Practice

and more practice and more practice! I need a tri-pod maybe Christmas?

I can't take any photos anymore without a tripod. But your two photos are pretty good Julia. Those babies look pretty tough. It will be fun to see what they look like in the spring.

Looks good Julia!!

Yay Julia the semp mama!

Yes, looking at troughs for planting seedlings. Love Greg's.

Julia,

OK I can see the addiction taking over! Soon you'll be tearing up your lawn to make more seedling bed areas. It is a WONDERFUL addiction though. Maybe the Americans will start making the Europeans envious, much like it was in the glory days for the US in the 70's and 80's.

Like you I'm going to grow a couple crosses in troughs or large pots just to keep an eye on them. The remainder will go into long raised beds.

Now we need to get Greg crossing too.

Kevin

This summer I'm going to try my hand at working as a bee. Thanks for the encouragement Kevin.

I been thinking about your typing issue and my DH is a typer just like you Kevin. My suggestion is to get a speech recognition program, DH uses Dragon. He has used this for years, however there is a training period which my be a bit time consuming but in the long run will save you time. Then I think also your voice will come across in the typed words. My son uses this as well all through undergrad and is now using in grad school.

I just heard that there are people that talk into a mike on their phone and this all gets typed into text messages on there...wow, technology....

Julia a trough or 2 would look great in your yard!!!
Good suggestion about dragon, I have it on my laptop - and it was one of the "selling points" for me...have I ever used it? No...oh well!

Lynn, what happened to your tripod? You've taught me that it's impossible to try closeups without one...

And Julia, welcome to the addiction forum! They will rename this eventually as truth will out... But it is a nice addiction and brings beauty into the world!

Julia, Yes one of my friends uses one of those programs but all the scientific terms come out as something else! Can you imagine what it would convert Sempervivum into?

Have gathered a lot of really neat references both over the years and recently through searching of the libraries and data banks. Think it could turn into quite an interesting book. It will be a book for GARDENERS not taxonomists so it will center on plants that are garden worthy although I will address those species that have played a large part in the development of the hybrids and those species that are still good garden plants.

I have done some closeups handheld but you have to practice bracing your hand on a solid object to prevent movement and shoot at a high shutter speed. It always seems the plant that I want to photograph is invariably in the center of the bed. Digital cameras are a help too in that you can take lots of photos and throw away the bad ones.

Kevin

I have my tripod MR. Don't go outside for photos without it.

This coming year is going to be so exciting, with so many people planting semp seeds. I think it would be fun and interesting for each person to start a thread for their seedlings that have matured a bit, and then we can kind of judge them online, using what Kevin has been teaching us. A real learning experience to help in our quest for creating new cultivars.

What do you all think about doing that?

Kevin, your hands are much steadier than mine. I am actually getting to a point where I might have to start using my remove trigger to take the photos.

Do you think there's any value if one doesn't have a clue as to parentage? There are those of us that have ordered seeds from eBay and Parks and gotten seeds from fellow addicts collectors and etc. So don't know where these seeds are from. No use judging those, right?

I think that would be fun and Bev those orphans could be just as amazing.

The amazing "step children semps"...?

Look at all the wonderful semps Ed Skrocki introduced. I would say this is a chance for all of us to start honing our hybridizing/seed growing skills. We will get better as we go, and produce more intentional crosses as we go. It is all an adventure of learning.

Lynn,

Of course grading from photos is always dangerous but they certainly can give us glimpses into what they could be. Does everyone have a copy of the criteria for judging their seedlings? I know we can upload photos but can we upload text??

and Lynn is right that it is possible to get a good semp from open pollinated seed but it is pretty rare. Ed Skrocki raised about 20K seedlings/ year to get his named ones! However, it does help you learn your technique for growing out seedlings and there certainly are tricks to it. Some semps are certainly better parents than others too. 'Silverine' and 'Cleveland Morgan' rarely gave an ugly seedling and I went back to them a good bit in my breeding. In fact, the 'Frost and Flame' X 'Pacific Blue Ice' seedlings are an F3 from 'Silverine' so that line is still continuing. Other parents were DUDS. They can't all be the "Katy Holmes" of the semp world!

Kevin

I had to look Katy Holmes up, didn't know who she is.
She definitely is a beauty.

Every step in the direction of learning is good.
We could take photos from the top and sides. I think it would help us to visualize what we should be looking for. It is easy for us to love our baby semps, they are our babies.
But we do need to learn to look at them through clear eyes, and we can still love them even in their imperfections.

Your so funny Lynn. Remember she was married to Tom Cruise. He was so in love with her years ago he was jumping up and down on Oprah's couch proclaiming his love for her.
My seedlings are mostly just green and not a pretty green either. I always have hope the chill of the weather will turn them to brilliant jewels but so far nothing.