I need you all to put your Sherlock Holms hats on.
We need to find out the true identity of S. 'Red Summer'.
Hybridizer is : WILLIAM NEWHARD (US), 1977

We have this one in the database:


This one on sempervivum-liste.de :
http://sempervivum-liste.de/Se...

Will the real 'Red Summer' please step forward.

Lynn,

Bill Newhard did grow some seedlings (I grew two of his dark-leaved ones in the early 70's) but as far as I know he never really named any of his own. He did sell a lot of semps in the early 70's and it may be one that he sold and no one knew its actual source. Shirley Rempel was credited with my 'Jungle Fires' for a while too and still is in some lists. That is wrong. at first i thought she introduced it, but it appears in Helen's list first, not hers.

Bill had gotten things from Sanford directly so it might have come so named and he just perpetuated the name.

Anyway, just my two cents!

Kevin

"Erwin" at Semper-vivum.de posted a pic of Red Summer on Facebook in 2012; it's the same type semp
as the other German sites. We are outnumbered!

Thank you for that information Kevin.
Sure wish we had an early photo or description of it. Would sure make things easier.

I think we need to try digging a little further to see if we can find a description of it from the 70's or 80's.

My question would be, if we can't find a description, what should we do with the entry in the database?

Lynn,

I'm sure there is a plant with this name but it should not be credited to Bill Newhard.

Newhard's lists had NO DESCRIPTIONS just a list of names so they are not useful. It does not appear in any of Helen's lists nor the ones of Betty Bronow's I own either, both of whom did write descriptions.

I have a copy of the cultivars that Peter Mitchell recognized when he became the international registrar and Red Summer is not on that list. That would have been ~1978.

Unfortunately MOST of the cultivars don't have published descriptions so we are sort of "horticultural archaeologists" as we try to piece back history. Unfortunately there are very few of us old timers left.

Kevin

So should we just keep this entry,write a description of it?
Then do we remove the name of Bill Newhar? Or do we leave the name with a question mark after it?

Kevin, did you look at Horsts site? There are a couple photos and a description of the plant from Erwin Geiger. It seems like this is more likely to be accurate than the one on our database. Where did you get your plant, Lynn?

From a nursery in Virginia. All their semps come from a local semp grower. Maybe I can get more information from them when I go back in the next month or so.

We have found that not all of the Germany semps from American breeders are correct. I think most are, but not all.

Lynn, where do you go for this nursery in Virginia?

http://www.merrifieldgardencen...
There are three family owned nurseries.

I think I've been to at least one. Never looked for semps then.

It is a wonderful place to shop for plants.

Patty,

Whatever the plant is, I would say it is NOT Bill Newhard's. It's one I don't know and never grew. To my knowledge he named NO seedlings and he had stopped selling anything by '78. He did name a few irises, including a lovely standard dwarf called 'Trend', that was a good approach to green.

Kevin

I'm confused (ha! Nothing new!)... Are you saying we should call both Red Summers NOIDs?

This is mine.

Came from PO..

I think mine and Cynda's are the same plant.

We will leave Red Summer in the database, but I will remove the information for the hybridizer.

No, I think it may be a legitimate name but credited to Bill Newhard. it shouldn't be.

Think we really need a plant from the Europeans to see if they matcvh. Descriptions are generally not good enough, even detailed ones. You need to grow them side by side.

Kevin

The European one is definitely not the same as the one we have here.
http://sempervivum-liste.de/Se...