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.

More kids out of 1312

More pretty faces out of seedling 1312. For now, they are just pretty works of art. Won't know for a couple of years if they have the "right stuff" to make it in Minnesota. One flaw I am seeing in 1312 and some of its kids is that they are so ruffled that they get tangles, as they don't have the indented "notch" at the end of the petals that is needed to keep the ruffles from hanging up. When I have an excessively ruffled flower, I try to "dumb it down" by putting it on things that open really well and have fewer ruffles. Sometimes it works. Other times not so well, as in the fourth picture below. But very pretty when un-ruffled. These are 1313 (out of 25805 x 1312), 1513 (an 8" flower out of 2612 x 1312), 2113 (out of 0412 x 1312), 2213 (out of 1312 x 10112), 2513 (out of All Things to All Men x 1312), 2913 (out of Not Guilty x 1312), and 1913 (out of 1312 x 8412).

The season begins at last!

Bloom in the greenhouse is running a couple of weeks behind past years, due to more cloudy weather than is typical. I numbered my first seedling on April 8. 0113 is out of two seedlings I saw last year - 0412 x 1312 - the second and third pictures below. The look of 0113 is about what you would expect it to be as a combination of these two parents - rich, saturated color, soft watermark, ivory edge, petals that don't overlap, and the lighter color on part of the sepals which gives the seedling added drama.

1312 is proving to be the parent I was hoping it would, creating a variety of looks. Three more that I have numbered from it are below. The first is 0313, out of 1512x1312. The second is 0613, out of 1312 x Thistles and Thorns. The third is 0813, out of 0612 x 1312. 1312 is one of the earliest bloomers, as are its kids.

I also saw my first seedling out of Flying Purple People Eater. I was hoping FPPE would help me increase the size of my purple lines while keep some of my fancy edges and watermarks. A large percentage of the seedlings out of FPPE are dormant, so it will be another year before I see most of them. This is 0513 (below), which is out of 6412 (a round flower with a modest edge that goes back to fleur-de-lis patterned 8110) x Flying Purple People Eater. At 10", it was even bigger than I was hoping to get in the first generation. Hopefully, some of the plants I crossed FPPE with that had bigger edges will produce even fancier blooms in this size range..