Island Girl

[Charlie]

I'm very please with the way Island Girl is performing in our yard. It's one of the prettiest flowers we grow, with the many colors all blended together in ever changing ways. We'd call it a blue, and one parent is Renaissance Blue, but it also shows the red hues it inherited from its' other famous parent, Dragon's Breath. The bush tends to be compact and very floriferous - a fancy word meaning it blooms a lot! The flowers are presented mostly upwards, sometimes sideways, but never downward and in our conditions are almost always 6 or 7 inches across. What's your experience with Island Girl?

Always dreamin' hibiscus,

Charlie

[Darkhorse]

I just got my 6" Island Girl (along with a Chariots of Fire and Voodoo Magic) in the mail yesterday.  I will be certain to let you know how it performs.  It already has quite a few buds developing!  Can't wait to see them open in person.

So, does Island Girl set seed well or have good pollen?  If I can get her to set seed, I'm considering crossing her with my baby Acapulco Gold when it blooms.  I'm hoping for a good multi-colored seedling.  It would be my first attempt at hybridizing. 

[kris]

I don't know if Island Girl sets seed, but Acapulco Gold isnt a good pod parent and is supposed to have very hot pollen.  I just crossed my Belle du Jour with gator pride last week and I am pretty sure a pod is forming, so if you have a belle you could use her to set seed.  I also noticed that many hybridizers use High Voltage, Rainbow Christie and Rosiland to make really nice crosses.  I am just getting into hybridizing and have one seedling from last year (Stolen Kiss (pod) and Flashdancer (pollen)) and it is just now starting to grow alot because its been in stasis until the weather warmed up.  I am going to try and get my hands on those three CVs for hybridizing because it seems that alot of good new cvs have them as their parents!  I am looking for Rosiland in particular because I really want some seedlings that may bloom as both a double and single just like she does!  I need to get my hand on another 'Love Story' because I had mine die this winter   Let us know when you start crossing!

[Charlie]

Darkhorse, you ordered 3 that bloom a lot! Island Girl might set seed but I've never had any success with the other 2. Finding seed setters that possess the qualities you want is one of the main "tricks" in hybridizing. Almost all varieties will provide useable pollen when the conditions are right but only a few set seed well. Up til now all my Island Girls have been for customers or are needed for wood so I have not tried to set seed with her although I have harvested seeds with island Girl as the pollen parent. Please let us know if it sets seed for you!

Charlie

[Charlie]

Hi Kris,

Stolen Kisses x Flash Dancer could be really good! If you get the size of Stolen Kiss with more interesting color contributed by Flash Dancer that would be an excellent result. The 3 seed setters you mention have been useful to me over the years. I did graft some Rosalinds this year, they should be ready June-July. There are no perfect hibiscus yet, all have their positive and negative traits but we keep trying to shift the ratio toward mostly good traits.

Charlie

[kris]

I hope its a good one, it is definitely a survivor.  Of all the crosses I did last fall, it is the only seedling I got!  I was thinking that it might be a better idea to start hybridizing with your tried and true varieties that already have the great traits of the CVs I already mentioned.  By using your varieties I hope to have the better traits from the parents passed on to these offspring, and thus a bigger gene pool to potentially produce new and different varieties.  Have you found that crossing your best hybrids that you get a higher percentage of worthy offspring?  I am only asking this because I have limited space and would really like to maximize the probability of getting seedlings that are worth keeping rather than throw aways.  I understand that there is a great deal of luck involved but starting with the best should give you the best I always seem to go on tangents in these forums, but I just have so many questions about hybridizing and I am really glad that this forum was created so I can pick the brains of seasoned hybridizers!

Do you have any varieties to suggest to add to my current stock that would be good for hybridizing? (I was thinking Rosalind and Living Legend)

Belle Du Jour
Saffron
Acapulco Gold
Blue Ballerina
Fallen Hero
Space Oddity
White Lightning
Junes Dragon
Rainbow Sherbert
Gator Pride

Thanks again Charlie for all the great advice! 

-Kris

[Charlie]

Good Morning Kris,

Hybridizing has it's challenges, disappointments, and rewards. It definitely helps to start with good all around cultivars and go from there but there are no guarantees. To meet my goals a new variety must propagate readily, grow with reasonable vigor into a decent looking or better bush, flower soon and often, present the flowers horizontally to upright (not hanging down), and have flowers that are unusually pretty and/or big. When evaluating a new seedling what often happens is that it does one or more of the above well but is lacking in other needed qualities.

This applies to my needs to provide high quality plants to people who count on that. A hobbiest hybridizer can relax those standards - for instance propagating new plants from it may not be an important consideration. There are some places, such as Tahiti, where people use hibiscus blooms by picking them in the early morning for home or personal use and in that case an attractive bush or upward facing flowers are not as important as a pretty flower. Closer to home, this is exactly what has happened in Florida over the last 50 years as those who hybridized hibiscus did so almost totally focused on taking the  the blooms to hibiscus shows. Little attention was paid to anything other than the flower because only the flower was judged.

Anyway, what I am suggesting is that the percentage of "keepers" is likely to be higher for the hibiscus enthusiast than for a commercial grower. I recently calculated that I have grown approx 7000 hibiscus from seeds that I hybridized and I am still growing about 140 of those. That gives me a 2 percent success rate for hybridizing.  Geez, I hope that goes up in the future!

With limited space one has to consider whether growing seedling hybrids or named varieties is best for them. If the standards are relaxed some I think you can get between 10 and 20 percent "keepers" that have a flower you like. All hibiscus flowers have some appeal, even the worst ones, but once you are accustomed to the best ones it is hard to settle for less than that. Seedlings are fun to grow for other reasons, too - they are healthy and vigorous most of the time and easy to grow. The anticipation and the mystery of genetics give them an aura of excitement but one has to be realistic as well.

Back to your actual question    that is a very nice list of varieties, and contains more seed setters than the normal list could expect to have. Rosalind and Living Legend would make excellent additions to it. Both set seed and make plenty of pollen and both have all the other qualities that I like except that Rosalind is a graft-only cv.

Take care,

Charlie

[kris]

Hi Charlie,

Wow I had no idea that the number of offspring you keep is so low!  It does make sense that as a commercial grower you look for different qualities than a hobbyist.  I think I have a good start of CVs, and I think once I get Rosalind and Living Legend I can really start coming up with some awesome crosses, I just wish I didn't have to wait so long for the first bloom!  I know you mentioned some Rosalinds should be ready soon, Do you have any LL in larger than the 4' pot size in the works?  Thank you for all your advice and insight!

Best,

Kris

[Darkhorse]

I spontaneously decided to rub some 5th Dimension pollen on one of the Island Girl blooms, so we will see if anything comes of it.  I will continue to experiment with her, and definately let you know how it goes.  So far, I'm really pleased with Island girl... I've already gotten two *huge* blooms, both of which stayed open for three days.  The colors seem to be pretty true, with the edges fading to a nice cream color on the third day.  It's got more depth of color than what you can see in the photos.  A definite keeper!  I'm anxious to see what my Chariots of Fire has to offer as well.  I've had my eye on these cv's for awhile.

Some photos for you guys.  Island Girl twins two days out of the box!!!

[Charlie]

Hi Kris,

Now that you mention it we do have Living Legend growing in 6 inch pots now. They should be ready to ship with buds in June. Rosalind in 6 inch is in a similar situation - should bud up and be ready to ship in June.

[Charlie]

Hey Darkhorse,

That's a good cross to make. Both are prolific bloomers and there is potential for interesting colors between the 2 of them.

I'm glad that Island Girl has been blooming with pleasing colors. We try not to exaggerate the flowers in our online photos, and it is true that often the real flowers are even more beautiful than the photos.

Charlie

[kris]

Thats great news, I will be looking forward to purchasing them in June!  That is of course unless they sell out   Darkhorse, that island girls flowers are really beautiful and on such a small plant!

-Kris

[Nievesgirl]

Good Morning Kris,

Hybridizing has it's challenges, disappointments, and rewards. It definitely helps to start with good all around cultivars and go from there but there are no guarantees. To meet my goals a new variety must propagate readily, grow with reasonable vigor into a decent looking or better bush, flower soon and often, present the flowers horizontally to upright (not hanging down), and have flowers that are unusually pretty and/or big. When evaluating a new seedling what often happens is that it does one or more of the above well but is lacking in other needed qualities.

This applies to my needs to provide high quality plants to people who count on that. A hobbiest hybridizer can relax those standards - for instance propagating new plants from it may not be an important consideration. There are some places, such as Tahiti, where people use hibiscus blooms by picking them in the early morning for home or personal use and in that case an attractive bush or upward facing flowers are not as important as a pretty flower. Closer to home, this is exactly what has happened in Florida over the last 50 years as those who hybridized hibiscus did so almost totally focused on taking the  the blooms to hibiscus shows. Little attention was paid to anything other than the flower because only the flower was judged.

Anyway, what I am suggesting is that the percentage of "keepers" is likely to be higher for the hibiscus enthusiast than for a commercial grower. I recently calculated that I have grown approx 7000 hibiscus from seeds that I hybridized and I am still growing about 140 of those. That gives me a 2 percent success rate for hybridizing.  Geez, I hope that goes up in the future!

With limited space one has to consider whether growing seedling hybrids or named varieties is best for them. If the standards are relaxed some I think you can get between 10 and 20 percent "keepers" that have a flower you like. All hibiscus flowers have some appeal, even the worst ones, but once you are accustomed to the best ones it is hard to settle for less than that. Seedlings are fun to grow for other reasons, too - they are healthy and vigorous most of the time and easy to grow. The anticipation and the mystery of genetics give them an aura of excitement but one has to be realistic as well.

Back to your actual question    that is a very nice list of varieties, and contains more seed setters than the normal list could expect to have. Rosalind and Living Legend would make excellent additions to it. Both set seed and make plenty of pollen and both have all the other qualities that I like except that Rosalind is a graft-only cv.

Take care,

Charlie

Charles this is some of the best info I have read thanks for taking tohe time to share it with other. I really admire your Ambition to produce good plants.

[Darkhorse]

Does anyone else's Island Girl grow slowly?  I wonder if it is normal for the cv or if its slow growth is due to something else.

[Darkhorse]

Hey Charlie,

   It seems to me like Island Girl is somewhat rare.  It is because it grows so slowly (my old one did, anyway), or is it a graft-only variety?

Thanks!
Jordan