My Hellebore bed

[Guff]

I was looking at one of my old threads, thought I would post what they looked like from out of box through Sept 2009, they are under snow now. They look happy, hopefully I see a few more flowers come spring.

[lubuli]

some of them are looking really strong. so you have a good chance for flowers. if i remember right, was that the lady serie, you planted there?

[Guff]

Lubuli, thanks. Yes Lady series. The Blue and Pink Ladies are still the smallest of the bunch.

[lubuli]

even as very young plants they started smaller, as i can see.
i believe that the seeds come from open polination and there are a lot of surprises with them. yesterday in a gardencenter i saw a dozen of pink ladies, each one different. some had yellow nectaries, others green ones and there was even one with picoteed nectaries, dark red with yellow. i bought only that one i posted this morning. but all of them had these nice outwards looking flowers.

[Joseph]

They will certainly produce quite a few blooms; those are plenty big and strong, Guff.

One problem (at least in the US) with the lady series is that, as with other brands, commercial growers sell progeny of progeny and retain the name. I have 'virtually all' excellent plants (some of my best yellows) from this lineage, but I got my seed directly from Gisela years ago. I don't know what Jelitto and others did in terms of their sales and production of the series in North America, but I'm sure many outlets did not recieve them from the source.

[lubuli]

same here in germany. as gisela has retired, jelitto is the only one selling seeds of this series.

[Guff]

I wonder how they can sell plants as a certain color, when they weren't big enough to flower or do you think they did flower? I do recall one plant did have a shriveled flower when I took them out of the box.

Guess it doesn't really matter what colors they are, I did get a White one that was suppose to be yellow, I was happy about that. I really don't care for the yellow spotted that I have, they were suppose to be white with spots. I did cross the white and the yellow spotted, maybe I will have white and spots in a few years.

[lubuli]

with these quantities of seeds they are selling, they take the seeds from the pink flowers and sell it as pink lady. that´s it. and a more or less high percentage comes truly.

by the way: a merry christmas to you!

[Joseph]

Guff, it's just as lucia said.

There are several categories of unbloomed plants sold that can carry color names:

1) Open-pollinated seedlings FROM parents of a given color
2) Hand-pollinated seedlings FROM parents of a given color that are selfed
3) Hand-pollinated seedlings FROM parents of a given color that have been crossed with other parents of similar color
4) Clones OF parents in a given color range produced via tissue culture

Even in the hand-pollinated categories, there are subcategories. For example, repeated identical crosses of previously proven crosses are the only way growers can have a high degree of certainty about the offspring. In other words, a cross of a dark with a dark does not guarantee a dark. Nonetheless some individual plants will predictably produce similar offspring year after year regardless of the method used. I have a substantial group of white, spotted hybrids that produce close to 100 percent white, spotted offspring year after year even though they are open-pollinated and in the open garden near other plants. I would have no hesitation in offering them under that description if I were to hand-pollinate them. This is not true of all parents. I do not induce that spotting is dominant in general, but it is for this particular group of plants, which all have a particular inbred heritage.

[Guff]

Lubuli, Joseph thanks for info.

I won't be ordering anymore plants though, after looking over the black death thread. I rather just grow from seed. I don't mind waiting besides it fun, and I like surprises.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE