First, let me express appreciation for the many interesting emails regarding this subject. There were too many to answer personally, but I want you to know that plant breeders are working on many of your suggestions and desires.
Someday we may have fragrant morning glories to remain open through a sunny day, a true blue giant fringed and double petunia and a bright yellow one, a huge flowered red-tipped white zinnia, a dwarf Sensation type cosmos, double lilies, blue annual salvia, a white celosia, and dwarf four-o’clock along with yellows-resistant asters and mildew-proof zinnias.
These and the other suggestions were tabulated and sent to breeders working with these subjects.
Amateur Hybridizing
One of the best suggestions was for seed catalogs and garden magazines to publicize amateur plant breeding more as a hobby instead of just a “spectator” sport. Varieties of the same kind of flower are readily crossed with each other. It’s fun to experiment.
All-America Selections receives entries from amateur or home garden “hybridists” just as from seedsmen and state and federal institutions. Home gardeners are as likely to have a “sport” or mutation in their plantings as commercial flower seed growers.
Discover a desirable new type of color, whether a dwarf, large-flowered four-o’clock, a yellow petunia, or some other exciting plant may be a great contribution to gardening.
The ‘Sensation’ cosmos, `McKana Giant’ columbines, `Dixie Sunshine’ marigold, and the annual ‘Indian Spring’ hollyhock came from amateur gardeners. ‘Blue Star’ morning glory was a sport found in France and California. Both were entered in the same year in AAS trials.
Observing gardeners noticed this attractive break in the favorite ‘Heavenly Blue’ and saved seed from those plants. Another amateur found `Scarlett O’Hara,’ the red morning glory.
Dixie Sunshine
Dixie Sunshine gave us not only our first chrysanthemum-flowered marigold but crossed with other types and gave us mum-flower blooms in those types. 1960 winning ‘Spun Gold,’ only a foot high with three-inch double yellow blooms and very early flowering, traces back to the observant Florida preacher who first saved the seed of ‘Dixie Sunshine.’
We need plant explorers in the home garden as well as in distant lands. A pair of eyebrow tweezers and a little camel hair brush are all one needs to start hybridizing. A small paper bag to fasten over the female flower, after removing the immature stamens and brushing pollen from the chosen male on its stigma, keeps insects or wind from contaminating your cross.
When the seeds are mature, keep them dry and plant them the next season. You’re a hybridizer.
One of your requests, for a base-branching snapdragon to stand the heat and bloom in mid-summer, is already answered in the 1960 winning ‘Rocket’ snapdragons.
Leafhoppers spread the virus of “yellows’ ‘ disease toasters. Their control is through frequent spraying. No known progress has been made in developing yellows-resistant asters although most present-day asters are wilt-resistant.
A Blue Zinnia?
It will be a long time, I’m afraid, before we have a zinnia the color of ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glory or an annual blue scarlet sage-type salvia. A rich purple annual salvia of the splendens type is on the way. Some reds still show up but these will be eliminated in a year or two. The perennial salvia ‘Blue Bedder’ is treated as an annual and is easily bloomed from seed the first year.
We do have dwarf cosmos, not of the giant ‘Sensation’ type and colors but the annual hybrid type, in ‘Orange Flare,’ Yellow Flare,’ and the red and gold ‘Fiesta.’
As for a yellow petunia, there is the primrose or creamy yellow ‘Yellow Gleam’ and the species hybrid `Funny Face’ of white with yellow throat veined brownish purple. At least these are starts towards a bright yellow, interesting in themselves as well as for hybridizing.
Breeding Large Zinnia
The call for a large zinnia on a dwarf plant is perhaps approached in the winning Burpee hybrid or giant ‘Fantasy’ or cactus type ‘Maze.’ Inbreeding it for uniformity caused it to be dwarfed by others of its type at least but it is stronger growing and I believe a little taller now than when introduced in 1954.
Asking for 12-inch dahlia-sized zinnias is perhaps beyond present reach because selecting to extreme size has caused less doubleness and fewer flowers. Treating with colchicine for tetraploids has produced exceptionally large flowers but those I have grown and seen were coarse and without the good looks we desire in our flowers.
So, selection returned to good looks, uniformity, and floriferous ness in somewhat smaller blooms. They are far more desirable and usable than monstrosities.
For a blue petunia, there is a light blue ‘Sky Chief’ of 12-inch height and open-pollinated. An Fl (first generation) hybrid of the larger flowered Grandiflora type in this light or medium blue color should be ready by 1961. Other so-called “blues” are deep purplish violet or heavily violet veined.
There is a green gladiolus, like the green species rose, although florets are small and don’t open up like popular glads. Petals may be turned back or opened by hand for a novelty. Some of the miniature glads are quite greenish. A few fair glads of dark purple and violet already approach black.
I don’t know what to say about producing a seedless persimmon, or a climbing forsythia.
The suspensa forsythias, like `Sieboldi,’ although without tendrils or twining nature, grow to ten feet with slender trailing branches which may be trained as you would a climbing or pillar rose.
The request for an edible-podded garden pea is answered by ‘Dwarf Gray Sugar’ or ‘Mammoth Melting.’ Pick and prepare these while the pods are tender and before the peas are full size. That saves shelling peas.
Giant Fantasy Zinnia
Asking for a giant ‘Fantasy’ zinnia with `Ortho Polka’ striping is feasible. Cross the two types and select for size along with curled and twisted striped petals. Peppermint’ and ‘alit? Polka vary greatly in their striping, with many flowers showing solid colors.
A good strain takes perseverance, maybe some back-crossing with a parent to emphasize its desired features and then further selection towards your ideal. Keep records of your crossings.
Use a giant ‘Fantasy’ variety for the male or pollen plant in some crosses and make reciprocal crosses with `Ortho Polka’ pollen on the Fantasy stigma. Your records will show which may be more effective.
Zinnias are not easy to work with because of the composite flower head, but petunias are easy. Let’s try hybridizing for a purposeful hobby. Here’s hoping for the development of your All-America winner!
44659 by W. Ray Hastings