So I have been out freezing my self in order to get my huge collection of hepaticas repotted. They are plants resulting from two years of getting seed from the late Severyn Schlyter of Sweden, and there are an awful lot of them- maybe 200 in all. Originally I planned to sort of specialize in hepaticas since I love them and they don't need a lot of care in the summer when I hoped to be doing some traveling. This plan got delayed by the prolonged illness of my spouse, but now he appears to be getting better and I am back to messing about in the garden.
Does anybody know of a good book that might provide some guidance in the breeding of these hepaticas? Even help sorting them out would be wonderful as there is quite a bit of variety in leaf shape, color, and also in flower shape and color. I have done a bit of plant breeding (just managed to cross Philesia magellanica with Lapageria rosea and we will see if the seeds are sterile), but any tips on how to deal with all of the pollen that hepaticas will generate would be great, too. I guess I am going to buy a whole lot of unfilled tea bags to place over flowers I have pollinated to try to keep things straight. I have some semi-doubles (also from the seed of Severyn Schlyter) that I hope to use as pollen parents and I guess I should dedicate a paintbrush to each individual so I can keep genetics straight. Maybe I will need to keep a ledger of all of the crosses and resultant individuals. Anybody out there have any ideas that might help me?
The seed did come labeled and for the most part I have been able to keep it straight, but there is so much variety! I think I have a lot of forms of H. nobilis, and some labeled 'japonica' and other cryptic names- some are named as individuals, such as 'Anastasia'.
I guess I will have to start selling extras so I don't disappear under a wave of blue and pink. I don't have enough room for many more hepaticas than I currently have.
When I lived in Ohio there were native Hepaticas, but these I have don't resemble the wild ones of my youth. For one thing, these are great strapping perennials and the ones I saw a lot as a kid were a good bit smaller.
Thanks in advance!!! Ilse
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