Cracker

The season is slowly winding down, with the first seeds recovered, dried and bagged. Last years seedlings are putting on a late show, exciting, as they are all new to me, around 50 % will flower in their second year. It's easy to get excited but I really do need to reign myself in from using them for breeding. I fail usually, but I'm crossing for colour, not form until next year when they attain their full height. The small Prims tend to throw small Prims these days, so I have abit more confidence in the results in a couple of years time.

Cracker below is on the tall size, but the colours are beautiful.

Summer tristis

All of the seedlings sown and growing in the greenhouse are of mixed parentage, a fair few are of my summer Glad's fertilised using frozen G tristis pollen. Whether this has worked remained to be seen until last week. Although only five months of growing, a few had thrown small spikes up, these first year spikes are usually only have two to three buds on and really are more for fun to look at and quickly removed, they have no bearing on the plants final stature and flowering capabilities.

But then this turned up. Its my long flowering purple papilio hybrid crossed with tristis pollen.

It absolutely shines. So its one of a few in the seed pan, so more to flower next year. They will be field grown to see what I have in terms of height, habit and amount of flowers, we know its hardy but I'm very excited. On top of that it appears to be fertile, both flowers were crossed and at least on of the pods appears to be swelling.

Summertime

Pulled out of the trial area last year and re-located in my garden for a final inspection, this large flowered beauty has illuminated a shadier part of the garden. Currently nameless, just tagged as Oranges and Lemons, it's a keeper and I will be bulking this one up. I can scan a trial area of Crocosmias these days and can pick the stand outs immediately.

Most of my trial Crocosmias are second year plants. The rain has really brought them on and most are intent on flowering, but all the plants with C paniculata, i.e., the taller plants in their make up will not realise their full size until next year, but I will be posting some beauties over the next couple of weeks.

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