Hallson Gardens

Can I store pollen for use in the spring?

I do freeze daylily pollen, but someone else may have ideas for you on hostas.

Here's my technique, anyway: I stuff those tiny micro-centrifuge tubes with cotton, than bring it to the pollen, and collect the pollen onto the cotton. Close tube, label. Put in freezer.

Take out of freezer 5 minutes or so before opening to use, to avoid condensation.

The cotton seems to maintain moisture balance.

Hey thanks for that advice, I'm going to harvest some pollen and give it a shot.

I believe the link below discussing storing pollen -----

http://hostalibrary.org/hyb/index.html

Good luck and have fun!

thanks Steg! Awesome link with excellent information on there

thought i'd do a quick follow up...

i decided to try storing some pollen for next spring. what i did was clip off the pollen pods onto some of those flat cotton cosmetic pads you can buy at the drug store. i folded the cotton around the pods then put them in tiny zip lock baggies, and then into a jar in the freezer. we'll see how it works in the spring!

That looks like some good pollen! I think that is the best way to use these late flowering plants for crosses, and will give you the whole summer to possibly worth with it on different plants next year.

Chris,

That Grand Slam I got from you has been a great pollen donor and almost every flower has turned into a nice pod. Really looking forward to growing those babies out!

That's great to hear. Did you cross those Grand Slam, or are they just going to be open pollinated? This has been a great fall so far, as the weather has been very cooperative, so I never even considered crossing anything this late. Now I wish that I had!

Ohhh yes, I did pollen / pod tests with the wonderful hostas I got from you - let's see... it was

Raspberry Sorbet - great pollen parent but not one single pod formed on any of them - tried pollen from several different hostas including the Grand Slam. Selfed didn't take either. So Sweet, Hyuga Urajiro, and Red October pollen didn't work either.

Hyuga Urajiro was the same way - no pods but seems like the pollen may have worked a few times.

Grand Slam - Pods up the ying yang with quite a few of what I tried on it. I'll have to check to see if any of the pods end up sterile. I'm most curious about the Royal Standard crosses since RS seems to be such a poor hybrid parent in general.

The Red October - Mixed results there. The pollen seems to be healthy and quite a bit of it but RO aborted a few of the pods already. May be the change in weather or just not so good at pod making - I don't see too much information on RO's children so either I just haven't encountered many hostas with it as a parent or it isn't that prolific.

Ummm also So Sweet - having pretty decent success with pods, though the pollen looks dead. Also, it seems that some of the individual plants have different fertility rates - one plant in particular I found to have particularly dry stigmas. For grins I tried throwing some sugar water on a few, and then taking the liquid from other stigmas to see if that would help the pollination process.

And, out of the thousands of Royal Standard blossoms, not one stinking pod! Stoopid hosta. But I will keep trying just because now it's become a contest

Sounds like you are definitely having fun with those late flowering plants

Yes, Raspberry Sorbet always disappoints me in that it just doesn't ever seem to set pods. I have a white streaked Raspberry Sorbet that would be a big money plant if it was actually fertile...

Look forward to seeing your future seed growing efforts now

Chris

oohh white streaked RS... sounds really cool.

of all the experiments i've done the grand slam seems to be... well.... a grand slam LOL. i'm hoping some of these seedlings have even more ruffles on their leaves - or redder stalks. but even if these all end up looking like mom, no problem, i think GS is a great looking hosta as is.

Hi audre,

Stick with this forum for the vast amount of knowledge it provides and the friendships that can be gained here. If you are serious about the hybridizing aspect of this hobby, another site that will provide information in that direction is hostaseedlings.com. Here is a link from their site that you might find useful: http://www.hostaseedlings.com/viewtopic.php?t=5798. Please share your experiences on your hybridizing/seed growing back here on Hallsons as others will want to share your success or learn as you go along so more may enjoy this hobby.

Good Luck!