Re: double Japanese hepaticas
I checked Google.com, and the first set of webpages were in
Norwegian. Hepatica nobilis grows right across Europe to Japan. I
saw it blooming in March on the hillsides around Prague in the Czech
Republic, mostly blue, some pink.
It is supposed to be hardy from zones 4 to 9.
Of course, when you sow seed, the plants that survive are ones that
like your garden and climate. If you buy one plant from a nursery,
it is not nearly so likely to enjoy your conditions. If the plant is
one that has been cossetted in pots for generations in Japan, then I
don't think it is going to thrive in the alien environment of our
gardens.
I would hope that a breeder would buy some of the Japanese doubles
and use their pollen to produce some garden doubles. This is what is
being done in England at Ashwood Nurseries. I saw a display of
imported Japanese plants and some of their seedlings. There was no
comparison between the two, but I think they had only been working on
the project for about ten years.
You might wonder about getting pollen from a completely double flower
in which all the stamens have been transformed into some of those
extra petals. Sometimes there will be a remnant of pollen-producing
cells along the edge of one of the petals. Sometimes very early or
very late in the season a semi-double flower is produced which has
some stamens. Sometimes a newly-divided plant will produce
semi-double or single flowers until it settles in to its new home.
I am talking generally here, not about hepaticas in particular. I
have had experience with double primulas and double trilliums. (No,
the trillium belonged to someone else, but I was allowed some pollen.)
Diane Whitehead
