Mixed Lobelia - I'm very confused??

[tom&barbara]

Hello everyone, long time no write - pc got a virus but I am back at
last. :-)

I'm a bit confused at the moment. I bought some trailing lobelia plugs
from Wilco's and potted them on, as you do. The label said they were
mixed and with this I assumed this just meant that each plant when in
flower would be a different colour and they would vary between pale
blue, dark blue, magenta and white. I quite liked the idea of pot luck
and taking the lucky dip style of planting out, not knowing what I
would get and not being able to colour coordinate the baskets, tubs as
I usually do each year.

Imagine my surprise when the plants began to flower and have two or
three different colours to each plant! One plant has white, dark blue
and magenta flowers. Am I to understand that mixed colours now means
quite literally that you get different colour flowers on one plant?
When / how long ago did this come about? I must've been asleep I
think.

~Any comments gratefully appreciated

from a very confused Gail!

[K]

tom&barbara <gailgi...@hotmail.com> writes

Lobelia seed are very small, and so each plug will contain several
seedlings, not just one - if you teased apart the 'white, dark blue and
magenta' plant, you'd find that it was at least three plants - but you'd
damage the roots in doing so, so don't do it unless your spirit of
scientific enquiry is greater than your desire for lobelia flowers.

Sometimes the individual plugs are all the same colour - you'd get this
if you had separate seed packets of each colour. But if you (you the
grower, I mean, not you the gardener buying the plants) are sowing from
a mixed packet, you'll get mixed colours in each plug.
--
Kay

[tom&barbara]

Thanks for that Kay at least now I won't be constantly wondering why.

I am quite happy to have many colour flowers growing in my baskets,
it's a bit of an added bonus :-)

Gail

[trin]

tom&barbara Wrote:
> Hello everyone, long time no write - pc got a virus but I am back at
> last. :-)
>

> Imagine my surprise when the plants began to flower and have two or
> three different colours to each plant! One plant has white, dark blue
> and magenta flowers. Am I to understand that mixed colours now means
> quite literally that you get different colour flowers on one plant?
> When / how long ago did this come about? I must've been asleep I
> think.
>
> ~Any comments gratefully appreciated
>
> from a very confused Gail!

Are you sure that its just one plant? I think that quite often when
lobelia is planted, because its so tiny to begin with, that you get a
"clump" of seeds all coming up together being sold as one plug. So if
the seed was mixed you may well get mixed colours. Have a look at each
tiny stem, if you have different colours on the same stem do let me
know its something I've never heard of.
The lovely big pelagonium I bought recently turned out to be 4 small
ones all planted together to make more of a show. No loss to me, a few
weeks and they will all be big ones.

--
trin

[K]

trin <trin....@gardenbanter.co.uk> writes

>>
>The lovely big pelagonium I bought recently turned out to be 4 small
>ones all planted together to make more of a show. No loss to me, a few
>weeks and they will all be big ones.
>

That's very common. Big bushy poinsettias are often just a ring of
single rooted cuttings. With plants that root easily, like pelargoniums,
it's great as you get several plants, but with plants that need a little
more tlc, you often find that one or two of the cuttings die off.

Of course, to the great majority of people it doesn't matter - I recall
reading somewhere that the majority of potted plants that are bought are
simply thrown out when they've finished flowering. It's only eccentrics
like us who try to keep them going for next season ;-)
>

--
Kay