Lady Slipper Orchid

A pretty part of spring in Minnesota.

Me? Organize? You Have Got to be Kidding!

For those of you who have taken your life in your hands and walked through my “sewing, craft, plant, stuff” room, know what a mess it is. Surprisingly, I have a pretty good idea where everything is. However, as cluttered as the room may look, the closet is worse. That is where I kept all my design materials.

I absolutely love doing design, but it had started becoming more like a chore. Much of my design materials was kept in a two-drawer organizer which really wasn’t. Each drawer is 18” long x 14” wide x 8” deep. Plus there was also a box with material, one for dried weedy things, one for baskets, moss, containers of dried materials, etc. Doing design meant pulling the drawers out and rummaging through them. By the time I was done, half the family room had stuff scattered around. Dragging it all out and then trying to put it away would have me saying “*!!?#*#?/” to design.

We went shopping! The result was an organizer with more, but much smaller drawers and it is on wheels. The drawers are 14” long x 11” wide. Four drawers are 3” deep and three are 7” deep. It is perfect! Now my design organizer IS. One drawer has shiny sparkle stuff, one has small containers of all sorts, one has fastening materials, etc. The deeper drawers are divided up with small boxes. The whole experience was kind of like a treasure hunt. I found items that were completely forgotten. So much ended up on the bottom of those big deep drawers. The old two-drawer now holds larger items. It’s soooo nice to have it all where I can see it.

By the way, NO the rest of the room still looks the same. There’s only so much organizing that can be done at one time. Give me a few years.

Many thanks and appreciation to Barb Werness for this great article!!!

Perry's Old Age

Perry's fabulous inflorescence has almost completely collapsed. Soon the corm will send up a leaf... only one leaf.... that will probably be the biggest leaf in the entire state of Minnesota.

The links to the college of Gustavus have lots of further information about Perry; using an engine hoist to move the corm into another pot, the problems with finding a pot for a hundred pound corm.... taking mom to smell a "corpse flower" for Mother's Day and so much more!!! Check it out!

All about Perry! Enjoy. I hope they'll keep the web cams going when the leaf is growing.

AVSA National Show

Here's a sneak peak at the winners of the show at the AVSA's national convention in Denver this past week. The gesneriphile list had a posting by Irina N. that included this photo. The winning entry that is featured in the middle of the shot is a hybrid, Rebel's Rose Bud, by our very own Ruth Bann!!!

Irina labels the entries: From left to right Best Semiminiature - Ness'Cranbery Swirl - Beverly Williams, Mississauga, ON Best Miniature - Jolly Orchid - Ann Nicholas, Denton, TX 2nd Best AV in show, Best Species - Saintpaulia grandifolia #299 - Bill Price 2nd Best Trailer - Lady Trail - Bill Price Best African Violet in Show, Best Standard, Best Variegated violet - Rebel's Rose Bud - Richard Nicholas under it - Streptocarpus Cape Beauties - I remember it as a best streps, but do not see it on the list) - Nelly Levine, Arvada, CO 3rd Best AV in SHOW - Mary Craig - Richard Nicholas, Denton, TX Best Trailer - Foxwood Trail - Bill Price Best Other Gesneriad - Pearcea sp. 'Equador' - Bill Price

Congratulations to all the folks who entered and attended the show. I hope we'll have more photos to post when everyone gets home from the trip!

University of MN Arboretun

What a fabulous day to visit the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum!!! The peonys were in full bloom.






The bees were enjoying the flowers too. There is a bee on the flower in the lower left of the photo.






This one is named Scarlet O'hara. It's got an almost fluorescent color to it.






It's also the time for the Lady Slipper orchids to be in bloom. The yellow varieties are peaking and the pink aren't in bloom yet.






There were orchids everywhere in the wild flower gardens, along with wild geranium, trillium, Virginia waterleaf and many more. They have name tags on a great many plants making identification very easy.




How about a Celandine poppy?











The pools are stocked with good size koi that will come up to you and see if there is anything interesting going on ... (if you brought food with you....)





The iris were just starting to come into full bloom. Another week or two and the scene would be complete.




Here's the center of the formal gardens. Much more was blooming than shows up in the photo today.



A trip to the Arboretum wouldn't be complete without a trip around the three mile drive that has acres and acres of collections. One of the collectons are the azeleas that stretch almost as far as the eye can see. Their fragrance filled the air too!

Any "plant person" would really enjoy a trip to the Arboretum. There's plenty to see!

What Do You Get When You Cross A .......

Have you ever wondered about the traits that you see in the violet you're entering in the show? How did the hybridizer get the Geneva Edge on that cultivar? You know, the plant that has those pretty purple flowers with the striking white edge. Are the "girl foliage" style leaves more common than the "boy" style?

Here's a brief and basic chart, graciously provided by Dr. Jeff Smith, that gives us an overview of the basic traits that are dominant and recessive in the African violet! I'd like to thank Dr. Smith for this information and Clay Anderson for the great cartoon that so nicely fits with our subject! Ever notice how "plant people" are the best when it comes to sharing information and help with regards to our horticultural hobby? Remember to send some comments and let these folks know that you appreciate their contributions!!!

African Violet Genetics

Dominant --- Recessive

Flower Traits:
Violet Shape ---Star Shape
Geneva Edges ---Solid Edges
Raspberry Edges --- Solid Edges
Fringed Edges---Non-fringed Edges
Fantasy Pattern---Solid Flowers
Double Flowers ---Single Flowers
Pale Colors---Dark Colors
Blue Flowers---All other colors
Red Flowers---Pink, White
Non-Coral colors---Coral family colors
Bluing Factor---Non-Bluing
Mottled Flowers ---Non-mottled flowers
Thumbprint Flowers--- Solid Flowers
Glitter factor ---Non-glitter

Leaf Traits:
Girl Foliage ---Boy Foliage
Ruffled Foliage---Plain Foliage
Plain Foliage---Spooned Foliage
Longifolia Shape--- Rounded Shape
Red Backing ---Green Backing
Watermelon ---Veins Plain Veins
Clackamus Veins ---Plain Veins
Solid Foliage---Lilian Jarrett Foliage (in part)

Plant Traits:
Small Size ---Normal Size
Non-trailing---Trailing

Maternal Traits: Tommie Lou and Crown Variegation, Lilian Jarrett Variegation (in part). Offspring will only show the trait if the seed parent had the trait.

The following list is the expected results from genetic crosses with dominant and recessive traits:

1. Dominant X Dominant
Result - all Dominant offspring or 75% Dominant and 25% Recessive

2. Dominant X Recessive
Result - all Dominant offspring or 50% Dominant and 50% Recessive

3. Recessive X Recessive
Result - all Recessive offspring

The percentages given for the offspring are approximate values. The actual results you get may vary considerably from these percentages.

Perry's Done Blooming

Perry's flowering is all but done! They cut a window into Perry to show what the flowers and pollen looked like... the first blown-up photo has the male parts of the flower on top, and the female parts lower down. The smaller photo shows the edge of the cut-out. The cut out portion of the spathe was quite thick and described like this: "So: the base of Perry’s spathe consists, in a conceptual manner, of an outer thin layer of tough celery, followed by a thick inner layer of slightly pliable styrofoam, and lined with a thin, hard, stiff waxy layer."












Now Perry has started to wither and collapse. The flowering is done, but then it is expected that the largest leaf (when fully grown) to be found in Minnesota will emerge. The college is planning to keep at least one web cam on Perry to watch the leaf emerge. This is cool stuff!!!

Charles Lawn Hybrid

This is a new hybrid Sinningia by Charles Lawn and grown by Dale Martens. She says that it only takes approximately four months to go from seed to flower! Part of the secret to this incredibly fast growth and flowering is to "disturb" or "wiggle" the young seedling in it's pot every week or two. The stress to the small plant seems to stimulate faster and more viperous growth!

Thanks to Dale for allowing me to post these new and exciting flowers. I'm a fan of the new and different and she certainly has some excellent plants that she's willing to share, again.. thanks!

Dale's New Strep!

From Dale Martens in Illinois:

"Getting new, scented hybrids is very difficult because the scented **hybrid** (not applicable to species) streps either don't have pollen or they have pollen, but resist being parents. Strep hybridizer, Chris Rose, in England has mentioned this challenge, too.

The new seedlings that have opened recently for me have scent and the grand-parentage includes the scented species Strep vandeleurii on the mother's side as well as S. candidus in the pollen parent's genes. The scent on my new hybrids isn't as piercing (read "objectionable") as S. vandeleurii.

Parents are:
Strep 'It Makes Scents' x (S. Iced Texas Twilight x variegated S. candidus)

The variegated S. candidus is the mutation that Toshijiro Okuto got and generously distributed. Crossing 'Iced Texas Twilight' x variegated S. candidus gave me no variegated seedlings, but I did find that S. candidus can pass on scent through pollen. About 1/3 of the seedlings from that cross had scent. For whatever reason, I couldn't get them to self, but I know someone who was successful with a hybrid I gave her. Must need good timing.

You can see S. candidus flowers on Ron Myhr's web site: here
You can see 'It Makes Scents' on Gary Mikita's site: and here

I figured the Iced Texas Twilight's medium blue with darker blue throat area would dominate the color, but I didn't expect yellow to come through so strongly. My plan is to grow them to full maturity hoping that they have a good blossom count."

This bottom photo is the "sister" of the new cross, both lovely flowers!!! I would like to thank Dale for generously sharing the coolest and newest in the world of streps! Thank you!!!

Perry's HOT!

Perry is now OPEN! What a fabulous flower! And Perry's internal temperature is hot, hot, hot!

The Gustavaus web site says: We thank the St. Peter, Minnesota Fire Department for the loan of an infrared imaging camera for tracking Perry’s surging thermal fervor. The images that are linked show the device in use, Perry’s infrared glow (with Paul and Brian Saulnier as thermal reference objects), and the ring of fire in the region of Perry’s spadix just above the upper limit of her/his female flowers.