Pirate's Playground

2012年7月18日

Kohleria in red

I have all my Kohlerias into summer dormancy now because it's too hot to grow them. There are photos taken during May which is their blooming season in my plant house. I got many red blooms this year !!!

Nicole's Smile

Emil

Queen Olympus

No Name (maybe a Swedish hybrid)

Ryskan

2012年7月9日

Summer ... Episcia .....

Episcia was not the main course to me since I grew Gesneriad plants. It's really simple to grow Episcia here in Taiwan and do not need to care it too much. Although my tunnel plant house can be hot more than 40℃ in summer, Episcia still does well and even grows fastly. The patchwork-like Episcia varieties during summer are pleasant to the eyes. I should stop shooting myself in my foot and let go the Gesneriad plants that require too much. Still the old folk's talk ..... XD

Patchwork of Episcias

"Longwood Gardens"

"Harmony's Slinky Pink"

"War Paint"

"Spearmint"

2012年7月6日

Kohleria "Designer's Valencia Sunset"

orange flower tube, no pollen
dense orange dots speading on the petals
records of up to 4 flowers per cluster
able to bloom from lower axil
undetached corolla from calyx
long lasting flower with fine texture
the petal size is about ± 3cm across
oblong leaf, tapering at the end
upright grower with grey foliage
requiring light as much as possible
10 inches height in a 4 inches pot

2012年7月1日

Making cross with Mini Sinningia

Some people asked me how to choose pollen/seed parents to make ideal cross of Mini Sinningia. Yeah ... it's interesting to create your own Mini Sinningia because the pollination is easy and doesn't take much time to see the result after sowing. Looking for for fun ? for commercial ? or for new variety ? ... the demands could be different but if your are looking for a hybridizer's mission, set the dream target before you pollinate. Below topics we may take into consideration :

Sinn. Gautier's Seedling

1. Own enough candidates
You should have enough options whenever you would like to make a cross. Mini Sinningia is a stamen's plant, it doesn't require faithful marriage like human being. It's a pity when one plant is ready but the other is in preparation. The best thing is that you can get some characteristic/featured hybrids from the hybridizers no matter it's named variety or not. By using their achievement is a shortcut of creating new variety. And we should be humble and never forget to say thanks to the hybridizers when we do create something by taking advantage of theirs.

2. Target "Beautiful" or "Creative" or both ?
Obviously "Beautiful" is not same as "Creative" and "Creative" doesn't equal to "Beautiful". Some people say they just want a "Beautiful" seedling with whatever color or pattern, it seems not difficult to do because there are many "Beautiful" varieties, get some that you prefer, try to keep the color or pattern of the parents and usually you can get decent offsprings. The enthusiast may think a little bit more and set a "Creative" target of making something new. But if we go the right way and keep working, we may luckily get a "Beautiful" and "Creative" hybrid.

Seed pod of Mini Sinningia

3. Sow all seed pods ?
A seed pod of Mini Sinningia could produce hundreds of seedlings, it can be exhausting work to take care of all at once. After you pay full attention to all but you just find ... geeeee ... the payoff is not what you are looking for ... Orz ... it's a real disaster. Therefore, no matter you are absolutely sure that your cross is 100% pretty or you are afraid of what you will see from the seedlings, give yourself a break, no need to sow all seeds for the first time. You can make a lot of different crosses, sow each cross about 10-20 seeds as test and have a look of the result first, then you decide if need to sow the rest seeds. Don't worry, seeds can be saved over years under proper storage conditions.

4. Selection criteria
This should not be a right or wrong question, let's objectively say it depends on personal experience or purpose when making selection of seedlings. If you think yours are special or beautiful and also get the presentable specimen, you can select it. Fairly speaking, it's weak to select a seedling from 1 or 2 blooms or a young plant. Hybridizers don't need to be a criteria freak when making their selection but I believe the hybridizers have strong sense of self-esteem that will lead the way to the interesting creation.

Sinn. Windsor's Seedlings

5. Growing skill
The good growing skill is required to support the plant with its full potential. People are easily impressed by the good demonstration of a specimen as the human being is a vision animal. So I assume it's important to fully develop the new seedling because all the features can be easily evaluated from a mature plant. Fortunately, it's simple to grow the Mini Sinningia into bloom. But try to learn new growing tricks, we always need these and even someday you can send your plants to win convention awards. :-)

6. Cross with different Sinningia clades
In order to get new looks of Sinningia, some people try to cross Mini Sinningia with other Sinningia species or hybrid of different clades. Because the fertile Mini Sinningia is apparently a tetraploid form, when crossing with other Sinningia clades (usually they are diploid), it appears that 99.9% seeds are not able to germinate. But the theory is theory, there is still 0.1% chance that we get few seedlings from such cross. People in Taiwan had successfully combined Mini Sinningia with Sinn. speciosa , tubiflora, conspicua ... and these diversified Mini Sinningia with interesting looks.

Sinn. KJ's MTCARA (Mark Twin x speciosa "Caragonla")

Sinn. Pirate's Wild Bunny X Sinn. conspicua (scented seedling)

2012年6月16日

Episcia Pink Panther

Episcia is now the Gesneriad plant in season. :-)
Very hot and wet in this June and the air is sticky, but the Episcia just likes it this way. The pretty Episcia Pink Panther blooms to say it's summer time.