After seeing some of you all talking on the subject of culling seedlings it inspired me to do the same. Sitting here going through 100s of pictures, looking, categorizing, deleting a horrible process. Its not easy first time its ever happened seriously. Out of 300 seedlings only 38 have made the cut. I mean watching keeping logs on for registration. Not a good ratio in my book. Jessie George told me it was necessary if we still wanted a yard and we now have seeds of our own. Most were seeds given to me by John Philips. The others were seedlings rescued from JTM gardens after Ms. Terah passed. Some were 1,2 and 3 yr seedlings. Some had the tags with crosses, others the 3rd year did not. We pulled the tags summer before last. Not cool, tough love i guess. Anyway we took them knowing they were worthy and seeing reg.cultivars with unknown parentage. I keep telling myself this is just a hobby. The first two are sisters of Dr. Andrea Sims Jessie George cross (Camera Shy x Answering Angels)x ( TAL OF Gascone x Sourhern Dazzle)






The next two are unknown cross taken because Jessie said it was something new. I thought they were doubles. Are they or are they like Weird Ataomy ( Rich 2019) ?





I am new at this. The next 2 are noid seedlings i rescued them caise i like em.




Spiny Sea Urchin x Forestlake Ragamuffin



And lastly Aunt Pollys Paddle x Banana Smoothie


What ya think? ( Karen)

Diggerofdirt said: Out of 300 seedlings only 38 have made the cut. I mean watching keeping logs on for registration. Not a good ratio in my book.

Actually, I would be very happy with that ratio. I am just starting out (yr 2 of hybridizing) and if I get 1 or 2% of seedlings to make that 1st cut I will consider myself very fortunate. But perhaps it all depends on how many seedlings you are generating and how aggressive you are with culling early on.

That being said, I would only cull when i needed the space or to reduce my work load. If you don't need the space you might as well let more of them develop. Who knows, maybe an ugly duckling will have 50 buds and 8-way branching making it very useful for breeding purposes.

Now, imagine if you had 30,000 seedlings... with your ratio (12.7%), you would be keeping 3,800 seedlings.. that would be daunting indeed. In that case I imagine most would opt to keep fewer than 12.7% for observation... but who knows...

In short, if you have 38/300 that you see potential in... I think that's a huge number to work with

I dont mean that i would register that many just start tracking habit of that many.

Diggerofdirt said:I dont mean that i would register that many just start tracking habit of that many.

Yes i understood you... we are on the same page... in my opinion that is quite a high percentage for seedlings that you intend to track.

The number of keepers will vary hybridizer to hybridizer. Personally my number of keepers, or ratio, varies year to year depending on the progress seen toward my goals in a seedling crop. The majority of keepers will be bridge plants with the rest lined for possible intro. All keepers are evaluated.

You have some very nice sdlgs to work with and evaluate Roger.

Diggerofdirt said:
The next two are unknown cross taken because Jessie said it was something new. I thought they were doubles. Are they or are they like Weird Ataomy ( Rich 2019) ?

Single flower forms recognized for registration by ADS/AHS are Single, Spider, Polymerous, Sculpted (Pleated, Relief and Cristate) and Unusual (Spatulate, Cascade and Crispate) forms. Weird Anatomy is one of my introductions and it's a Sculpted cristate form, a single flower.
The two sdlgs above are double flowers, recognized by ADS/AHS for registration as Double form.

Thank you Char for clearing that up for me. Karen

Karen, the first picture with the unusual marking at the end of the petals is rather neat. Reminds me of a space shuttle taking off or maybe a manta ray. The third one (double) reminds me of Highland Lord. All of them look nice, but I like 1, 2 and 5 best.

Look at all the buds on the pretty yellow one. I like the ruffly bloom, also. I know yellow isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I like it a lot.

It looks a little short. Is that true or is it just the angle on the picture? If it's got that many buds and that nice bloom, but it was short, I would be recrossing it with Banana Smoothie to see if there's a perfect blend of buds, bloom and height in a kid.

I hope you don't cull that one.

Please don't cull Aunt Pollys Paddle x Banana Smoothie , I'm with Tim about that one and love the form and ruffles. I really like it.

Oh i wont. Its one of our favorite. It is short. The branching is crazy.


And who could cull a face like this


And it already has a name.

Good to hear, that one is on my radar.