Rhododendrons 2014

[Robert]

It is the time of year where there is now something new blooming almost every day.

Maybe I've been crowing about our new Rhododendron edgeworthii hybrid?!  Now the flowers are opening - and at least I am pleased.  Maybe not much for the rhododendron world, but it works for us; where rhododendrons in general do not thrive.

This R. Lhotse S1 inbred line has a good deep color and it is very compact - 25cm or so. Hopefully it will be a good breeder with good fixed traits.

R. racemosum is a "work horse" in our breeding endeavours. These are from R&N175. We've grown many different seed lots of R. racemosum over the years. Superficially, all our various accessions seem the same, however when looked at closely there is considerable variance in heat tolerance, leaf color, growth habit, etc. With the wild seed lots - it gets me thinking about what is going on out there.

[johnw]

Smashing results Robert.  Do you have any guesses as to the possible parent with edgeworthii?  Did you use the dark pink Glendoick form of edgeworthii?  I would never have guessed such a stunning flower could come from racemosum! Keep them coming.

Here's one that surprised me to death.  Despite the complex parentage it looks quite like edgeworthii itself.  The sibling is similar.  Edgeworthii itself is attached for comparison.

johnw

[David Nicholson]

Won a small plant of Rhododendron praecox last night in the raffle at our local AGS Group meeting. What sort of size is it likely to grow to please?

[Maggi Young]

Nice raffle prize!

It can eventually get to around 1.5m (5ft) David- but it doesn't get there at any speed - so you needn't worry too much about where you site it from the size point of view. A spot where it doesn't catch the early sun is best to protect it a bit from the chance of frost on the flowers.  In a fairly open situation it will keep a better, neater shape.

[David Nicholson]

Cheers Maggi, best in acid soil or could I risk it in my neutral stuff?

[Maggi Young]

No harm in bunging in some ericaceous compost when you plant it, David if you can be bothered and are feeling flush.  It won't mind too much if it has to live with neutral soil I don't think.

[Tomasz Cyba]

John, your edgeworthii hybrid looks simply amazing! You've made all the edgeworthii/Maddenia fans from colder climates giddy by posting its photos (it should be much hardier than edgeworthii itself, ain't it?). Hope it will somehow make its way over the pond (maybe through Glendoick?).

[rgc]

Hi David
I posted a picture of my R. praecox in the 'March 2014 in the Northern hemisphere' thread on 3rd March. It is thirty years old and just over 4 feet tall. So as Maggi said it doesn't grow at any speed. My mistake was that other shrubs grew and competed with it over the years. It does not get early sunshine and the flowers have survived a couple of mild frosts this year with no problems. It was hit by a late hard frost a couple of years ago, but so were my other rhododenrons that had just come into flower.

It is my favourite shrub. You won a very nice prize.
Bob

[Robert]

Smashing results Robert.  Do you have any guesses at the possible other parent with edgeworthii?  Did you use the dark pink Glendoick form of edgeworthii?  I would never have guessed such a stunning flower could come from racemosum! Keep them coming.

Here's one that surprised me to death.  Despite the complex parentage it looks quite like edgeworthii itself.  The sibling is similar.  Edgeworthii itself is attached for comparison.

johnw

John,

The parentage of the Rhododendron edgeworthii hybrid is (racemosum S1 x mucronulatum) x edgeworthii. All the parents originate from our own garden seedlings, except the R. mucronulatum.  It is from Warren Berg. I never met him so it came from a round-about way, like about everything in our garden. (racemosum S1 x mucronulatum) is a plant we call "Purple Cow". It is very compact, somewhere about 25-30cm tall, maybe a little wider. It blooms like crazy every spring - however it is semi-evergreen so much of the season it does not look so good (mostly wintertime). It is a good breeder.

I grow all the R. edgeworthii seed lots I can acquire, both domestic and wild seed. We now have much to choose from; some have good flush pink flowers.

I really like your dendrocharis, edgeworthii hybrid!  . Are the plants of blooming age yet? Sometimes edgeworthii come through as parent for us distinctly or sometimes less so. I will very much want to know how they turn out for you. Cold hardiness too.

We are working the dendrocharis angle too. Some hybrids will be blooming soon so hopefully I will have photographs. Other seedlings are still small but very interesting.

[David Nicholson]

Hi David
I posted a picture of my R. praecox in the 'March 2014 in the Northern hemisphere' thread on 3rd March. It is thirty years old and just over 4 feet tall. So as Maggi said it doesn't grow at any speed. My mistake was that other shrubs grew and competed with it over the years. It does not get early sunshine and the flowers have survived a couple of mild frosts this year with no problems. It was hit by a late hard frost a couple of years ago, but so were my other rhododenrons that had just come into flower.

It is my favourite shrub. You won a very nice prize.
Bob

Thanks for drawing my attention to this Bob. Thanks too Maggi.

[Robert]

Smashing results Robert.  Do you have any guesses at the possible other parent with edgeworthii?  Did you use the dark pink Glendoick form of edgeworthii?  I would never have guessed such a stunning flower could come from racemosum! Keep them coming.


johnw

Thank you for the compliment John.

These are the last of the photographs of our Purple Cow x edgeworthii hybrid. Many of the flowers have now been prepared for cross pollination.

Few few observations about this hybrid:

>The multiple buds on the terminal stems seem to come from R. racemosum.
>The pink coloration from mucronulatum, and maybe a degree of cold hardiness (hardy to -6C this winter, probably much more).
>The flower size and shape, as well a foliage from R. edgeworthii.

See the previous post for more information on this hybrid. 

[Robert]

Rhododendron 'Rosa's First Kiss' is about 15 years old now. I've had time to share some with others in our area and she seems well liked, as she is very heat tolerant, easy-to-grow, and has good foliage. The parents are racemosum Forrest19404 x lutescens 'Bagshot Sands'. I have grown Forrest19404 for 35, almost 40 years now and it has always been very dwarf and compact. Using this dwarf form, my thinking was that 'Rosa' would be dwarf. Well.... 'Rosa' is a little over 1 meter tall: I was hoping for 25-30cm.

By inbreeding Forrest19404, I discovered that our plant is a poly-gene dwarf, the offspring being many different heights, with some other hidden recessives traits too. Using a fixed gene inbred we are now close to having 'Rosalita' the dwarf we originally wanted.

R. racemosum x dendrocharis is dwarf, about 25cm tall x 30cm wide and has good flowers. I am using it mainly as a breeder as I am not pleased with the foliage. Right now I have 3 inbred lines I'm working on as well as some out crosses at various stages of development.

The last photograph is lutescens x scabrifolium var. spiciferum. I kept two plants from the cross, one pink, the other cream. I was never impressed with them so they grew where I planted them and went largely unnoticed. A few years ago I decided to inbreed them. The young plants are very interesting - I can wait til they bloom. 

[David Nicholson]

Very nice indeed Robert.

[johnw]

Robert - The lutescens x dendrocharis scabrfolium v. spiciferum is a remarkable colour.  Do the flowers have a white exterior base as so many dendrocharis hybrids do?

johnw

[Robert]

Very nice indeed Robert.

David,

Thank you for the compliment. Maybe as breeders we are always striving for better. We are back to dry , warm weather and everything is coming into rapid growth and flowering. Typical springtime. 

R. spinuliferum in bloom. I checked my records and most of the rhododendrons are 2 weeks ahead of average.