A Tiger-Striped Spring
This Spring 2015 has been marked by the hot, bright, and sunny abutilon hybrids received as a result of cross-pollination between my own abutilon hybrid 'Tea Rose' and the well-known abutilon pictum 'Tiger Eye'. As a result, I have 20 seedlings -- some of which are very much alike, and others are the true masterpieces of Mother Nature.
The stature of the seedlings differs significantly -- from 10 inches to 25 by the first time of their blooming. The ability to maintain a short distance between two leaf nodes is an additional plus. Interestingly, some of the seedlings demonstrated a very short distance at the beginning, but further on they increased this length by 3-fold. Some seedlings are light and graceful, while others are sturdy and upright. So, as you can guess, choosing the best among the rest has been a difficult task for me so far. I still have 6 which haven't bloomed yet -- so more torture to go!
Anyway, here are some preliminary results. The #1 prize winner (I guess) is my 2015 hybrid 'Freya" with very distinctive flowers, a short and sturdy stature, and the ability to sprout shoots easily.
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| Abutilon 'Freya' 2015 |
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| Abutilon 'Freya' 2015 |
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| Abutilon 'Freya' 2015 |
The #2 prize winner is, perhaps, my hybrid 'Marmalade' with huge up to 4 inches flowers of a sweet, non-aggressive apricot color with bright orange veins and a short stature.
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| Abutilon 'Marmalade' 2015 |
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| Abutilon 'Marmalade' 2015 |
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| Abutilon 'Marmalade' 2015 |
The #3 prize winner is a tall and graceful hybrid with dimmed but very contrastive colors of the yellowish petals -- abutilon 'Maya'.
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| Abutilon 'Maya' 2015 |
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| Abutilon 'Maya' 2015 |
Finally, the runner-up is my hybrid # 13 without a name yet. It has a very short length between the leaf nodes which does not change (luckily) and a curious blooming trait: its flowers start off as orange-red and end up as brownish-red. I love it, but my camera is unable to catch it!!!! :((( Maybe I should call it 'Devil's Dozen' -- the name will serve it right.
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| Abutilon hybrid # 13, 2015 |
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| Abutilon hybrid # 13, 2015 |
Anyway, like I said, I have 6 more to go -- maybe in a week I'll be able to assess more of my hybrids. If you have any ideas or comments -- either in Russian, or in English, or in German (or, come to think of it, in any other language that can be translated with the help of Google.Translate) -- write them here, and I'll be happy to read them and respond to them. You can also find me here http://vk.com/abutilon or write an email to me alenky@yahoo.com
