Rhodoland
New hybrids 2002

           The last flowering season was very exciting again.  Not that I had that many new hybrids, but some were very fine - at least that's my opinion.  In the beginning of May some flowers were damaged by frost.  Idon't regret having only a few early flowering rhododendrons since they always get damaged and it's irritating.
            I also took some pictures of plants which did not flower as well as they did last year.  Keeping records is not easy.  Labels fade and birds remove them.  Sometimes I don't know what the the cross was, but you know what Shakespeare said:  "What's in a name?  A rhododendron by any other name would smell as sweet."  Well, not exactly.......

           After many years of hybridizing I have found some lines which give
good results.  When I started making crosses with 'Whitney's Tigerlily'
some years ago I got remarkable flowers which had dots all over and big
calyxes.  Another plant was involved: 'Hille', a cross of the late
Johann Wieting in Germany.  This is a hybrid from  R. irroratum 'Polka
Dot' x 'Graf Lennart'.  The female plant has a lot of dots and passes
these on.  Also, Hachmann's  hybrid 'Capriccio' has these dots.  Last
year I crossed these qualities into the seedlings  01-1 and  00-83 -
both with dots and large calyxes!
            I also used  Z. 90 gebruikt (= 'Sappho' x 'Cunningham's White') again to obtain the following flower: large, with big calyxes, dots all over and a large dark blotch, which repeats itself in the calyx. Too difficult to achieve this goal?  We will see. If also the dormant qualities yellow and\or orange appear again (from 'Cappriccio' or 'Graf Lennart') my dreams will come true.But that will take at least 4 more years. 
As you can imagine, reading this short hybridizing story, it is a very fascinating thing to do!!