Jeanne,

"I saved the seeds from this plant, what can I expect when I grow them?"

Assuming that your cornflower blue Akasuki No Umi was actually an F1 hybrid between Akasuki No Umi and Yojiri, the seeds that you saved will be F2s from that cross. As F2s, you can expect random recombinations of the genes from the two parents. I love growing F2s from known crosses because of the great variety of new combinations of features that you can get. Some of them may be counter-intuitive, so as they say, expect the unexpected.

You could possibly get a pink Akasuki No Umi or something similiar to, but a bit different, from a pink Akasuki No Umi. Depending on how many different gene pairs are involved, it might be that no two of your F2 plants will be the same. Be sure to save seeds from your favorites. Your selected F3s will also have some variation, but you will be on your way toward creating new breeds.

MM

Oh, thank you! I was so thrilled with this cross that I tried a few others, I. purpurea 'flaked' x I. hederacea, and I. hederacea x I. purpurea 'flaked'. I was surprised at how easily they took, I had dismal sucess with Rosa crosses.

Now I will be able to figure out what I want to do with all these seeds. Your information is very much appreciated.