I ordered two grafts from Mr. Ko last September.  He sent them out on the 5th and the box arrived and was date stamped in Caracas, incredibly quickly in just one day the 6th September.  However, although sent by EMS (EXPRESS Mail Service!) the package was stopped by customs at the nearest customs office, which is in fact quite some distance away from me in the neighbouring state.  They informed me at my local post office that they had arrived on the 8th October and it took me the whole of the 9th October to collect them and fill in the twenty or so forms and queue up at banks to pay examining fee and then import duty.

When I got them home they were completely dehydrated, so I soaked them for a day and then cut the tops off and made some 21 grafts.  These all failed.  The imported grafts were planted the next day in small pots in shade and misted regularly.  However, one died.  The other put out a rather week growth which I cut off and made some six more grafts on the 23rd January.  This time they all took and are now flowering, although the original imported graft is yet to flower.

The colour is a good yellow, for those of you with Royal Horticultural Society Colour Charts, the opening colour is nearest to Yellow-Orange 16D, aging after a few days to Yellow-Orange 20D, and Yasmin it does have pollen.  I don't yet know if it is fertile, I have put its pollen onto 'Star of Yellow Dream' which holds pods easily and have put pollen of 'Canary Bird' onto it, as I have found 'Canary Bird' difficult or impossible to set pods.  I will let you know if I get any seed pods with it.

Here is the plant:

It is rather leggy, I will probably cut the top off and make some more grafts.

And here is the graft, rather neater than a "V":

HPIM7148.JPG 194K Download

HPIM7093-1.JPG 71K Download

HPIM7076-2.JPG 87K Download

Hello David,

I found a digital version of Royal Horticultural Society Colour Charts
on the web.  How good is it in compare to paper copy?
Here are the urls:

http://www.azaleas.org/index.pl/rhsmacfan1.html
http://www.azaleas.org/index.pl/rhsmacfan2.html
http://www.azaleas.org/index.pl/rhsmacfan3.html
http://www.azaleas.org/index.pl/rhsmacfan4.html

vladimir
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



At 11:53 AM 6/23/2009, you wrote:

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I ordered two grafts from Mr. Ko last September.  He sent them out on the 5^th and the box arrived and was date stamped in Caracas, incredibly quickly in just one day the 6^th September .  However, although sent by <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />EMS (EXPRESS Mail Service!) the package was stopped by customs at the nearest customs office, which is in fact quite some distance away from me in the neighbouring state.  They informed me at my local post office that they had arrived on the 8^th October and it took me the whole of the 9^th October to collect them and fill in the twenty or so forms and queue up at banks to pay examining fee and then import duty.

 

When I got them home they were completely dehydrated, so I soaked them for a day and then cut the tops off and made some 21 grafts.  These all failed.  The imported grafts were planted the next day in small pots in shade and misted regularly.  However, one died.  The other put out a rather week growth which I cut off and made some six more grafts on the 23^rd January.  This time they all took and are now flowering, although the original imported graft is yet to flower.

 



 

The colour is a good yellow, for those of you with Royal Horticultural Society Colour Charts, the opening colour is nearest to Yellow-Orange 16D, aging after a few days to Yellow-Orange 20D, and Yasmin it does have pollen.  I don't yet know if it is fertile, I have put its pollen onto 'Star of Yellow Dream' which holds pods easily and have put pollen of 'Canary Bird' onto it, as I have found 'Canary Bird' difficult or impossible to set pods.  I will let you know if I get any seed pods with it.

 

Here is the plant:



It is rather leggy, I will probably cut the top off and make some more grafts.

 

And here is the graft, rather neater than a "V":

49e7a765.JPG 194K Download

49e7a794.JPG 71K Download

49e7a7a4.JPG 87K Download