TreeClimber said:I think that "Conspiracy Theory" has the best plant habits of anything I've ever seen. It's pollen works easily, but as Judy openly says, she has never set a pod on it. If you are lucky enough to get your hands on this amazing plant, DON'T GIVE UP. I have at least 5 pods on it, 3 of which I am pretty confident will hang in there until mature. (fingers crossed). All open blooms on it today got pollen from "Party Pants" .... the only thing I had blooming that was it's distant cousin.
I separated my original two fans of
Conspiracy Theory, and planted them around 10" apart in the spring of 2016. They quickly developed into a nice display in their second season, and this year it's a large clump. First and second season pollination attempts left nothing but fluttering tags, with maybe one or two 'teaser' pods, so I didn't try at all this year. Naturally, since I gave up, I have a pretty large 'bee pod' sitting on it right now. I should have persisted. I used the pollen mostly on
Notify Ground Crew this season. I think for best pod fertility I may have to slip a fan or two out of the clump and put them in a container. I agree about the plant habit—its scapes are well-branched and "just right" in thickness, the foliage is rich green and flawless. The color is one of the cleanest of the yellows I grow, and doesn't fade to gold or butter in the afternoon. A fantastic flower and plant, I'm really glad I pulled the trigger on this one.
Some plants seem to hold off on pod-setting until they're well-established, some of them just require an extra-powerful pollen. I've had a small clump of Oscie Whatley's
Kuan Yin planted near a tree where it gets bright, dappled shade until about 3 pm. It's been there for about three years, and appeared pod-sterile. It's not exactly modern in form, but the color is bright and clean, plus it has a nice green throat. Quite often the pistil would be slightly deformed, but even when it appeared normal, no luck. This year, I started it off early with pollen from Benz's
Red Velvet Supreme, and have about 5 big fat pods. Nothing else seemed to work, and I noticed throughout the garden that RVS was setting everywhere I tried—I even have a few RVS pods sitting on
Sarajevo, which is always a difficult set. Besides being one of John's best reds with great color and substance and strong scapes on a large, vigorous plant, it seems to have one of those magical power-pollens. I grow my main plant in a 5-gallon nursery pot, but I also put an extra plant in a 2-gallon grow bag. That little thing grew into a large, beefy fan and has three big sturdy scapes loaded with pods. It's still blooming.
