VERY exciting! Looking forward to the bloom pics too. Keep us posted! Take care, Grant

The Royal Velvet x Benfica turned out as expected - a luscious glistening dark red. I lost my Royal velvet to Chafer grubs so these crosses will make a nice replacement. The good news is that three plants flowered after only two years, and I have about 30 more growing in the garden, hopefully to flower next year. The stamens of the crosses are bursting with pollen, which I'm sure I will able to find a use for.

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Beautiful! Can't wait to see the 'Giraffe' cross!!!!!!

Congratulations on the blooms! Thanks for sharing the update--keep them coming! Take care, Grant.

Another one just about to emerge - Lima crossed with giraffe. One more day should see the bloom fully open

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Geoff

Damn now I die from curiousity. How can he do that... this Giraffe thing is determined to be a good one, and he has us wait for the picture.OMG xD My guess is that it will look like my "PapMinPic" - with narrower segments though.

C'mon pretty pleeeeease.

Hans-Werner,
Love the pup!!
I have made many crosses with Rosado that seem to all have taken. Do you you have any experience with Rosado? Also, Pat was nice enough to share bountiful Pap pollen, so am putting it on at least 1 of every bloom I have. ANTICIPATION!!
;-)
Kristi

No, never had Rosado, I'm afraid. But here's the Lima x Giraffe:

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Meanwhile, the giraffe x double white is nearly open, so another teaser. It is clearly going to be a double, which is great. It should open out fully tomorrow.

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Geoff

ANd here it is fully opened:

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Wow! Love the double one!!

Interesting that the giraffe x double white does not have either stamens or a stigma. Meanwhile, here are another couple of named crosses. The first is giraffe x carmen:

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It's a kind of generic bright red with green throat and some semi-double twiddly bits.

The next is Benfica x Dancing Queen. I have a few of these and some are single dark red, but this one is a double:

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I'll also put the lemon-lime x Dancing Queen here to keep them on the same thread. This is after a couple of days, and it does not seem to be turning orange like the lemon-lime parent:

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I have one more in the pipeline - a Bogota x San Remo cross - never seen this before so looking forward to that.

Oops - small correction. In keeping with the convention of putting the pollen donor second, that first one should be carmen x giraffe.

And this one I'm pretty sure is Bogota x carmen.

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Such interesting crosses, that white double is amazing, I see a market for that one as it's one of the neatest doubles I've seen!

Nice! Thanks for the updated pics and names. They're really fun to see. Happy gardening!

The giraffe x double white seems to be getting more and more flushed with a kind of salmon pink colour as it gets older:

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Great photos! This is the first year that I've tried growing Hipps from seed. It's really wonderful to see how some of your crosses have turned out. I did a poor job of recording my crosses this year... obviously I know who the pod parent is, but I have only guesses as to the other parentage for my seeds. Next year I'll be more careful!

Exciting crosses! My gratulationsto that!

Wow, double white and light salmon pink with stripes are perfect! congrats~

All your flowers are beautiful but that double white is stunning! The first red one reminds me of Black Pearl which I just got last year.

(haweha - Love your little doggie! Reminds me of my mini Dachshund.)

Clare

Here lies the real fun of breeding your own plants.
CONGRATULATIONS.

This is probably the last hybrid of this year whose parents are known. It is Bogota pollinated by San Remo (a big showy apple blossom type) seeded in 2009. Here's another teaser - I've been waiting patiently for three weeks. Another 24 hours should do it. The bud has a kind of smug smile, so I guess it's going to be good.

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Great job Geoff ! Particularly like Bogota x Carmen !

And here it is - retaining that subtle colour of the Bogota with more or less the shape of the San Remo.

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I'll see if I can try that Picassa trick to combine the hybrids with their parents in a collage

Not quite over yet. Another Bogota x Carmen flowered and was quite different from the first one - single instead of double and different shaped petals. Still that beautiful luminous Bogota colour which is nice, as my Bogota has been eaten by the chafer beetle grubs. I hope to keep the genes alive by crossing the Bogota x San Remo and the Bogota x Carmen. Check back for pictures in 2016.

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I have a lot of other hybrids of unknown parentage, but many, many variations on a theme are typified by the two below. I guess they are probably the generic red-white with dancing queen pollen.

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The curtain is falling on the season, so here's a summary of the new hybrids this year, using the Picassa collage function I've been playing around with. In each case, the host plant is above, and the pollon donor is below on the left, with the larger image of the offspring on the right.

Here are two Benfica x dancing queen - the first has produced single flowers and the second doubles:

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Here are two different results from Bogota x Carmen. Again the first is single and the second double:

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This one is Bogota crossed with San Remo:

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This is carmen x giraffe:

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Two very dark parents, royal velvet x Benfica:

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A papilio crossed with a cybister - giraffe x Lima:

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Lemon-lime x dancing queen:

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And finally - giraffe x double white:

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It's been a rewarding season, so looking forward to some more combinations next spring

Geoff