I like them (in the reverse order of your preferences). Remember, Rosie will give them a home if you decide they must go (lol).

Feedback is very much welcome! Oh, I'll be listing these to my Etsy shop to sell them later - each one numbered rather than named. But I'll keep them for evaluation a little while first so I have time to choose the best ones to continue growing. I did finally dump the last of this seed into a tray so I have 5,000+ seedlings of this particular cross growing merrily. /Those/ will get planted out into my garden and given away to the local schools for the kids to take home.

Hyn those are beautiful !!!! I really like them all !!! Love to see the pix of your crosses and your assessment of them. My order of preference is #1 Middle pix #2 Bottom pix #3 Top pix.

dbarron,,,,you are so comical !!!!! But truthful !!!! Yes they would ALL have a home with me !!!! All one million of them !!!! hahahaha Rosie

I know you, Rosie. Truth be told, I'd take the bottom two :0

Well, the red one has faded and the petals reflexed back. That'll almost certainly strike it out of the running with me to want to keep it.

The nearly white one with red netting has turned pink! It's a color changer like DS Hawaiian Party. Small flower but tidy form. Will keep an eye on it. Several others like it have opened but they are rattier and more speckly, less clean looking.

Several more deep red speckled have opened and one of them is STUNNING with bigger spots. I'll get a photo of it - it's my new favorite of the batch even if it still looks a lot like the mother plant. Interesting throat and lip markings, good size and great shape.

Can't wait to see it!!!!!! Rosie

Here is the new one, Rosie. I kind of like it. I'm thinking I may try crossing it or one like it with my new super huge 'Velvet Dragon' because if I could make this flower huge like that it would be really striking!

For future reference this is seedling # 0105 (Yes I have done a TON more seedlings than 100 but I am only assigning numbers to those that might be worthy to keep track of later. Trash seedlings I'm certain I don't want to keep track of I'm not bothering to photograph or number. (That's most of them actually).

That is so pretty!!!! I love it. I can't wait til I can grow some strep seeds, that has to be so exciting to see a flower open!!!! Only about trashing seedlings,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,sigh. Rosie

Don't stress. 'Trashing' them can mean my giving away or selling them in group lots or my planting them out into flower pots or my garden outside. I rarely compost them unless they are butt ugly. Sometimes they are! My extras in this case will get planted into flower pots for my wrap around decks here at the cabin. It'll also let me observe them a while as they grow and bloom in case I threw something 'out' that I should keep. Whatever is left by the end of summer I'll probably list on my Etsy shop to send them off to good homes. These are cute enough not to compost so far. Even the gritty looking speckly pinks I don't much like.

Also Rosie, the seed pods I harvested are almost all dried out. I'll break them open and process the seed shortly and send you some. ;)

Well, as long as they don't get literally "trashed"!!! Oh perish the thought! I bet they look pretty around the cabin!

Wow,,,,growing them will be exciting. I hope some grow and flower!!!! Never grew strep seeds before! <:D Rosie

I'm sorry I didn't keep more seed from this batch to send to you, Rosie. I can look again in case I did but I think I spread it all in a flat that I had left. I probably have more than 5,000 seedlings in that flat germinating from this same cross! My intention is to share those with the county schools this autumn for the kids to learn about streps through their science classes. Repotting, starting from leaves, gifts for their mothers for Christmas! I'm sure I'll be putting some on my Ety shop too.

If you don't have seed for me Hyn, that is ok. I understand. But gosh keep posting your new flower results! They are beautiful !!!! Rosie

Oh, no worries. I'm about to have more seed coming out my ears as soon as these new pods are dry!

Here by the way is a photo of DS Strawberry (mother and father) of the seedlings I am posting. I thought it might be a useful comparison.

So you can see how the seedlings are throwing lighter or darker flowers so far. Also, another DS hybrid that I used to grow and LOVED dearly but lost was DS Bonaventure. Some of these seedlings remind me of it greatly so I am delighted - it may originally have been a sibling of DS Strawberry. In a sense I am tickled to get it back, sort of.

OK Rosie, eye candy in coming! Here are more seedlings in this batch opening... You have seen seedlings #0101, #0102, #0103, #0105 (in that order) so far. So here is seedling #0104:

Seedling #0106:

Seedling #0108:

Seedling #0109: This one had a stuck petal I had to coax out but I don't think that will be an issue with later flowers. This one has a lot of blooms coming.

Seedling #0110:

Not too shabby for first flowers on little babies. A LOT more variety and interesting markings than I usually get.

Are they all from the same seed pod? Every one is beautiful!!!! Good job Hyn!!!! Rosie

Yes, these are all from the same seed pods. There are a few trashy ones I'm not bothering to photograph but only about three so far! Usually they are all trashy and I only get one once in a while that's nice. That seems to be the case with my other cross that has started to flower. The first one to open is just dark purple. Boring. The next one to open is pale purple with yellow lower petals like the long ago original Sylvia. Also relatively boring. They'll still be pretty planted in a flower pot on my cabin's deck.

I can't imagine any flower to be unattractive! However I now have a question about babies. I understand how to take a strep leaf for propagation, slice lengthwise along the "rib", and plant the two halves lengthwise and babies form. (Hopefully!!)

Now here is my question--I have been recently told if I now take the left over "rib" and break, not cut, but break it into about 1/2 inch pieces and plant them, mindful of which end is the lower end of each rib piece, babies should form from that planted end.

Have you heard of this or done it? I have never heard of it before but hey, since I have a few leaves to attempt propagation with, I may try it! Who knows???

Anyone else out there who has heard of this?? Rosie

I never do the slice up the mid rib thing anymore. More prone to rotting in my high humidity. These days I put a lower leaf section stem tip down like AV leaves and have better success and less rot that way - and only get a few stronger, faster growing babies. When I did the sliced up leaf thing I did plant ALL of the pieces, midrib and all with great success, if the leaves didn't rot. I tended to get a LOT more babies but they were also tiny and slower to grow. It also makes for more work.

Thanks! Have you ever heard of or tried to break the left over rib as described to get babies? Did it work? I wonder because it has no "veins" to produce babies.

Do you use just perlite to start leaves? Rosie

No. The more you break it up the more moisture it will loose and the more wounds for rot to enter into the leaves. I personally don't think it's a good idea at all unless you are working in sterile conditions. The midrib itself is a 'vein' Rosie - it's just a great big one.

Down in Georgia where it got really hot, I started leaves on straight perlite /if/ I was working with them in summer. The rest of the year I had much less trouble with rot so I started them on my regular mix. Up here on the mountain where it's much cooler I have little fear of rot except if it's very cold and the plants aren't growing much and stay too wet. I also rains up here a huge amount so I have to watch the moisture and run a dehumidifier in my plant rooms! Still, up here I have no problem starting leaves on regular soil mix.

My regular mix as you know is roughly 2/3 Miracle Grow and 1/3 perlite for my AV's and closer to 1/2 & 1/2 for my streps - but I do wick. Watch that you don't go over 1/2 perlite though. Some people use more but I find it starts stunting the growth of my plants, especially baby AV's struggle if there is too little soil mix. A friend of mine grows hers with about 2/3 perlite with just a little soil on top and a lot of her standard sized plants are pretty small. Even so, some of her others aren't so who knows? Depends on the variety.

Thanks! For some reason I have gone into an "information gathering" mode!!!! And streps are one thing I am pretty ignorant on. Thanks for all the info and different ways to do things! Rosie

Interesting array of progeny there, Hyn.

0101 -- as with Rosie and Dbarron -- was my least favorite even before its decline. For me, I think the color was somehow "lacking" as well as how recurved the side petals were in that photo, 0103 was my favorite of the lot. (Quite odd, that. My tastes typically run to colors which are dark/rich or clean & bright.) 0105 was indeed interesting. Reminded me of a Rorschach ink blot gone wild. Nice coloration on your Bonaventure "remake". Also found 0109 rather interestingly attractive. Something about the lighter color/reduced spotting of the upper 2 petals in contrast to the more heavily saturated lower 3 appeals to me.

OoC, if you crossed 0105 with Velvet Dragon, the deep solid color of VD (a rather unfortunate abbreviation considering the topic is breeding, yes? Heh) would not be dominant, I take it?

Nice comments, Paul. Thank you for sharing them. As for which color is dominant, the white backing with spotting patterns on these seedlings, or the deep red of Velvet Dragon, I don't know yet. I haven't tried crossing this pattern before. My /guess/ is that the solid color is likely to be the more dominant and the speckling patterns more recessive - but I don't know that until I try it. There is exceptionally little published on color inheritance in streptocarpus beyond the uber most basic information. Most hybridizers guard such information rather closely and don't share their research notes.

Hyn~

"My /guess/ is that the solid color is likely to be the more dominant and the speckling patterns more recessive - but I don't know that until I try it. There is exceptionally little published on color inheritance in streptocarpus beyond the uber most basic information.."

Ah, I see. I thought there might be recorded information on dominance. Color inheritance can take some surprising turns. In Cattleya orchids, lavender is actually dominant ... which can be frustrating for hybridizers trying to cross a lavender flower having great form with a plant possessing deep rich red. (Then, of course, there is possible matter of incomplete dominance and multiple alleles to radically escalate the level of complexity.)

Hyn~

"Most hybridizers guard such information rather closely and don't share their research notes"

Unfortunate, that. It seems that, in orchid circles, a lot of that information is out there and available to hybridizers.

Haha, that didn't used to be the case with orchid hybridizing so it must have changed. I've dabbled in hybridizing and flasking my own orchids for years though I have gotten away from it. Back when I was a member of the AOS. Glad to hear it!

I rather suspect that, at least in part, the fact that getting an orchid awarded or named with an official body like the RHS requires registration of the parents has made it difficult to impossible for hybridizers to keep things "hidden ". Then too, home hybridizing has become, while not an every day occurrence, more common than it used to be. (Many of the big orchid nurseries that remain in the US no longer do much hybridizing, as I understand it. Just too expense.) Home hobbyists are more likely to share their findings.

I don't mind to share my findings. But I lack the wealth of knowledge of strep hybridizing of such masterful breeders as Pavel Enikeev. He's doing some amazing work with pelorics and other new forms.

Thank you Irina. An outstanding response. Yes, I'm working towards gathering what I hope will be a good group to work with going forward. But it all takes time and I have a tremendous amount to learn yet. If I keep at it then I should speak with Pavel, if he'll speak with me. I am sure he's a very busy man. His hybridizing is his family business that puts food on his table and is his full time job. I too am interested in the pelorics and have one blooming now - you bet I'll take that pollen and both use it now and store the rest for later in the hope I can develop a peloric hybrid of my own. So we'll see if I have any luck with that or no. If others can do it, so can I with persistence.

irina_co(z5 CO)

"I do not think we are in danger of an evil hybridizer stealing information and making similar crosses. Not that many people work seriously in this field anymore - and there is no money - only love. And boundless patience."

That may a major factor even more so in the orchid arena. In comparison to orchids, strep hybridization and that of many other types of plants is "fast paced" with the cycle of seed to maturation occurring at "break neck speeds". (For those unfamiliar with orchids, most orchid seed pods take about 6 months to mature with some types taking as much as 14 months. Then there is the wait time for the seeds to get old enough to bloom for the first time .... With a few types, they may bloom -- if given perfect conditions -- in 2-3 yrs. Most will require more like 5-7 yrs before reaching blooming size. Then there are a few which may require 12yrs or more. That is a LONG time to wait to see if you have any "gems" in the offspring or if you have a bunch of dogs.)

Exactly, Paul.