What new annual garden flowers will appear in the next few years? Perhaps that seems like a foolish question. Isn’t it a little early to talk of new things today when those for this past year are not even in bloom? But plant breeders are looking far ahead! New Annuals The new annuals for this … Read more
Mr. Joseph Harris of the Joseph Harris Seed Company, Rochester, N. Y., would like to see yellow sweet peas and pure yellow petunias brightening the landscape but concedes that these are difficult. He thinks an aster strain (Callistephus) which is completely unaffected by aster yellows disease, may come along sooner than expected. Disease resistance in … Read more
You could be the hybridizer who creates a series of miniature, everblooming gloxinias in various flower colors and leaf types. Or crosses the jacobinias in cultivation to produce plants better suited to the window sill and home greenhouse. Or the person who works diligently with those miniature amaryllids, the cyrtanthus, to obtain larger flowers in … Read more
The plant breeder is truly a creator, for he works, not with such dead chemicals as pigments, but with those infinitesimally small yet living chemicals galled “genes.” Genes: Bearers Of Heredity In Plants Genes are the bearers of heredity in all life, from mankind to the grass itself. It is hard for us to realize … Read more
Would you like to carry on your plant hybridizing throughout the year? You can if you own a small greenhouse. What’s more, many greenhouse-grown perennials bloom in far less time than those grown in the garden. To the hybridizer, this time is most important. Hybridizing Daylily If you start daylily (hemerocallis) seeds in the greenhouse … Read more