Friday, December 29, 2006

MH0377A


44 M 4, Red Self, Dor Dip
(City Of Sin * Pardon Me) * Red Spire

FUTURE INTRODUCTION. I wish the camera could capture velvety, deep, oxblood reds: this photo does not do justice to the striking color of this flower. The sheen from the velvet dulls the color for the camera, but not for your eye.

This is the first step in my tall-and-small red program, whose goal I describe as a "fountain of blood". This one is a really good step: it is the most sunfast red in my garden. It never slicked this past summer, while all other reds did. The branching is good (low branches!), the height is fine, and the budcount is adequate (20). But when I dug it from the seedling bed, I was surprised that it had slender, 8 inch rhyzomes like fulva! (And so did many of its sibs and half sibs from Red Spire.) Needless to say, my program will now bifurcate into clumpers and spreaders. If I can keep the deep color, sunfastness, and rhyzomes while putting different forms and sizes into its descendents, I'll be a happy man.

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