it is probably my own fault, but I think the weather has had something to do with it too.
marriedtomud
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Post by marriedtomud »

Hi Dee

Yup ... still going prertty strong here. Down to about 25-30 flowers a day (morning & evening crosses). Every time I think that the season may be winding down something happens to extend it a bit further. I'd be happy to have all the pods set and cured ... just waiting for them to ripen but every time I see a new scape on one of interest I end up planning a few crosses. There were a lot of late flowering goodies this year. Marilyn Monroe .... Paradise Red Delight .... Fire Island ... High Kicker ... Camelot ... Lancifolia .... and add bonus flowerings from Sun Power, Breeder's Choice, & Kabitan .... how can a hybridizer refuse!

Korean Snow is one that is missing from my lineup.
Hopefully in future he'll be here. I had asked about him (and a few others) last fall and Dr Dave answered with a positive about his fertility.

Speaking of Dr Dave ... hey Dave. Good to hear from you again. And speaking of Krossa Regal ... (He was one that I queried a lot about last fall) ... I'm starting to believe that KR isn't sterile at all. He conceives and sets pods ... they get to a certain stage and then abort. That makes me think that there's a chemistry dynamic going on. If he were sterile pods wouldn't be forming at all. I've used his pollen a few times (Regal Splendor also) with no success but haven't ruled out pollen fertility at all. Maybe I'll do a few spring crosses as part of a further test. I also have a baby Regalia (from the Krossa family) here that I'm going to try next year. She had no scapes this year.

Gootzie ... I'm finding there are a gazillion ways for a cross to fail and lots fewer for it to be successful. Good luck on the Korean Snow pods.

Seeds again tonite .... Two more from Sagae and one from Queen of the Seas! Thats a pretty decent trifecta ... Sagae, Blue River & QOTS for my first three seed producers. QOTS was the second one here to flower this spring. Frances Williams beat her by a day. Who woulda guessed? The ripened seeds from QOTS were in the middle of the scape ... like Sagae's were.

Where's Jim ... this is the fun time. Who woulda thought that a few ripe pods could be so much fun! I'll prolly be over the moon when they sprout.

Curtis/m2m
marriedtomud
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Post by marriedtomud »

It's another Saturday morning yet agian with rain. Since the heat broke in August there's not been a Saturday without rain. As a certain Hosta Guru would say ... Go figure. I hybridized anyway. The hybridizing wasn't too difficult but getting decent pics had a few drawbacks.

Hopefully a few decent shots.

The quantity of seeds from the QOTS & Sagae pods last nite really suprised me. Each pod had over two dozen seeds. Queen's pods were smaller but fully packed and most all of them were plump.

Kabitan did it again. Fire Island hadn't produced a pod until crossed with Kabitan. That cross was successful and since then he's making pods with other crosses. Same with Paradise Red Delight.

Sweet Standard has pods. Everything I had heard about
SS said that it was pod sterile but this one has several pods from a cross with the late flowering baby Sun Power.
They're usually at two distinctly different flowering times but the cross took and pods are forming. Hopefully the seeds will be viable. If the rain lets up by the time he blooms this afternoon I'll be crossing SS with Kabitan.

Camelot had a first flower and good pollen as well. He got used with the early flowering Plantagenia this morning along with Fire Island, Lancifolia, PRD, & Breeder's Choice.

Someone emailed and asked about how to distinguish ripe from unripe pollen. I use the terms to refer to the state of the pollen on the anther. If the anther has opened and the pollen is fluffy I consider it ripened. If the anthers are still closed then I consider them unripe. With the sun rising later and cooler days most of the flowers are opening a little later so an anther that was unripe at 6AM may be ripe by 7:30 ... if the bees haven't beaten you to the flower and dispersed it already. Not all flowers will produce ripe pollen each day also. Plantagenia will make beautiful ripe pollen sporadically. FGT went for two weeks without making good pollen but then started to make decent amounts. Breeder's Choice seems to steadily make good pollen.

Red October & MM are holding off on flowering still. MM's flower cluster looks very similar to the Niagra Falls Seedling from earlier this year. I hope she's as fertile as he was.

Enjoy the weekend.

Curtis/m2m




QOTS seeds 9.8.2006
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Sagae seeds 9.8.2006
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Fire Island X Kabitan Pod
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PRD X Kabitan pod
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Sweet Standard ... from easrlier this summer
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Sweet Standard X Sun Power Pods
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Plantagenia - Ripe pollen
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FGT - Unripened pollen
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Lancifolia flowers
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Kabitan flower
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Camelot flower
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Lachman ... holding up well. Lots of ripening pods
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marriedtomud
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Post by marriedtomud »

It was cold this morning at 5AM ... maybe 50 degrees ... the heat in the house kicked on for the first time since May. I actually put on a sweatshirt to do the hybridizing.
I really don't have to be up that early to do it because the
flowers aren't even fully open yet but I'm an early riser.

A few people have written to ask about ripe pods, getting the seeds from the pods, and also about how you can tell if a seed is viable or not so I hope these pics magnify enough to help.

Sagae had 5 seed pods ripen overnite. These were the very bottom ones on the scape ... from the earliest flowers.
When they ripen they turn light brown ... like parchment or a paper bag .. and they split open. If you leave them on the scape they will split all they way open and dry enough for the seeds to be released.
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The pod has three sections and each section has two cavities or chambers that adjoin where the seeds are formed. When you split the pod it will seperate into these three sections and you can see the seeds in the chambers.
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I use a small pen knife to run along the seed bed and that pops them out. If they're dry they really pop out easily.
Each pod here had between 25-50 seeds.
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The seeds from 5 pods
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Not all of them are viable or formed full seeds. If you run your finger over each seed you'll tell the difference immediately. There's a small bump at the end of each one that is viable. That bump is the actual seed. The rest is the seed 'wing'. If you don't feel that bump then the seed didn't form fully and won't be viable.

Four viable seeds ... the last one has the wing removed
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The two on the left have no seeds and are not viable.
The four on the left have seeds and should sprout.
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Curtis/m2m
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DBoweMD
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Post by DBoweMD »

On those unripe pollen anthers, you can pluck them off and either open them with tweezers, or wait a while indoors and they will open by themselves eventually.
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Willowy
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Post by Willowy »

Curtis, Are any of your plants starting to melt down for the season? I have a few and am worried that they will not be able to support their pods. I have read about the water and sugar soak, however I hate to pull the Pods any earlier than I have to. Any thoughts or experience?
a.k.a. hostabuff
My Hosta List & My Blog
marriedtomud
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Post by marriedtomud »

Hi Hostabuff
So far most everything here is holding up extremely well.
Loyalist is the worst for early melt and a few have some leaves that are yellowing (Sun Power & Frances Williams) but for the most part they're mostly all still in really good shape.

Right after Labor Day last season most everyone was commenting about melt down. I kept expecting it to happen but the Hostas here held on right up to the first frost in late October. Maybe it's the soil composition ... and I'm pretty sure all that Alfalfa Tea I use has a hand in it ... but almost all the pods here were able to ripen on their scapes. I collected seeds from eKn's garden in September and had them curing in sugar water until just before Christmas. LOL .... Every bit of counter space and
window had vases of scapes at some stage of curing. I thought the Plantagenias were never going to open.

I have three scapes ripening in sugar water right now. Warwick Comet, Bright Lights and Christmas Tree Gala
had scapes with pods that got broken so they'll finish
curing in sugar water.

The sugar water process works really well. You'll need to change the water regularilly and trim the bottom of the scapes a bit with each water change. I use tap water so I let it sit for a few days before using to allow the chlorine to dissipate.


Hey Dave
Since the temps have dropped most of the early morning
flowers are opening later and later. Most of the time the pollen isn't ripe when they first open so I've been using old pollen each morning and collecting the new unripened anthers to let them cure inside for later use. Breeder's Choice always seems to have ripe pollen. Every few days
Plantagena & Guacamole will have early ripe pollen also.
I just saw tonite that Breeder's Choice has two more very small scapes forming. This one & Kabitan have been amazing for reblooming. Thats a trait I'd like to hopefully pass on to a few others.

Curtis/m2m
marriedtomud
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Post by marriedtomud »

A hard rain today so the only hybridizing was the early morning round.

Found a couple new scapes today. The first one is on a baby High Kicker. While he's only about three inches tall and he still made a scape. This one is even smaller than
Wogon Gold from early this summer. WG was completely hidden under Lachmans canopy. I hope HK is as fertile as WG was.

The other scape was another one on Paradise Red Delight.
A single eye of PRD now has four scapes forming.

MM is about to flower ... finally. Maybe tomorrow.

Curtis/m2m

A hard rain today ... most of the Milkweed got broken
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MM ... about to open
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The littlest scape ... High Kicker baby ... about 3" tall
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dmi188
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Post by dmi188 »

Hey Curtis, my first seedlings are up!! Planted some Lakeside Elfin Fire seedlings as soon as they ripened, and I have 4 or 5 sprouts today!
marriedtomud
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Post by marriedtomud »

Good going Denise

You got pretty darn good results with Lakeside Elfin Fire
seeds last year. Were these deliberate crosses or OP?

I must confess to starting a few also. LOL ... it's hard not
to. I was sitting at the kitchen table contemplating the first three to ripen ... and all of a sudden the urge was too overwhelming ... I had half of them planted in starter trays.

Whenever you can ... I'd love to see a few pics.

Got a wonderful addition to the hybridizing program from
Hideko (via Teresa) in Minnesota. She was gracious enough to part with a start of her Hosta Hyuga Urajiro.
He has amazing color patterns .... bluish/green with gold striped leaves in the spring and two toned green stripes in the fall. He's right now in bloom and If I'm really lucky I'll
still get a few flowers before the season is over. Can't say
thank you enough to Hideko and especially to Teresa who made a special trip to pick him up and get him in the mail.

Don Dean's pis at the Hosta Library show it in the spring and also it's upright form.

Curtis/m2m

Hyuga Uragiro
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HU Leaf ... fall coloring
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HU ... Pods forming
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dmi188
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Post by dmi188 »

HU looks like a very cool plant!

Chris sent me bonuses of Little Red Rooster and Katsuragawa Beni. Both have incredible red petioles. They should be interesting to add to my 6 L Elfin Fire next year. I love minis, so I really want to keep working on LEF.

The sprouts are just that right now. Will take pics when they get a leaf or two.
marriedtomud
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Post by marriedtomud »

Finally ... a Saturday without rain. It's overcast and much cooler than normal but at least it hasn't rained. This morning there was a good amount of fog and most everything was covered in dew ... which made it harder to keep the pollen and stamens dry while crossing. It also made marking the leaves with the crosses more dissicult. It's back to the masking tape again. Amazingly it has held up all summer. The first few crosses marked with it are as sturdy and clear as the origianal day.

The colder temps are slowing down the flower and pollen production quite a lot. With a later sun up and temps still pretty cool for an hour or more after sunrise a lot of flowers are much slower to develop usable pollen. This isn't a big problem as long as I have pollen saved from prior flowers.


FI, PRD & Lancifolia all have really thin scapes and it's easier to mark the masking tape than the leaves. I'm using a 1/2" wide strip that is cut in half for the thin scapes.

Marilyn Monroe is a tease ... no flowers to open yet.

While thinning I found two tiny scapes hidden under a large Columbine. When it was cut back there was another High Kicker baby hidden underneath with two small scapes that were extra long and bent under trying to get to the sunshine. These HK babies are the littliest of plants with scapes. The smallest is barely over 3" and tallest isn't quite 8" tall. Makes me wonder if there's a dwarf variety.

Lancifolia continues to churn out flowers daily and most of the crosses are taking ... even the rainy day ones. He now has quite the inventory of crosses. In variety of crosses he rivals Lachman & Fragrant Blue. Fried Green Tomatos is nearing the end of his flowers and he has quite an inventory also. I'll be tabbing them up soon.

Fire Island is the exact opposite ... he hasn't a single cross to hold. Several have taken and pods have started to form but they've all aborted. I'm keeping up the crosses though. This was how Pineapple Poll did but he ended up with about a dozen pods out of over two hundred flowers.
One aspect to the downside of hybridizing.

Choko Nishiki & Christmas Tree Gala were new additions to the lineup this week.

Hopefully tomorrow will be warmer ... MM & HK might flower.

Curtis/m2m

New cross markings with masking tape FI X Guac
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Origainal cross masking tape .... WL X MA ... still holding up well
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Guacamole pollen ... opening by 8AM
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High Kicker baby ... Hidden scapes
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Choko Nishiki baby ... pardon the dirt ... planted but not mulched
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dmi188
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Post by dmi188 »

The Dancing Queen seedling, an Lakeside Elfin Fire seedling, and Lakeside Knick Knack are all blooming inside.

Outside, Red October is about to bloom, and Diane Gray Dalton is sending up a late second bloom!! Korean Snow is about finished blooming, as is laevagata. Green Eyes is just now sending up a few blooms...too bad there are just a few, and so late...it made a couple of cool, quirky seedlings last year.
marriedtomud
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Fire Island Pod

Post by marriedtomud »

Dee
Glad to hear that you have some nice new scapes to continue on with. I'd love to see a pic of your Dancing Queen seedling when you can post one. I'm beginning
to think that Red October may not flower until October.


A pod on Fire Island. Finally.

One guess who the pollen parent was ... YUP ... Kabitan.
Out of about 40 flowers on four scapes thats the only pod forming ... but at least there's one. Lets just hope the seeds are viable. He's got quite a few flowers yet to go and just sent up another small scape.

It's gotten cold at nite very quickly here. All the remaining pods on Sagae ripened almost overnite so I cut the scape and have it indoors in sugar water. They'll be collected in the next few days.

Marilyn Monroe has seven buds that appear ready to burst yet seemingly refuse to open. I'm hoping they're not gonna be like Clausa and not open at all.

Fried Green Tomatos has only a few buds to go. He has really tall scapes with a lot of flowers and most of his crosses took. It feels as though he's been in bloom all summer. I'll have to inventory and retag his crosses soon.
June ended up with a ton of pods on her four scapes after
a slow start.

I did the inventory on Lancifolia. This is one that keeps sending up new scapes. The largest plant has about thirty scapes of which about 20 are showing to be fertile. The oldest and largest scape has crossed with almost everything. So far no crosses have taken with Lancifolia pollen but I'm still giving it a chance. His crosses are pretty varied ...
Sun Power, Bullseye, Salute, Guacamole, Whirlwind, Ginko Craig, June, El Nino, Golden Tiara, Halycon, Wogon Gold,
Touch of Class, Plantagenia, kabitan, Breeder's Choics & Paradise Red Delight ... on the main scape.
Suprisingly he has shown only a little affinity for the fragrants. Before Royal Standard & FGT end I'll save a bit more of their pollen and try a few more crosses.

The late flowering Breeder's Choice has ten pods on his two scapes from crosses with Paradise Red Delight, Plantagenia, Camelot, El Nino, Guacamole, Kabitan, Bub's Gift, and possibly Fire Island. He has two flowers to go on these scapes and a new one just forming.

Curtis/m2m

Fire Island Pod
FI X Kabitan
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Marilyn Monroe ... Flower buds
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Fried Green Tomatos ... lots of pods
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New garden addition .... Christmas Tee Gala
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Sagae ripened pods
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Breeder's Choice pollen ... unripened at 6AM
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Breeder's Choice pollen ... ripe at 8AM
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dmi188
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Post by dmi188 »

Curtis, here is a pic of my Dancing Queen seedling over the summer. It is looking pretty ratty, starting to brown, right now, and has plain old lavander flowers. It has great substance, and looks like it will have nice leaf shape and piecrusting, so I will be using it a lot!
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Jaspersail
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Post by Jaspersail »

Curtis,

You are a hybridizing dynamo! (And yes, Go Tigers!) :D

Remember that seed pods drying and splitting open has nothing to do with them being "ripe." It just means the plant is redirecting its energies and water to places other than the scape. In most cases, this happens in the Fall when hostas start going dormant.

A hosta that sets pods in early June probably has ripe seeds in mid-July, but they will just "hang out" in the pods until September or October when the plant goes dormant. If you collected the seeds in late July or August they would probably be just as developed and ready to grow as in September or October.

The other thing drying/splitting pods means: the seed won't be developing any further. In this way, it can indicate a good time to harvest the seeds because they won't be developing or maturing more. But even a late-flowering hosta can have dried/split pods before the seed is developed, so again it doesn't mean the pods are ripe.

--John
marriedtomud
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Post by marriedtomud »

Hey Dee
The Dancing Queen seedling looks really promising and I'm glad to hear that it has great substance. Ruffled edges and good subatance are qualities worth working with. Hope it had the great summer color of Kent's DQ. Are you planning crosses to get another flower? I happen to really like teh lavender flowers. The plain old lavender flowers on Lancifolia are some of the prettiest here. The major drawback to them is the thinness of the scapes ... it's darn near impossible to write the cross info.

Hiya John
Good to hear from you. I've been having a good productive summer. The crosses really aren't that hard at all. It's the record keeping that I have to fine tune.

Thanks for the info on seed ripening. I did a few pod tests last fall (most of mine were OP back then ... seems like another lifetime) and found quite a variance with seed development. Lachman takes on average about 60 days for the seeds to ripen after flowering. I found it safer to watch for the first pod to brown and split open before harvesting. Some of the later pods were ripened indoors and the last one split open just before Christmas.

A friend sent me three new additions to the garden and one of them was a seedling from your Hosta Dark Corner. It's a beautifully streaked baby and I can hardly wait to see it next season but there wasn't any info to be had about DC. What can you tell me about this one? Any pics?

U of M! Can you believe their defense so far. Now if only the Lions ... .



Marilyn Monroe had an open flower ... FINALLY! It dropped down to 42 degrees here and there wasn't a new bud open this morning (save for Lancifolia) but I saved her excellent pollen and used it heavily tonite. Breeder's Choice, Royal Standard, PRD, FI, FGT, Guac, Plantagenia ... all the regulars got a cross with MM. I should have done Kabitan for her first flower but Guac won out with great new pollen and was the first cross.

That beautiful Dark Corner seedling came from my friend Art. He also sent two others that are going to make wonderful additions to the garden ... Gunther's Prize and Lakeside Surf Rider. Can't say thanks enough to him for these treasured Hostas. He's facing the toughest time of his life right now so please keep him and his baby in your heart.

Curtis/m2m

Breeder's Choics X Marilyn Monroe
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Lancifolia flowers
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Art's Gift .... Streaked Dark Corner Seedling
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Gunther's Prize & Art's Gift
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dmi188
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Post by dmi188 »

Nice friend, to send that beautiful GP!!

Today I brought in 2 of the scapes from Red October, to pollinate inside. I also see that one of my new L. Elfin Fire from Chris is getting ready to send up a scape!!

Harvested the seed from Diane Gray Dalton yesterday. They are nice and plump and shiny black!
marriedtomud
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The first hybridized seeds!

Post by marriedtomud »

Last nite I got the first seeds from crosses that I had
done ... the first of the hybridized seeds. They were on Whirlwind. Three pods ... crossed with Lachman, Montana Aureomarginata, & Kabitan. The first pod was just starting to split but all there were brown so I harvested them together. While Kabitan was the last cross it's seeds were the most cured. All the Kabitan seeds & wings were black while in the Lachman cross (the first to take) the seeds were formed but a lot of the wings were still white. Each cross netted about a dozen viable seeds.

This scape was on a baby Whirlwind and only had eight flowers in total. The crosses that didn't take were three with Misty Gold, one with Tenryu, and one with the Blue seedling. Two of the MG crosses started to make pods but they aborted. There's another scape of Whirlwind that is on a saller plant that flowered a little later.
I'll be checking it again tonite.

I'm pretty sure that there are more than this one with ripe seeds but as long as the weather cooperates I want to let the pods cure on their scapes.

Curtis/m2m

Whirlwind seeds
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X Lachman
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X Kabitan
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X Montana Aureomarginata
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