Rhododendrons 2014

[Robert]

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

johnw

John,

The last photograph listed is lutescens x scabrifolium var. spiciferum. I regret the confusion. I agree, it was not a color I was expecting. For me, this color has mostly turned up in spinuliferum hybrids.

As for your question about the white exterior base of many dendrocharis hybrids .... Right now I have not grown, and bloomed enough R. dendrocharis hybrids to come to any conclusions. All the bloomers are pink species x dendrocharis. Dendrocharis crossed with plants of yellow or orange pigmentation are not of blooming age yet. I will do my best to pay attention when their time comes.

[johnw]

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?).

Tomasz - The edgeworthii hybrid seedlings are being propagated out west for the RSBG.  It will be a few years before they list and no doubt it will make its way to Glendoick.

johnw   

[johnw]

My mistake Robert, I didn't read carefully enough as I was so stunned by the colour of that lut x spic.

Here are a few selections of my mucronulatum v. taguetii 'Cheju' x spinuliferum Starling.  The pollen parent is a remarkable red one from David's neck of the woods up in Drewsteignton.  The seedlings were in 2 gallon pots in 9 months from seed and budded.  The first bloomed last year, the other 4 pix are from the cold pitch dark storage barn just last weekened so I fully expect the colour to be very much stronger if they survive outdoors.  I wanted to back-cross these with the same spin but I don't think we have the hardiness elbow room with spinuliferum.

Lastly a myrtifolium x spinuliferum hybrid in Japan and Glendoick's dendrocharis x spinuliferum - note those white bases.

johnw

[johnw]

Lastly a myrtifolium x spinuliferum hybrid in Japan and Glendoick's dendrocharis x spinuliferum (hopeless for here) - note those white bases though.

The myrtifolium is a bizarre choice but when you think it through it was the perfect choice with such short pedicels the flower stand up erectly.

johnw

[Robert]

John,

Thank you so much for the photographs. The myrtifolium x spinuliferum hybrid looks very impressive! The Japanese always grow their plants to perfection. However, all the photographs are inspiring.

There must have been some warmer weather for you. Most of the NE continent has been so cold this winter.
Our limiting factor is the summer heat. There are so many beautiful rhododendrons that we can not grow here.

I will check our blooming dendrocharis hybrids for the white bases. Thanks!

[johnw]

Robert  - I meant the spinuliferum seems to produce white based flowers in great numbers. 

R. dendrocharis seems to be a very good parent.  It always seems to give fine foliage.  Here's one of my 'Cheju' x dendrocharis.

johnw

[Robert]

Robert  - I meant the spinuliferum seems to produce white based flowers in great numbers. 

R. dendrocharis seems to be a very good parent.  It always seems to give fine foliage.  Here's one of my 'Cheju' x dendrocharis.

johnw

John,

Thanks! I'll check our spinuliferum hybrids.

I have one clone of R. dendrocharis. It blooms consistently every season, however I can tell it is not completely happy with our summer heat. It has been a good pollen parent for us, but a very poor seed parent. If I had a heterozygous group of seedlings to work off, I'm sure I would have better results.

R. dendrocharis as a parent gives us good results, as per compact, bushy plants (there will be photos in a few days). So far our hybrids have had poor foliage. I will keep trying to work through this issue.

One open question: Is R. spinuliferum Starling truly red? I have to admit that I am skeptical. In lepidote Rhododendrons I've noticed a clear linkage in the pigmentation sequence. It appears to me that the locus associated with cyanidin / pelargonidin and their copiments are very closely linked to the delphinidin loci. i.e. I have never seen clear true red pigmentation; I've always seen some blue background pigmentation. During the growing season I always need to stay close to the farm, so I don't get around much. Maybe someone can help me out with this one, are there really true red lepidote Rhododendrons out there? 

[johnralphcarpenter]

Rhododendron 'Ptarmigan' and Rhododendron ochraceum.

[johnw]

Robert  - I can't tell you red Barry S.'s sopinuliferum is but he is one of the five best rhododendron eyes in the UK so that's enough for me.

Glendoick was working on red lepidotes years ago and at that time told me leaf-spotting seemed to be linked to red.  They are likely to have made great headway since those bygone days.

Here are a couple of tantalizngly close-to-red hybrids from Japan again, very far out crosses.  The foliage looks remarkably clean.

Scarlet Wonder x dauricum

Carmen x dauricum or the reverse

johnw

[johnw]

John  - Good to see Ptarmigan again, it a classy little thing.

How big are the ochraceum trusses?  I saw one of the very first trusses to flower in the west circa 2000 at Glendoick.  The truss was quite small but ever so red; it was in a greenhouse and in a pot.

johnw

[johnralphcarpenter]

How big are the ochraceum trusses?  I saw one of the very first trusses to flower in the west circa 2000 at Glendoick.  The truss was quite small but ever so red; it was in a greenhouse and in a pot.

johnw

Mine came from Glendoick. It is outside, in a pot but only because I don't have the right soil. The trusses are 8/9 cm across; not huge but very red.

[johnw]

John  - That's not a bad size on the ochraceum.  The Glendoick one I saw was a very young seedling and the truss was about 5-6cm, really quite unfair to assume anything at that size but the colour was great.

johnw

[peter hood]

Anyone like to tell me or speculate on what this dwarf Rhododendron is?
It probably shouldn't be flowering for another month or two, but it is.

In Early February I visited my local Wilkinsons (Wilko) store. For those who don't know the British High Street, this is a chain of Hardware stores operating very much at the Budget end of the market. Our local store is in a larger shopping centre, and gets no daylight and in February the temperature was distinctly warm. In the middle of the store among miscellaneous gardening paraphernalia was a collection of dwarf Rhododendrons and Azaleas. The peat soil was dry as a bone, some were labelled and some were not, some were already starting to flower. The labels suggested a good selection of varieties - such as you might hope for in a specialist outlet.
I wondered whether I should report them to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants; instead I chose to liberate a couple, and take them home for a programme of rehydration and hardening off.
One plant I bought was of Wren; this was already starting to open, the first few flowers opened well, but the remainder opened with the petals brown, presumably as a result of Dehydration. Still, hopefully I will keep the plant alive and enjoy the flowers another year.
The other plant was only with flower buds, but I was attracted by the small leaves and the growth form; I seem to have got to this one in time because it is now giving an excellent display of flowers; these are pictured below. Any ideas of an ID?

[Robert]

Peter,

Beautiful find! - and at a chain store if I understand correctly. I'm glad that they have found a good home! 

Hopefully someone with much more skill than I can ID them for you. Beautiful Rhododendrons and a great save!

[Robert]

Robert  - I can't tell you red Barry S.'s sopinuliferum is but he is one of the five best rhododendron eyes in the UK so that's enough for me.

Glendoick was working on red lepidotes years ago and at that time told me leaf-spotting seemed to be linked to red.  They are likely to have made great headway since those bygone days.

Here are a couple of tantalizngly close-to-red hybrids from Japan again, very far out crosses.  The foliage looks remarkably clean.

Scarlet Wonder x dauricum

Carmen x dauricum or the reverse

johnw

John,

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm glad to see that the Japanese are crossing the lepidote - elepidote boundary.

Thanks for sharing this information. In the Rhododendron world I might as well be on an island in the middle of the South Pacific. Maybe this is all old stuff for you, but it is new to me. Thanks!

The possible linkage to leaf spot in my world is not bad news. It is a very long shot, but now crossover resistance is a least possible. If things are set up correctly it should be possible to spot that sort of crossover. It is like a supernova - you can't make it happen but you want to be there when it does!