Smell the roses, but watch the thorns on some of them:-)

Last year I showed seedling 24312 and noted that I was planning to use it heavily in breeding (use search box to see more comments about it from last year). I used it on 44 different pod parents and have been very pleased with what I have seen so far, especially with respect to the rich saturated clear color with no spotting and the lovely edges. The first picture is 24312 itself (the main disappointment is that it doesn't have lots of laterals, although its color and height are so special that I will continue to use it on well-branched things) and then some seedlings out of it: 15713, 16213, 16613, 18313.

Other special rose colored seedlings I have seen this spring include: 1213, 9813 (2 pictures), 16013, and 20913. Complex breeding, but in most of these, the great color goes back to Not Guilty lines.

Gotta Have Faith

Faith That Moves Mountains is a wonderful saturated purple that I never used much in breeding since it didn't have a super fancy edge and that was what I was going for in past years. That changed in 2012 when I wanted to reduce some of the ruffling on seedlings that had gotten a bit out of hand (causing some hangups), while adding hardiness plus great saturated color in a large bloom to my breeding program.  I used FTTM as a pollen parent on 15 plants, and I set pods on it from 21 different plants. It is not the easiest plant to set pods on, but I had a lot of blooms to work with and I was persistent.

Of the seedlings I have numbered this spring as being special, 10% of them are coming from FTTM breeding - at least double the percentage of seeds planted from it - so it is proving to be a much better parent than I had anticipated. They don't all have fancy edges, but great color is my top priority. It is doing rose colors as well as purple (and almost black when used with Soli Deo Gloria genetics) , plus grape eyes and lavender eyes. The first picture is FTTM, and then seedlings 23513, 18813, 12613, 23413, 17113, 14713, 22113, 17713, 16413, 8113.

A dominant pattern - at last!

A year ago, I showed a picture of new seedling 26712 that had a distinctive pattern that was there for every bloom -the seedling is out of 52708, 40807, Entwined in the Vine, etc. Here is a picture of it this year and 4 of the kids I have seen from it so far. I have seen 5 in total, and only one isn't showing the pattern. More are showing scapes. These are 10113, 11813, 19413, 20013. None are as exciting as 26712 (and some have thrips and water damage), but I am thrilled to see the patterns holding on most of them each day. Patterns often disappear in warmer weather outside, so I am looking forward to seeing how these perform.

Other interesting patterns I have seen are in 15413 (out of 8110, which also had a fleur de lis pattern) and 12113 (out of God Save the Queen, All Things to All Men, and 52708). 

Cure for the winter blues

Still cold and snowy here, but the greenhouse is bursting with blooms. These are some in bloom right now that I saw for the first time last year (37512, 14212,14612, 10212, and 10112 - and yes, the last one opened all by itself and never tangles) and am using now in hybridizing. All complex parentage.

Some brand new ones that I am seeing for the first time include this interesting one - seedling 7613 (out of Repeat the Sounding Joy and seedling 8912). I have never seen this color combination before. 

And this beauty - 7413 (out of 1312) - although it gets so ruffled some days that it can tangle up.

Some great patterns are emerging, including 3313 (which is out of 1312), 11813 (out of Handwriting on the Wall and patterned seedling 26712 from last year), and 1413.