Thanks for posting those photos. 'My Jane' looks very happy. Of course the red 'Lisetta' is a beauty. Keep the photos coming.

mainegrower...exactly...'Viscy' for me has either been a pinky-peach some years, or that sort of caramel-peach color. Hard to nail down in words. I couldn't believe that it lasted for days and days this year with an amazing, clear, lemon-pie color. But, again, we were having the coolest, cloudiest, drizzliest spring we've had...and I've seen pictures especially in NW Europe of it looking like that. Too bad it is so hard (or impossible) to breed with, would be really interesting to put it on 'Nancy Evans'.

cf: http://www.hirsutum.info/rhododendron/hybrids/detail.php?id=1279

I hope your trying to hybridize your rhododendrons

well everyone has to make that decision about how much time a hobby takes up...I just feel like I can't really manage that on top of everything else garden related. Also there's no point in reinventing the wheel: 'Gotham Rheingold' will be the perfect yellow, whenever I can get it, even if I have to graft it, and I also have a couple good yellows I got from Richard Murcott. I'm probably not going to be able to create a hardy, solid orange, since that just hasn't happened, period, even in the PNW. That leaves me with one of my original goals - a hybrid involving R. arboreum that will become a huge tree sized, flawless deep red, 'Laligurans' in my climate. However with my little plant of the Rothschild hybrid 'Gibraltar' surprising me by surviving the second cold winter (yeah partly snow covered, but, still the ground was frozen solid and for this area, it was damn cold) - I think I might already have that plant. Still it is fun to scheme and because I am planting out my R. delavayi finally, I did put its pollen on 'Leo' and 'Captain Jack' just to see what that produces. The nice thing about my form of R. delavayi being, whether or not it's hardy here, it is incredibly root rot resistant. Not sure if you've seen me post this story before but after Hurricane Irene, I forget the big pot I'd put R. delavayi in was in a decorative faux-concrete planter. With no drain holes. There were other things to worry about like no electricity and downed branches. So, for about 2 days until I noticed, the root mass of it was COMPLETELY submerged in water! And it was unfazed by that! R. delavayi ssp. aquaticus LOL. John Thornton, the guy who did all of the R. hyperythrum hybrids, also found it very root rot resistant. The RSF claimed the form I have was collected at the highest elevation the species is found, so might be hardy to 5F or even 0F... However having now seen a couple blooming R. delavayi in CA, I can say the disappointing bluish color of mine is probably the norm, not an exception. The best blood red R. arboreum seem to be the very early ones that I missed on my recent trip. But in a cross with 'Leo' or 'Captain Jack' their superior red might dominate, and hypothetically you could get a plant that had good red flowers, good trusses, and, if not long term hardy here, might be long term hardy in Virginia Beach. ('Leo' and 'Captain Jack' would probably not survive the hot moist summer there. I truly consider my area - northern tip of the Bay - to be the southern limit of conveniently easy rhododendron cultivation on the east coast. Though even here the yellows pose challenges, and things like 'Biskra' are out the question unless grafted or protected with antifungals. Of course the latter is not a long-term strategy at all but I will do it until I can figure out how to graft them.)

btw this is a good article on the tedium of trying to hybridize for unusual colors:

JARS v57n1 - Let's Talk Hybridizing: Back Yard Hybridizing - How to Improve Success

pink is kind of the "lowest state of entropy" in the world of rhodies! LOL at "the way to get a white is to cross two light yellows"

BTW 2 - the hilariously opinionated Cox book of rhododendron hybrids - really a must-have if you want to collect the old-school hybrids as I do - poo-poos the hardiness of 'Gibraltar'. But the fact it survived almost 1F means that obviously, hybrids of R. arboreum are hardier in a climate with warmer summers than Scotland...which is pretty much any climate LOL. Similar to the way huge old plants of its parent 'Bibiani' are found in the cooler suburbs of Atlanta, while some in the PNW consider it a zone 9 plant. It is possible 'Gibraltar' won't become a tree here, but at least I can breed with it. I already am thinking of putting 'Vulcan' on it, since that is about the best red that is zn 6 hardy. (in my garden anyhow)

Let me know if your R. delavayi x Leo and Capt Jack set seed. I hope so. (PS, I can grow them out too ).

A 'Vulcan' cross sounds cool, although it doesn't have the hardiest gene pool.

Below are two 'Vulcan' x macabeanum hybrids from seed of Richard Flavell. I have others of this cross too. The leaves are still expanding. Nu like seeing the different color in the leaves which is an indicator of different genes.

tim if there are any crosses you specifically want me to do let me know. Sure I can share some seeds of what I've mentioned so far, I'd love for someone else to grow them out. (though I probably need to learn myself) 'Jenny Tabol' is going to bloom after all so I could make a cross on that too. 'Nancy Evans' in a pot is going to bloom but I've found it has issues making seed pods when grown in a pot. Of course it is infamously pollen sterile so you have to have the plant to hybridize with it.

'Evening Glow' is blooming too which is an interesting plant because it doesn't derive its yellowness from R. wardii, its companions 'Old Copper' and 'Autumn Gold' will be blooming soon. I might try a JT X 'Evening Glow'. I think JT might be pollen sterile too...too bad its parentage isn't known but surely involving R. wardii. Actually now that I think about it 'Autumn Gold' on JT might even be better to try. 'Old Copper' and 'Autumn Gold' are stronger growers for me than 'Evening Glow'.

btw the crosses I made before would have been Leo X R. delavayi and Capt. Jack X delavayi, not the other way around. (the delavayi is a small plant and I'd rather not make it form seeds; besides it is almost certainly more tender so I'd rather it be the pollen parent and not the seed parent...though I don't know if anyone has actually quantified if that matters. Surely there's some study on Rhododendron mDNA out there...but who has the time)

Any cross with arboreum would be great. Both ways if you can (seed producer and pollen donor). Plant many and select the best forms.

Flushing rex

Seed grown arboreum ssp cinnamomeum seems to thrive in our climate so far. I babied it last winter inside a wall-of-water and buried it in snow during the -13F(-25C) cold blast, so no true winter test yet.

Healthy looking plant though. I forget exactly where you are in coastal MA, but in coastal MA but I assume your soil is a sandy acid loam? Is there a natural top layer of organic material?

I wonder if one breeds with a white arboreum ssp cinnamomeum, one gets the same freedom from "pink contamination" known with some other species like fortunei and maximum.

David,

I'm about 5 air miles east of Providence. Not super coastal but definitely influenced by the coast.

Our soil is sandy loam and acidic. Rhodos thrive here.

I spotted this 'orange-ish' Azalea specimen today. It's the only one in Town this color, must be mail order?

that is an interesting color...not quite what I'd expect for the rather common 'Gibraltar' (the Exbury azalea) maybe one of the Arneson varieties? There are so many of those and they can also look slightly different year to year. 'Baltic Amber' for me has produced blue foliage some years, greener the others! no kidding.

maybe Mainegrower knows.

One interesting cross that appears to have worked (the seed pod is already swelling) was this plant:

http://www.rarefindnursery.com/index.php/rhododendron-tetraploid-minus-var-carolinianum-x-fastigiatum.html

pollinated with R. augustinii 'Cerulean Mist'. Presumably the seed will be triploid because it's a diploid pollen put in a tetraploid plant? I will send you some seed in the fall if you want, they should be a pretty good hardy blue. I'm worried about getting the hybrid through summer though...I planted it on a very, very well drained spot. We will see.

(btw the blue of the Rarefind plant is actually better than it appears in that picture. Probably as good as 'Crater Lake' and just a notch below 'Cerulean Mist'. Their offspring could be really good!)

If that seed sets I'll grow it out. Let me know. Any other successful attempts?

Can't tell if the other crosses I mentioned have worked yet. Interestingly the reverse cross of the above looks like it might not have worked. Maybe diploid pollen is ok on a tet plant but tet pollen has too many chromosomes to pollinate a diploid plant.

as another btw to this thread turns out 'Opal Thornton' faded pretty badly before dropping its flowers. Apparently white really dominates in R. hyperythrum hybrids. It's still better though because it starts out a very nice luminous pink, and the flowers are huge compared to the other R. hyp hybrids I mentioned.

Pollination is funny, some attempts work some don't, I still can't figure out why. Try pollinating several flowers and hopefully one or two will take. It can be very frustrating.

Yucca pollen from my blooming filamentosa x rostrata hybrid

one flower on R. auriculatum has opened 'early' which is interesting because another bud is not even expanding yet, so will presumably bloom during the normal time for that species of August. This is one of those strange single floral buds where the others aborted. You can see the petals are a bit deformed. Fragrance is root beer-y.

Here is the new growth on R. magniflorum. It was much redder a week ago but I kept forgetting to photograph it. This and R. auriculatum are very late to leaf out but very different; the leaves on R. . auriculatum aren't as colorful but have the showiest red leaf bracts of any plant besides 'Babylon'. But that leafs out in April, these two leaf out in June.

http://www.rhododendron.dk/magniflorum.html

Still a very small plant, it survived down to almost 0F, with snow cover, in the 2nd cold winter.

Nice to see auriculatum blooming, thx for the photo. Magniflorum leaves look interesting, somewhat similar to auriculatum.

My auriculatums are flushing too, one is almost done while the other is just starting.

Hi Guys

Logging into hirsutum.info and Website is not letting click on the Picture & Info Links

Is anyone having the same trouble ?

Thanks