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dmichael619

My first 2 camellia blooms:::::::::

dmichael619
9 years ago

of the 2014/15 season.

The first is Joshua E. Youtz taken on a rainy day late in the afternoon. It's growing in a fairly shaded area of the garden and the grey shadows were caused buy the camera flash. This flower actually opened about 3 weeks ago and was not gibbed.

Comments (5)

  • dmichael619
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I had 2 pics that I wanted to post in the same thread. Is there a way to do this??? I'd rather not have to post tons of pics a single shot at a time if I don't have to.

    This is Lady Clare variegated and this one opened today. This flower was gibbed on August 16th.

  • marty
    9 years ago

    I'm sorry but what does gibbed mean?

  • dmichael619
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Marty,
    it just means that the flower bud was chemically altered using gibberellic acid. I never knew such could be done until I joined my local camellia club back in January of this year. Our first club meeting for the 2014/2015 season took place back in August and they gave all the members a small vial of the solution. What you do,is take a flower bud and remove the growth point from beside it (this would be your new leaf growth point) using a syringe or something of the sorts you would place a single drop of the gib into the little calyx that is left beside the flower bud.Then you wait. It's as simple as that. My understanding of why this is done is that it forces the flower bud to develop quicker thus blooming earlier and also it tends to increase the size of the flower by a 1/4 up to a half size larger than normal. From what i've seen it's done mostly by growers who are into showing their flowers. I've managed to put together a good sized collection of camellias in a rather short period of time and do at some point in the future plan to show the blooms. This is why I was interested in attempting to gib flowers. Our local show will be the weekend of January 10th 2015 and I might try to enter something and see what happens!!! I also have been told that if you wish to enter flowers in an upcoming show and you plan to gib that it should be done 30-60 days prior to that show. So if I want to enter blooms into my upcoming January show I would start gibbing the buds sometime around Thanksgiving.

    I hope all that made some sort of sense!!!

    David

  • luis_pr
    9 years ago

    Here is a video on gibbing (see the link below).

    Here is a link that might be useful: ACS Gibbing Video

  • theoriginaldawgone
    9 years ago

    Not hardly a chance ever of ga3 or anything else making a flower get up to 1/2 its normal size larger-- probably never , 25% -35%maybe. The difference is certainly noticeable for sure- thats from first hand experience gibbing hundreds of flowers, both japonicas and retics. A few friends of mine have had some big retics like John Hunt get up close to 9" , but those are the exception rather than the rule. There are a couple of recently released varieties that will get close to that- but only very well connected folks have access to them

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