Hidden Valley Hibiscus Forum

Hi Charlie,

I remember a post a while back in which you had a project of crossing exotic hibiscus with garden varieties in an attempt to introduce positive qualities like heat tolerance and prolific blooming to exotic strains.  I was thinking about this today actually because I was looking into breeding angelfish, and I think that you could probably do the same thing they do.  Because some varieties of angelfish are so inbred, often times they lose their ability to take care of their offspring, so the breeder usually has to come in and artificially hatch them.  In addition to this unpopular trait, the often loose vigor and body shape/size.  So what these breeders usually do is cross a female or male of this fancy strain to wild type, thus producing an F1.  They then cross these F1s back to the fancy variety siblings.  The F2 result of this cross is 3/4 of the individuals express the phenotype of the desired variety, but have improved vigor and offspring rearing.  I think that you have a good number of 'F1' offspring from this project that you could cross with other varieties that have a nice flower but lacks vigor.  If this project was something you wanted to continue to pursue, I would use those F1s you already have, because they have the desired characteristics that you want, but also have genes for larger more exotic looking flowers.  Hopefully you could get more offspring with fancy, large flowers by crossing these varieties with other exotics to introduce the positive traits from these garden varieties,  rather than starting from scratch by crossing them to garden varieties again.  Im not sure if you are already doing this, but I thought I would throw the idea out there.

:D   

Hi Chris,

It's interesting to hear what is being done with other species, even fish!

Coincidentally, yesterday I harvested seeds from a pod that is Young At Heart, an F1 that is President x Gwen Mary, x Black Dragon. It's a long shot but a flower having some of the qualities of Black Dragon on a more vigorous and well shaped bush would be something special! I haven't done as many crosses to get F2 types as I planned but am getting back to it this year. I have a few seeds from crosses with Blue President, an F1 that has a fine flower but not the great bush that I hoped for in an F1. I don't know what to expect from further crosses with Blue President but will find out as these seeds grow.

The "standard line" has been that crossing with garden varieties sets the program back too much to be worthwhile. My early results do not show this to be the case and I plan to continue to do some of this each year. Following through with the F2 crosses you suggest is likely to be an important aspect in getting real success.

Below is a photo of a Young At Heart bush in our garden last summer and a photo of Black Dragon that YAH was crossed with to get F2 seeds.

Charlie

This is what I plan to do with my hibiscus program. I am looking for cv's that have species as either a parent or granparent. This is why I want to use Ross Estey to bring in some fresh blood. I been looking at a lot of hibiscus pedigrees and a lot are inbred or heavly linebred. I will see what happens of course this will take a few years lol

I am definitely seeing a trend in inbreeding and line breeding between certain cvs, it is no wonder they have such bad bushes!  This is why I think what Charlie is doing crossing CVs from around the world with our american varities is a great way to introduce some new genes into the American hibiscus pool!  It might be nice to not only cross these fancy varieties to garden varieties, but also to one of the ancestral species like H. rosa-siensis itself!  That would be a true F1 that you could use, though early hybrids is pretty darn close.   

Hey Chris,

I really want to make some of these crosses but have yet to do so. My first thought was to verify that the H species I have collected are in fact what they are supposed to be. To do that I have to cross each with itself and see if they set seeds, which they should. Then I need to grow the seeds and see if the offspring appear to be the same as the parent. If the offspring vary significantly that would of course cast doubt on these plants being the Hibiscus species they are supposed to be. However, it occurs to me that I can do this at the same time as making what I hope to be F1 crosses. Originally my goal was to use this type of program to find varieties that are as close to identical to the successful and widespread garden varieties of hibiscus as possible. The origins of varieties such as the red named 'Brilliant' are lost in the mists of time but if I could recreate 'Brilliant' as an F1 or F2 I would have a pretty good idea which species were involved in making 'Brilliant'. Without genetic testing I wouldn't know how close the new variety would be to the original but it would interest me anyway to see if 'Brilliant' or 'President' or 'Seminole Pink' could be duplicated by crossing the species I have.

Charlie

Hi Charlie,

I think it makes alot of sense to do it simultaneously.  It would really be interesting to see what results you get from these crosses.  Its too bad it takes 1-3 years to see the fruits of your labor.  Sigh, I just collected seeds from Saffron x Belle, its too bad I wont know if I got anything good for a while :(

-Chris

There is a Hybridizer Named Jill ( can not remember her last name) she lives in Hawaii , she has crossed some H. Species in some of her Cv's The flowers look great, from what She told me she said both are such good growers and they bloom like crazy!

This is a great Sign  :) My problem is space ! I might have to buy a root stock cv such as pride of hawkins and just start grafting other cv's onto it so save space !

That is really interesting,  I think that the idea that starting with crossing species and garden varieties with exotics will take too long to produce anything of value is about to be debunked.  If you could find out more about it, I would be interested in looking at her data and the phenotypes she got from each cross, as well as the frequency of that phenotype. 

Chris her name is Jill Coryell

The cv's That she gave me info on are not direct crosses. One of the parents is a hybrid crossed with species.

I just emailed her about another cv to see what she says.

Butterfly was her main starting plant she worked with. I found out that Ross Gast, ( the hybridizer Charlie talked about using species and garden varities that can with stand the cold) Hybridized butterfly. Butterfly could be a species cross or garden cross since we do have the history of Ross trying to create cold tolerant CVs.

You would have to ask her more in depth about her success rate when crossing etc.

http://www.hibiscusladyhawaii.com/

Thanks Kerry!

Also check out Autumn Majesty I asked her about this CV because it looks to have traits from a garden or species Hibiscus.  ( this is another reason I think Butterfly could be qa garden or species cross)

You can tell that this Cv grows tall and vigorous ! look at all the blooms

That cv is really interesting, the flowers have the form of some garden varieties, but are in the color of alot of exotics.  I think  I am going to order a Mo'opuna.  It looks like a really pretty orange mini that is only two generations removed from H. kokio!  It is also pretty interesting how Jill says many of her F1 and F2 generations really look like standard garden varieties, meaning that perhaps many of our garden varieties are indeed F1s or F2s.  It would also be nice to start with a variety that is not too far removed from its hawaiian ancestry.

It is also pretty interesting how she has several scented varieties much like heaven scent.  Every hybridizer has different goals and I think scented hibiscus is a pretty cool one to shoot for.  The real question is what is my goal?  :P

Yes she told me the same about the F1s and F2s looking like garden varieties
I am going to get pohai ke aloha because its red and I am looking for a good red.
I was thinking about Mo'opuna but its orange maybe when you get it we can swap wood or seeds when you start hybridizing :D.

I found my goals and I been researching a lot. My CV wish list was more than 50 cv's long but now I got it down to 15-20 lol

I am doing two seperate programs hopefully next year I can post the seedlings I am growing for others and get some of the members on here opinions.

I am still waiting for a lot of blue brown seeds ! I am so impatient I been rushing to see my mail daily lol

Oh i want to get Pohai ke Aloha too!  I really like that color combination it sounds really nice!  I would be more than happy to send you some cuttings of Mo'opuna when i get enough growth to get cuttings.  I also think I can get some H. anorttianus wood.  I just planted some seeds,  from belle du jour x safrron, but it looks like I have some from belle x fantasy charm if you are interested, but I would expect this cross will prob get some pinks that you arent very interested in :P  No other seeds atm, but it looks like cinn girl x belle is going to take so you are welcome to those as well :)  I am out of room right now so I would be more than happy to send you some of my seeds when they are ready.  I look forward to seeing some of your seedlings!

(looks like some of the seeds from my Rainbow sherbet x belle du jour are sprouting right now :D)

-Chris   

You are so LUCKY !!!!! I keep crossing my plants they start to produce seeds but the heartbreak hotel x voodoo magic cross fell off because of heat. i opened it up and only one seed was forming. Last night I knocked nightfire x gator pride pod off !!!!! I opened it up and only one seed was forming.  I am not having any luck. My gator pride x gator pride is the only one that is almost done growing its pod. We will see how many seeds I am guessing 1-2 just like the others. One reason why they may not be producing more seeds in pod is because of me not fertilizing  :-X.  Also I do not know which cv's are seed setters lol
all well I will keep trying.

To be honest, I think I got lucky picking pretty good seed setters and having some atypical weather when I did my crossing (remember when it was really cool in june/may?)  I have to say that it looks like even in this heat Belle is still setting seeds.  Saffron is cut back, but was dropping buds because of the weather so I doubt it would have set and seeds.  I think cinnamon girl and blue ballerina are  supposed to be seed setters and I know for a fact that saffron and belle du jour do.  I think I will try giving belle a break from making seed pods because now that they have all ripened except 1, and she is starting to produce many more buds.  I guess the energy that was used to make the seeds is going back to flower production.  I think maybe looking at Creme de Cacao would be a nice addition to your cv list because it is supposed to set seed and produce hot pollen.  I have seen a full Creme de Cacao bush and it is really lush and the flowers are really pretty in person.  If you like the way cinnamon girl looks, I think you will like this one too. 

I also dont know if this matters, but I didnt remove the calyx on a few crosses and I wonder it this serves to protect the seedpod a bit from the sun.  It is my understanding that usually this is removed to prevent fungus from getting into the pod, but in our hot dry weather, maybe it will form some sort of protection.  Perhaps it is something to look into :)

-Chris

I did the same when it was cold that was the heart hotel x voodoo it just dropped off and turned yellow after about 3 weeks in.
Its super humid 3 stories up so I figured this would help and lots of shade. Maybe like I said the fertilizer issue is the reason. 

as for the calyx you may be right, I read that it harvest inspects and I have notice this also.  i take mines off but maybe the next time I will leave it and make sure I spray bayer or hort oil to keep bugs away.

One of the things that has kept me busy the last few days is working on the HVH list of cvs to register with the American Hibiscus Society. Their database, the oldest in the world for hibiscus, has been languishing in no man's land for about 4 years now. They want it to be professionally maintained instead of relying on volunteers so made a deal with LSU to be a paid provider of this service. LSU was paid but they don't seem to be able to get anyone to actually do the work so far. Even so, the guy in charge of getting the data to LSU has been writing to us and giving us a deadline for getting our data to him. That bodes well for something finally happening. My point is that with a backlog of maybe 5 years of data from American hybridizers it has been hard to research recent trends in hybridizing. Once this new database is up and running and available online it will be easier to see what people like Jill in HI have been doing.

Charlie

Kerry, there are any number of reasons why it can be and usually is hard to get pods in the summer. I don't think it will turn out to be either the calyx or fertilizing. It takes fresh pollen on moist pads to start the process and if it gets too hot at any point after that the pod can still drop. BTW, never blame yourself for knocking a pod off a plant. It was going to go anyway. When a viable pod forms you can pick the entire plant up by grasping the pod. Not recommended, of course.  :)   Seriously, they do form quite a strong bond and are not able to be knocked off casually.

As for the calyx I have seen insects inside a few times but I remove it mostly so that I can more easily spot the pod turning brown when it ripens. You only have a short time to harvest the seeds before they spill out as nature planned so it is best to see the pod turning colors and remove it then. I let the seeds finish darkening inside the pod for another day or two after picking a pod that is just starting to split open and turn brown.

Charlie

Random question charlie,

When you register a new cv, what are the criteria that it must pass in order to become a new registered cv?

Unlike roses and some other well established species, there are no stringent requirements for hibiscus. The main one is that the name is not already in use. It is suggested that you have grown the plant for a couple of years, and have propagated it successfully, and it "should" be unique enough not to be a repeat of an existing cv. That last one is the tricky part, because if I have a flower that is similar but on a better bush I do not consider it to be "too similar".

There are also some naming conventions about length of name, offensive names, etc but as far as the qualities of the cv there is nothing expressly required.

Charlie

Thanks charlie for shedding some light on that

Haha I did not know that this whole time I thought your can knock the pods off easily , I pollnate them early in the am right when they open.  The only one staying on the plant is gator pride x gator pride

Yeah, I recall the anguish after appearing to knock off pods, until I learned that viable ones can't be knocked off.

CB

I was thinking about heat tolerant plants that came from AU. I looked at some of the pedigrees on certain AU cv's and some are just the same crosses that we have in USA. Do you think the plants are adapting to the regions climate ?

I am guessing the Au hybridizers are selecting plants that are heat tolerate ( without really thinking about it ) And this is creating more heat tolerate plants.

Assessing heat tolerance by region or country is interesting, and the results somewhat surprising. As for the question of US and Australia hibiscus diverging it is indeed possible but I am not sure how much of that has happened. There has been smuggling of hibiscus cultivars between the 2 countries pretty much forever, although it is much less now then it used to be. Both countries try to protect their cotton crops from pests and diseases that are not native to the country so government regulations make it difficult to share hibiscus back and forth. HVH made the only legal exchange between the 2 countries several years ago. We swapped over 100 varieties of our best for their best which helped spread the genes around. Neither country has native hibiscus species that are part of the cross-compatible group so both have relied on imports from elsewhere (except for Hawaii but both the US mainland and Oz have imported from HI, too).

So what happens with the gene pool in each area as hybridizing continues? Just looked at from a weather perspective it is sort of interesting. Using weather.com as the source for data, I compared Fallbrook (southern California where I live), Houston, Miami, and Brisbane Australia. Brisbane is the largest city in the state of Queensland and just north of Brisbane and the same distance from the coast is Caboolture, the home of the 2 biggest hibiscus specialty nurseries in Oz. No data existed for Caboolture so I used Brisbane which I think is representative.

Both the high temperatures and the low temperatures affect hibiscus growth. The longer the temperatures remain at either extreme the more the growth and blooming are affected. Where I live in Fallbrook, about 10 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, the high and low temperatures for the year are the closest match to Brisbane, Australia. Our average highest high for a month is 84F and our lowest low month averages 45F. Brisbane has a highest high month of 84F and lowest low month of 48F. However, this is not the whole story. Brisbane also has 5 months during which the average high is above 80F while Fallbrook has only 3 months that average above 80F. The low is even more important in some ways and Fallbrook has 6 months of the year where the average low temp is below 50F while Brisbane only has 1 month below 50F. Lots less cold stress on hibiscus in Brisbane!

It turns out that despite the average person's perception of Oz as being a very hot country, the average high temp is significantly lower than in Houston and Miami. This probably contributes to better or a longer bloom season in Oz than in TX and Florida. Houston's highest high month averages 94F while Miami has a high temp month that averages 91F, both well over Brisbane and Fallbrook who come in at 84F. Houston also has 6 months that average over 80F and Miami a whopping 9 months that are over 80F. Houston however is colder than every place but Fallbrook, having 3 months that the average low is below 50F. Miami has NO months below 50F with the coldest month averaging 60F.

So, although it is common to think of Australia as developing heat tolerant hibiscus that is not consistent with the weather facts. I think, based on anecdotal reports from Oz, that hibiscus growers there tend to plant their hibiscus in the ground rather than grow it in pots and they also tend to grow in full sun rather than provide shade for their hibiscus. With the overall rather mild weather that Brisbane has this makes sense. Sun and heat are directly related as per creating stress in hibiscus. Since it is not that hot in Brisbane the plants can take the direct sun. Since it is not that cold either, planting in the ground is not as risky as it is for many areas of the US. The cultivar Rosalind is a prime example of a good performing variety that originated in Australia. In our experience Rosalind can be grown in the ground and in full sun and does very well at least in the climate of Fallbrook.

I'd love to get some comments from Australia on this topic. How do you grow your hibiscus? How hot and cold does it get where you live?

Charlie