This is a friendly scientific group for the exchange of information between our members.  I believe secrecy has no place in this group.  We are all here to help each other (or should be).

  I have always tried to be ultra fair when dealing with commercial growers.  But one grower, Chris Durham of Durham Botanicals in Florida sent me a most hurtful message.  This I found very discouraging.  At the same time my hard drive crashed and I lost most of my photos of the last two years. I have therefore not posted any messages for some time.

  Do our members really not wish to see new seedlings showing the parentage?  I always thought this was helpful.  If you really do not want to see any more then I will stop.

  Last September we had over one thousand messages.  We will probably have around 300 this September.  What has changed?

  Anyway to happier matters.  We recently had a discussion on what benefits grafting had to offer.  One which I don’t think was mentioned was to speed up the flowering of unusual seedlings.  I ordered 10 seeds of ‘Canary Bird’ from Mr Ko, 15 arrived but the postal service here in Venezuela has become painfully slow.  The seeds were sent by EMS and were date stamped just two days after sending when they arrived in Caracas, but they took almost three months to get to Cojedes, a 3 to 4 hour drive.  Consequently I had poor germination, just 2 germinated.  When they were around 2 inches high I cut the tops off them and grafted them onto small but vigorous seedlings.  This had two objects:

  1            As I had only two seedlings, this provided an insurance in case the original seedlings should die and

  2            Speed up the flowering, which it did.  The original seedlings are still quite small.

  The seedlings were grafted on 24 April and the photo taken on 26 September, just 4 months after grafting.  The flower is very small but quite pleasant.  Not as good as ‘Canary Bird’.  Interestingly I have not been able to use ‘Canary Bird’ as a pod parent.  It is a ready pollen parent.  Are the seeds Mr Ko sells a remake of the original hybrid? I do wish Mr Ko would let us know both parents when he sells seeds.

  The second photo is of ‘Super Perfume’ x ‘Canary Bird’.  You can see from the last photo ‘Super Perfume’ has some yellow in it and I was hoping to intensify it using pollen of ‘Canary Bird’.  It didn’t!  However the result is rather nice.  I have no other Adenium in my collection similar.  This was a very difficult cross.  Some 54 seeds were produced and in my cross book I noted that they were unusually small and fat like little barrels.  They germinated well but slowly faded away.  I was left with just one biggish seedling which again I cut the top off and made 4 tiny grafts which fortunately all took.  The original seedling then died.  So grafting saved this clone.

  I am having to attach the photos, as when my hard drive crashed I lost my Outlook Express which let me put photos into messages.  I still have Outlook Express but it asks me all sorts of questions to re-establish it which I don’t understand.  Does anyone know of a simple program which allows photos to be put into messages without having to use attachments?

> I have always tried to be ultra fair when dealing with commercial growers.  But
> one grower, Chris Durham of Durham Botanicals in Florida sent me a most
> hurtful message.  This I found very discouraging.  At the same time my hard
> drive crashed and I lost most of my photos of the last two years. I have
> therefore not posted any messages for some time.

> Do our members really not wish to see new seedlings showing the parentage?  I
> always thought this was helpful.  If you really do not want to see any more
> then I will stop.

> Last September we had over one thousand messages.  We will probably have
> around 300 this September.  What has changed?

> Anyway to happier matters.  We recently had a discussion on what benefits
> grafting had to offer.  One which I don’t think was mentioned was to speed
> up the flowering of unusual seedlings.  I ordered 10 seeds of ‘Canary Bird’
> from Mr Ko, 15 arrived but the postal service here in Venezuela has become
> painfully slow.  The seeds were sent by EMS and were date stamped just two
> days after sending when they arrived in Caracas, but they took almost three
> months to get to Cojedes, a 3 to 4 hour drive.  Consequently I had poor
> germination, just 2 germinated.  When they were around 2 inches high I cut
> the tops off them and grafted them onto small but vigorous seedlings.  This
> had two objects:

> 1            As I had only two seedlings, this provided an insurance in case
> the original seedlings should die and

> 2            Speed up the flowering, which it did.  The original seedlings
> are still quite small.

> The seedlings were grafted on 24 April and the photo taken on 26 September,
> just 4 months after grafting.  The flower is very small but quite pleasant.
> Not as good as ‘Canary Bird’.  Interestingly I have not been able to use
> ‘Canary Bird’ as a pod parent.  It is a ready pollen parent.  Are the seeds
> Mr Ko sells a remake of the original hybrid? I do wish Mr Ko would let us
> know both parents when he sells seeds.

> The second photo is of ‘Super Perfume’ x ‘Canary Bird’.  You can see from
> the last photo ‘Super Perfume’ has some yellow in it and I was hoping to
> intensify it using pollen of ‘Canary Bird’.  It didn’t!  However the result
> is rather nice.  I have no other Adenium in my collection similar.  This was
> a very difficult cross.  Some 54 seeds were produced and in my cross book I
> noted that they were unusually small and fat like little barrels.  They
> germinated well but slowly faded away.  I was left with just one biggish
> seedling which again I cut the top off and made 4 tiny grafts which
> fortunately all took.  The original seedling then died.  So grafting saved
> this clone.

> I am having to attach the photos, as when my hard drive crashed I lost my
> Outlook Express which let me put photos into messages.  I still have Outlook
> Express but it asks me all sorts of questions to re-establish it which I
> don’t understand.  Does anyone know of a simple program which allows photos
> to be put into messages without having to use attachments?

>  Canary Bird seedling #1.JPG
> 192KViewDownload

>  Super Perfume x Canary Bird.JPG
> 246KViewDownload

>  Super Perfume.jpg
> 62KViewDownload

>I have always tried to be ultra fair when dealing with commercial
>growers.  But one grower, Chris Durham of Durham Botanicals in
>Florida sent me a most hurtful message.  This I found very
>discouraging.  At the same time my hard drive crashed and I lost
>most of my photos of the last two years. I have therefore not posted
>any messages for some time.

>Do our members really not wish to see new seedlings showing the
>parentage?  I always thought this was helpful.  If you really do not
>want to see any more then I will stop.

>Last September we had over one thousand messages.  We will probably
>have around 300 this September.  What has changed?

>Anyway to happier matters.  We recently had a discussion on what
>benefits grafting had to offer.  One which I don't think was
>mentioned was to speed up the flowering of unusual seedlings.  I
>ordered 10 seeds of 'Canary Bird' from Mr Ko, 15 arrived but the
>postal service here in Venezuela has become painfully slow.  The
>seeds were sent by EMS and were date stamped just two days after
>sending when they arrived in Caracas, but they took almost three
>months to get to Cojedes, a 3 to 4 hour drive.  Consequently I had
>poor germination, just 2 germinated.  When they were around 2 inches
>high I cut the tops off them and grafted them onto small but
>vigorous seedlings.  This had two objects:

>1            As I had only two seedlings, this provided an insurance
>in case the original seedlings should die and

>2            Speed up the flowering, which it did.  The original
>seedlings are still quite small.

>The seedlings were grafted on 24 April and the photo taken on 26
>September, just 4 months after grafting.  The flower is very small
>but quite pleasant.  Not as good as 'Canary Bird'.  Interestingly I
>have not been able to use 'Canary Bird' as a pod parent.  It is a
>ready pollen parent.  Are the seeds Mr Ko sells a remake of the
>original hybrid? I do wish Mr Ko would let us know both parents when
>he sells seeds.

>The second photo is of 'Super Perfume' x 'Canary Bird'.  You can see
>from the last photo 'Super Perfume' has some yellow in it and I was
>hoping to intensify it using pollen of 'Canary Bird'.  It
>didn't!  However the result is rather nice.  I have no other Adenium
>in my collection similar.  This was a very difficult cross.  Some 54
>seeds were produced and in my cross book I noted that they were
>unusually small and fat like little barrels.  They germinated well
>but slowly faded away.  I was left with just one biggish seedling
>which again I cut the top off and made 4 tiny grafts which
>fortunately all took.  The original seedling then died.  So grafting
>saved this clone.

>I am having to attach the photos, as when my hard drive crashed I
>lost my Outlook Express which let me put photos into messages.  I
>still have Outlook Express but it asks me all sorts of questions to
>re-establish it which I don't understand.  Does anyone know of a
>simple program which allows photos to be put into messages without
>having to use attachments?

>Content-Type: image/jpeg
>Content-Disposition: attachment;
>         filename="Canary Bird seedling #1.JPG"
>X-Attachment-Id: f_g03t8mfw0

>Content-Type: image/jpeg
>Content-Disposition: attachment;
>         filename="Super Perfume x Canary Bird.JPG"
>X-Attachment-Id: f_g03t8saj1

>Content-Type: image/jpeg
>Content-Disposition: attachment;
>         filename="Super Perfume.jpg"
>X-Attachment-Id: f_g03t8wmi2