Amy Rose. (This is a Great Grand-daughter's name)
Chinese Lantern. (Just reminded me of Chinese Lantern's)
June 25th 2005
This years seedlings are beginning to produce their break bud flowers, and although courser than the next set that the plant produces, they are good enough to access the potential of the new variety. Meanwhile in the greenhouse buds are beginning to form on the breeders, Jack Gott has a major plan this year, perhaps I shouldn't tell you or you'll all want to try and emulate him, but that is the nature of breeding, what ever you do in your own breeding programme is perfectly legal. Anyway let you into the secret, he is trying to produce a Collerette with dark foliage, I imagine this has been tried before by numerous breeders, but as yet we haven't a dark leaved Collerette. Needless to say if I produce one before Jack, I'll split it with him, and we'll share the spoils. Luck is the major factor in breeding, don't get me wrong, you have to have the right varieties coming into flower at just the right time to perform the operation, so luck was on my side when Moon fire was at just the right stage to except the pollen from Easter Sunday, time will tell if the pollination was successful, and if the two varieties were compatible.
I am still waiting for the dwarfing agent from my Professor friend, meanwhile I am letting the odd stem elongate to form a bud, and pinching the remaining to reduce the petal count. I am assured by my mentor Harry Lawson that this alone will reduce the number of petals per flower, the other factor is to starve the plants. This I find hard to do, but I am certainly willing to try it out, knowing for sure that a starved plant will do it's darnedest to reproduce.
I've found out the reason why plants from a nursery that I bought in for breeding stock, had a hard time getting established, the worse two were de-potted, and on examining, I found them to have a restrictive band of rubber like substance holding the compost they were rooted in together. As far as I could tell this stopped the roots from spreading into the surrounding new potting compost, that I'd used to pot them on. Whether it was to dry when I re-potted them, or the compost that the old roots were placed on was not to their liking I can't say, but they weren't going to make it, in their present state. I re-rooted all but two of them, took off the band on two more and re-potted, and another is suspended above a very weak solution of `Baby Bio' that I made up, and placed in a two pound jam jar, this seems to be helping it to produce new roots from the rotted roots that I found on de-potting. Later shifted the plant to a pot filled with silver sand and soaked it in a weak solution of Baby Bio.
July 2nd: The second of two reasonable seedling where photographed today, both were
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Amy Rose. (This is a Great Grand-daughter's name) |
Chinese Lantern. (Just reminded me of Chinese Lantern's) |
You can see the parents in these two, the first one was a cross using Ken's Rarity as the seed parent and Charlie Dimmock, the second was Lismore Canary x Charlie Dimmock. Best of it is, you can also see Yvonne in the second one as well, just like our cousin Rita had the same chin as her grandfather.
The names on the new varieties this year are only thought up on the quick because I got in such a muddle with numbers and dates last year, but of course if they do alright after a couple of years trial, I could still use these temporary names, but one thing I must do is put the date on the photographic files. Thus, amyrose28june05 and chineselantern2july05.
July 5th 2005. Had confirmation today that I'm going to loose the use of the land over the road, 2005 is going to be my last season. I think this means goodbye to the lawn in the back garden, Irene's not going to like it, but it will save me wasting time cutting it for one thing, and give me more room to grow the new seedlings. Grass should be reserved for sport, when you don't sit on it, and especially when you're seventy four years young, and have got an absorbing hobby like dahlia breeding. I was always a bit wary of the new stuff over the road, I had no means of locking the gate you see, and that Elm tree is getting bigger a bigger, and the winds are getting stronger and stronger. God what a start to July, strong winds and rain, but thank goodness it is a little cooler for our charges.
July 7th 2005: Had my daughters round for lunch yesterday, I always enjoy the banter between them and their mother, I was a bit put out however when I was out voted three to one regards digging up the back lawn, I think the main reason was they all thought I was going to have a heart attack accomplishing it, but the disappointment became insignificant on hearing seven bombs had gone off in the capital a stones throw from where we were raised, we send our sincere condolences to the victims and their families.
July 9th 2005: I've just come back from over the road, you know where I grow my seedlings, and looking at the various forms I have, convinces me that as I used a variety called Karma Naomi, I have a range of varieties of most groups, I'm certain this is the reason, because every other year since crossing by hand, the varieties have always been as expected. Now I know that the Verwer Brother's policy is to use open pollination, least that is what I was told by Aad Verwer, so naturally this is why some of this years crosses reflect this, but only with the varieties crossed with Karma Naomi, I suppose it has made life interesting for me, but hardly scientific. One or two of the giants seem quite impressive, but as they are in the bud form anything can happen until the blooms have matured. It is a different story with my cactus and semi-cactus seedlings, although the box containing the germinated seedling was knocked off the staging, do you remember, now that they're flowering I know exactly where they are, and some pleasant flowers are developing, let you see a few as soon as they mature. Pleased to say the cross I made using Moon fire and Easter Sunday was successful, well when I say successful I really mean they were compatible, this means with luck I'll be able to reverse the cross, in case this way round produces a better flower. Easter Sunday may be more dominant this way round, and then we'll get our dark leaved Collerette, exciting isn't it?