That must be where you got your gardening genes. She would be so proud of you.

That must be where you got your gardening genes. She would be so proud of you.

I agree

Miss Minnie is gorgeous! My MIL gardened a lot, and always in a dress. Gardening was the only time she wore flat shoes. The rest of the time she wore heels, and insisted on wearing them til she died at age 90!

Scott, Miss Minnie is pretty fantastic. I love Ti Plants, particularly the minis. A couple years ago I ordered some from Shogun Hawaii (http://shogunhawaii.com/home.h...). I don't have any pics, but a couple of them are putting up their first flower panicles. Gonna try my hand at some cross-pollination. Any tips specific to pollinating cordylines?

Carter, Are you looking to do specific crosses or a general cross? Keep in mind not all named Ti are capable of producing seed. Some are good as a male pollen donor but will not set fruit themselves.
If you want to do the easy general cross all you need to do is get a small paint brush and move the pollen from male flowers to a female flower.
If you wish to do a specific cross decide who will be the seed producing plant and remove the male flowers as soon as the flowers open daily. The flowers will continue to open on the flower stalk for a week or so and you will have to continue the daily removal of the male flower parts (AM hours are best). The female flower is usually ready to accept pollen (will be wet on the end) the 2ed to the 4th day (depending on temps) after opening. Take the paint brush and remove pollen from male flowers of your donor plant to the female flower of your selected and prepared female. Cover the flower stalk with a lunch size paper bag to stop any cross pollination from other Ti that may be in flower at the time.



If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

Another thing to remember for those of you having Ti flowering even if you do not want to try them from seed. Many times a plantlet will develop on the flower stem. The plantlet can be left until spring or until flower stalk starts to dry, remove and root as you would a cutting placing the flower stem and base of plantlet into soil.

Oh boy, plantlets I can do! Tried to germinate some seeds last summer but no luck whatsoever. But all my cuttings have grown nicely.

Just walking by, I spotted this pink one with the sun lighting it up:



And speaking of mini's:
Ballerina is finally showing some more colors.

Thanks, Scott. Ya, I know the general basics of hybridization, I just didn't know if there was any special trick to cordylines or if it was a straight forward as you've indicated - though, the timing tips are certainly helpful. I'll try a few specific crosses. Does cordyline pollen store well or do you just use what you have blooming at the time when you hybridize?

I'll keep you posted on my results. The panicles are probably at least a week or so from beginning to bloom right now, so I've still got a little time to wait.

Carter, I have only used fresh pollen available at the time.

We are forecast to have a hard freeze starting tonight and into tomorrow morning. It will surely be the last hurrah for Willi's Gold for this year. It is in a large concrete pot and there is no way to move it. I'll cover it and put an incandescent light bulb underneath the covering. The roots will survive but the leaves will still be damaged. Normally we only have cold for an hour or so in the early hours of the morning. This time it is supposed to get cold around 9 this evening and stay cold for the next 12 hours. Brrrrrrr I have taken cuttings from my other Ti's but I hate to cut on this plant- well, maybe just one.

What a shame to cut it, Alice but I'm sure it will survive, and you'll then have a new plant as well. Take insurance!

I've got most of my orchids inside the house for tonight and tomorrow night as well. It is very dark and stormy now, but the front will pass by this afternoon and the temps will then drop like a rock. Covering everything outside as best we can as well . . . I caught the squirrel ripping at my big frost cloth tent yesterday and carrying strips of cloth away. Guess he knows it's going to be cold, too.

Why not take it out of the pot and keep it in the house until your last frost is gone? Seems better than letting it freeze...

The pot is 2' x '2 x'2'. EVen the root ball is just too heavy for us to lift anymore. I used to be able to move that sucker of a pot all over. Getting old is the pits.

Good news is, that big, dense pot will hold warmth, and insulate better than a light one. Cover it and I'll bet it will be fine. We're supposed to go down to 40 tonight, which is colder than it was all last winter, but it's been so warm, I'm confident that the warm ground will hold the temperatures up nicely in my protected back yard.

I wound up weaving mini Christmas lights through the plant and covering it with a polartec blanket, I put a shower curtain over the top in case it starts to rain again. They were old lights that put out some warmth unlike the newer LEDs. It is downright toasty under the blanket. I took a cutting as insurance anyway. If we have cold it is normally only for an hour or so in the morning but this time it is supposed to stay below freezing overnight and maybe tomorrow night also. The ocean temp is 57 so the ground should stay pretty warm but the plant material was already stressed by the salt water bath from the hurricane. It will be back in the 70's by mid week,

Dodged the bullet here with a windy low yesterday morning of 34f.
'Pearly Shells' was looking good...

Well, my cross-breeding attempts will be on hold another year. We had a bad freeze (well, for us anyways - down to 26F) this weekend that wiped them all out (above the ground, anyways). oh well, that's the chance I take with them in the ground. They should pop back up this spring and maybe I'll take some cuttings to put in pots.

Got down to 28 here for the past two nights but the Christmas lights seemed to do the trick for the big WIllii's Gold. I took cuttings from the others that were in the ground. It is starting to warm up today and should be back in the 70's by mid week. AS cold as it was, the only damage I see is some fried coleus. The EE's are still looking good.

This has probably been mentioned before but it can't hurt to mention it again. I was searching for an ID on a Cordyline today and came across this site. Lots of photos and lots of names.
.cordyline.org/index.php?option=com_zoom&Itemid=35&catid=13

http://www.cordyline.org/index...