Julia - Wow! What a thoughtful critique of each seedling. I hadn't thought about some having too many buds up top. I do know what you mean about that kind of problem. I'll monitor the Chartered Course and Into the Mystic babies to see how the blooms open. The Into the Mystic X SOP seedling IS able to open those petals flat, but it's not an EMO, and with cooler night temps can take almost half a day to do it. The scape with buds in the photo is a rebloom scape on Applique, the Mokan Butterfly seedling's neighbor. The pic of the last seedling was indeed a cool morning pic. The first seedling is a two-year-old that has increased pretty well considering it's in so much shade. Debra

LOL I'm with you Ellie they seem to know what they are doing. Rita I hope to be on here more than I have been. I so enjoy seeing everyone's flowers and garden pics. I don't have time to comment on all of them but I do love seeing them. Thanks everyone for the comments on the seedling it was a nice surprise yesterday. Had another one bloom today of Undivided Heart X Unk but the $200 camera just isn't picking up the correct color of it, so I'm hoping for a better day to grab a pic of it. It is a very nice one also. Andrea

I didn't keep bud counts on all of mine but here are some clump shots of my most prolific bloomers. This first one may be a mislabeled seedling. One of the local hybridizers used to line out his seedlings in the same plot as my display garden. He did have an introduction out of 'Open Hearth' and I half suspect this may be a sibling. It was a real wowser though. I did count the buds on 'Desperado Love'. One scape had 32 buds, the rest counted in the high 20s. This is only a two year old plant in my garden. It blooms ML here and is still putting on a show. This one was sold to me as 'Mariachi' but I've learned it is actually 'Mariachi1' as the first "Mariachi" was a diploid that was never released. 'Mariachi1' is a tet. Take a look at this 2yr plant's branching & bloom. 'Mary Todd' is a real bloomer here too. Check out the scape on 'Mexican Maiden' 'Nile Crane' was absolutely gorgeous. Always a favorite performer here, 'Wild Horses' had a long bloom season And finally, my seedling 2007-048-003 (Jennifer Trimmer x Maltese Falcon) had what I would call 4-way branching (though when I asked the garden judges at regional to explain how they count branches they would have called this at least 6-way) and a budcount of 25 in its maiden bloom.

Judyann, you are so right.......Janet Benz and Smith Lake Princess - both these parents have converted genes. I'm hoping the bud/branch improve in coming years. Girly girl is real pretty and Autumn Wood looks like it would make nice babies. Marg....I really like the rich color of Strutters ball as well. When does your late season start and do you grow VL or just L.......wondering if the season could end before the flowers? I think I'm going to try finding some seed crosses that are dormant lates with earlier reblooms having great bud/branching counts........hopefully from more northern breeders so I get a more accurate idea of real branching/bud count here. I think Stamiles are fabulous, but just not realistic bud count for here. Not a FFO, but one of my sdlg surprises that is showing a pattern Thanks again.