Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Flowers and Foliage Now => Topic started by: Maggi Young on February 07, 2011, 11:45:40 AM
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Since John85 is interested in breeding some hellebores and may have other questions about this that would be of interest to others, I'll start a thread for this.... :D
I try to select seedlings with flowers that are not nodding (specially with large single flowers)
Any suggestions for good cv.Please show some pics.
I think John85 is also interested to know how to store Helleborus pollen.... he's seen the old thread about pollen storage but Hellebores weren't mentioned there.... help , folks?
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I store pollen for my snowdrop breeding in empty matchboxes, in a plastic box in a domestic freezer. Seems to keep well for at least a year. Recently I added a packet of dessicating silica gel for good measure but didn't seem to actually need it before.
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I would guess the same procedure would apply to Hellebore pollen - fully dry in the fridge / after 3-4 days freeze in a jar over a dessicant. Ready for action without thawing. Do not leave cover off jar, refreeze immediately.
johnw
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I have started controlled pollination of hellebores a couple of years ago. I have used both fresh pollen and dried pollen collected previously and kept in the fridge (after being dried under a lamp and stored in a airtight closed plastic vial). I believe that pollen can be kept frozen from one season to another but I have not tried with hellebores (I had good results with peony pollen, anyway).
Roberto
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Hellebore pollen stores well by conventional methods. One thing that may not need mentioning is that it's important to protect the pollen from bees (if they're around) prior to collection. Some people protect the recipient of the pollen and not the pollen parent.
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hello Joseph
Do you protect the pollen plant in order not to be "robbed" by the bees or to avoid "pollution" of the anthers by other pollen?For the first flowers it is not a problem as there are no bees around but it may be later indeed.
Do you grow helleborus with upwright flowers?What I try to select is NOT the starry type but"normal" single ones that "look at you" so that you can easily see the markings inside.
John
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John, it's to avoid contamination, though I don't often bother to do it. I have a few small movable homemade 'greenhouses' (approximately 1 X 3 X 3 meters) that I can set over sections of the garden, but I can't do it for all plants. My breeding is done in the open garden, so it's never ideal.
I have some plants that always produce outfacing flowers and some produce upfacing flowers. I do use them when I can, and some offspring continue the trait. But the quantity and color range I have of these parents is limited (white, apricot/pink, dark/violet). Moreover, they are in the open garden and a couple (the whites) are early bloomers, so sometimes the reproductive parts get destroyed by cold. The white ones also only produce one or two carpels and don't often set seed well. This is particularly problematic with the upfacing ones (the flowers act like a bowl and catch rain etc).
As for shapes and color, I generally try to eliminate all undesirables on the property. Human neighbors are spaced far apart, and I doubt any of them have hellebores. So by only keeping the best examples, I can have a reasonable form of control and still get good plants even with open-pollination. I keep some open-pollinated seed too.