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Welcome to DG, Danna! I'm sorry; my seed collection efforts didn't yield much with my petunias last year.. usually, I have some to spare! The hybrids won't come "true" from seed, although some may come close.
I hope you'll consider subscribing. That will open up seed trading opportunities (there's a forum for it!) and so much more... :-)
Jill, this is probably a goofy question, but here goes:
If the hybrids don't come true from seed, where does the seed come from each year for the "true" hybrids?
I have a large bed of pink Waves, with no other colors near by. Shouldn't the seed be good?
If hybrid "AB" is grown from seeds, the seeds come from a cross of varieties "A" and "B." A new batch of seeds comes from making that same cross again, as far as I know. That's something that seed producers are set up to do, not so much possible for backyard gardeners. That's also why hybrid seed costs more. When you see "F1" on a seed packet for "AB", the seeds are the first generation crosses between "A" and "B."
Sometimes, new varieties come from crossed seeds but are then propagated vegetatively (from cuttings, offsets, etc) to keep the strain pure. Most herb varieties are propagated this way, for example.
okay, i get it. AB+AB could give me AA, AB or BBs or even something that produced the original As and Bs. I've always wondered about this, thanks for clearing my brain.
Yep. People do try to "de-hybridize" their favorites, by growing out successive generations of seeds and always saving seeds that are as true as possible to the "type" of the original hybrid. After 5-6 (or more) generations, you can (sometimes) get a stable open-pollinated strain.
