Friday, December 11, 2015

Late 2015 Hulthemia Blooms

We are starting to empty the greenhouse again of all the surviving seedlings.  Here are a few of the late blooms to brighten your December day.

The first one below is of a mini that I hope to release in the next 2-3 years depending on how it does next year outside.  It seems to have good cleanliness and vigor.



The next seedling has changed color as the weather has cooled and now has a nice burnt orange coloration.  This seedling and the seedling following it both have "Basye's Thornless" as a grandparent.  Unfortunately this bloom did not open flat and instead had one of the petals curled back behind the bloom, but you get the sense of it's unusual color.



This next seedling has quite a lot of petals for a descendent of "Basye's Thornless" since singleness is a fairly strong trait.  It's blotch is not that large, but still seems to add interest to the blooms.



Unlike the seedling above, the following seedling has a very large blotch, in fact it has the largest and darkest blotch of this year's batch of seedlings.  Like most of the seedlings that I have raised with these darker blotches, it has a lot of Hulthemia persica baggage: stunted rangy growth and thorns.  Although this seedling is not good enough to name or release, it may be useful as a breeder for future generations.



The next seedling hopefully will have good black spot resistance since one of it's parents is a Will Radler variety.  It seems to be in almost constant bloom.


The final seedling shown below is one of my favorites this year.  It is thornless and has been in constant bloom.  It is also a grandchild of "Basye's Thornless" and seems to have good resistance to powdery mildew.