Jo Ann, give Lionness a call.

Jo Ann,

Yes the seedlings mostly come up all green or mostly so. Some of the red heuffs will show red fairly early and some of the ones from the Borscht group will show purple early on too. The heuffs are diploids so it's a bit easier to pull out recessives. The bigger ones tend to be all green so I was surprised when the big brown appeared. Some of Bill Nixon's cultivars are from Pallasii which is a bigger one and in selfing these I get the occasional ones with bigger rosettes and red color. The red leaves descend from one called Giuseppi Spiny and it is smaller sop the two traits (small and red) might be linked.

Leonine Gardens is the one with PCNs. They have a great assortment. Here all they want is light shade and not much water in summer. Other than that very easy. It's the only thing that's happy in maple tree roots.

It will be a few years before mine are on the market. I only started breeding them 5 years ago, when I moved to Oregon.

Kevin

We look forward to the day they will be available Kevin. They would be treasures in any garden, I've seen some of them in bloom in your garden.

Here you go Michael, seedling planted last Saturday. I don't know how Kevin does it. These things are so tiny, some with already amazing roots. Hard not to knock off a few new tender leaves.

You can see the milk jugs sitting beside the rows, they still have many seedlings that are not mature enough to move yet.
Seedlings of 'Orange Tip' and 'Michael's Golden'


Seedling from 'Persephone'. These are much larger that the other seedlings. All planted at the same time.

Aww, an open-space nursery for the young'uns out of their bottles! How exciting, Lynn.

Thank you Bev. : )

Here is a photo of the seedlings that came up out in bed 2. Spent the winter outdoors. Tough little guys. They are coming up between the tiny pieces of chicken grit.
I may give this method a try next time, this one was by accident.

Ms. Nature's way of showing you some new seedlings to compete with your creations...

Your seedlings are far ahead of mine. Some just started their first pair of true leaves, some have just germinated. Those transplanted two weeks ago did not grow until now (at least it seams to me) - I will need a lot of patience and better weather I guess!

Michael, are you using Kevin's starter method? I have seen the results of how great this works for semp seedlings in Kevin's garden.
http://www.miraclegro.com/smg/...

Ah, I've made Lynn a convert to Quick Start! It is amazing. I know the people at Mountain Crest couldn't believe that I had gone from seed to CLUMPS in one year.

Actually I use it on all my seedlings and new transplants. Maybe I should do the commercial......

Kevin

JungleShadows said:Ah, I've made Lynn a convert to Quick Start! It is amazing. I know the people at Mountain Crest couldn't believe that I had gone from seed to CLUMPS in one year.

Actually I use it on all my seedlings and new transplants. Maybe I should do the commercial......

Kevin

Commercial? Great idea! Nine out of ten Sempervivum hybridizers prefer Miracle Grow Quick Start!

Kevin... as best you can estimate... what difference does QuickStart actually make, compared to no additives at all?

And is there a practical deadline for your book feedback? Maybe it's passed already.

Here's a pic of the historical moment when Kevin shared his Quick Start secret with Lynn...

Tim, My first year I didn't use it on the semps and they were definitely less advanced. I don't do a control group because I want them ALL to grow. The time for comments is WIDE OPEN Tim.

LOVE the historical photo! I think Lynn is about to sing "I believe in Quick Start". BTW there are LOTS of transplanting type fertilizers. I got tuned into Quick Start by an iris grower in St. Louis as it allowed him to get 100% first year bloom on iris seedlings. It works on all my seedling crops.

Kevin

I can tell you first hand that Quick Start makes a VERY big difference.

I am a big fan of Quick Start. It's not too strong for seedlings and being liquid you don't have to worry whether the granules are all dissolved or not. Lynn, the only time I germinated some semps I scattered the seed heads over an Anderson deep flat filled with my regular soil mix and covered with chick grit. Someone told me that the fine seed would have some protection in the chick grit. They germinated fine but I did not follow through. Won't make that mistake again
Kevin do you think that if i crossed a large green Heuff with Gold Bug that I might get something with some size in screaming chartreuse or would that be more likely in the F2 ? Of course part of the trick is having things flower at the same time. I have some Reinhard that are about to flower soon in the greenhouse and nothing to cross them with, which is such a shame because in my experience Reinhard does not flower often. (and it's green!)

Mine does so, too, Jo Ann. Although I actually do not believe it's 'Reinhard' as it looks and smells (resin) more like the grandiflorum types I saw at Martin Haberer's site. I see some other semp around that will eventually flower this summer, but my 'Reinhard' will be done by that time - self crossing is the only solution - maybe there are some recessive traits in that type

Wow Lynn, how awesome that you've got such a great start with your seedlings! Can't wait to watch those babies grow up!

Jo Ann, I did a lot of crosses of 'Orange Tip' with every red and got NO yellow seedlings, so the gold color is recessive. You can recover it in the F2 by selfing or sibbing these seedlings or a backcross to 'Orange Tip'. I'm hoping a few of my F1's will bloom so I can do the backcross.

Thank you so much for your comments on my chapter on hybridizing. That was a first draft off the top of my head to use in the clinic and written during a bout of swine flu!

For whatever reason the formulation of Quick Start seems to work especially well with seedlings. I gave Lynn her first bottle!

Kevin

Thanks Michael and Kevin
Kevin, if that was a rough draft on swine flu, the end result will be totally awsome. I can't wait for the whole book.
I got my first bottle of Quick Start because someone left it at a place that I moved to and I do not like to waste or throw out fertilizer. What a gift!
In spite of the name, I have always thought that Reinhard seems really close to a species...like maybe a selection but no idea what species. Any ideas Michael?
Also I have some Grandiflorum Keaston that have "reverted?" to a bright green. Is that the species

Hi Jo Ann,

according to sempervivum-liste.de it is supposed to be a S. cantabricum Hybrid. Mine looks different from the fotos-rather thin leaves with broad dark purple border- I will try to post some fotos tomorrow.
I should have asked Martin Haberer for the real one, as he named it.

I will also try to find that fertilizer in Germany...might be hard to find.

My 'Reinhard' (?) captured this evening in the last beams of sunlight:



The rosette that will flower is not visible in the fotos