Gardening ~ Predictably Unpredictable

When you try a new flower that hasn't been on the market very long, you never know in one, three, or five years what might happen to it. They can be very unpredictable at times since the creators usually try to rush them out to retailers as the "next best flower" ... Only to find out through feedback that, due to playing with the DNA of the plant, the flower reverts back to it's original color (some summer phlox have done this) or blooms into a strange mutated ugly color (orange cone flower did this), or becomes less hardy in colder zones (red potentilla is known for this).

A year ago I seeded a tray of Rudbeckia 'cherry brandy' in the greenhouse... I had heard of it, but hadn't seen it available for purchase at garden centers. It had a rough go of it in my gardens the first year, growing shorter than expected and very sparse in blooms. Then, after talking to a couple garden center employees, I found out it was probably "iffy" on whether it would come back or not.

So, needless to say, I really wasn't expecting the plants to come back this year. But... Sure enough, four of the six plants I had at my own house survived and have done very well this year.

However... Each of the four, even though they came from the same seed pack 18 months ago, looks different from each other.

• one plant is a deep deep red with a very broad flower head and tall middle
• another plant is the same deep deep red but the pedals are less rounded at the ends and the center isn't as large
• the third has some yellow on the outer half of the pedals and are smaller flower heads.
• the fourth has a definite two color look with deep deep red on the inside of the pedals and yellow/gold on the outer half (see below)

I'm pretty sure the deep deep red is what they're suppose to look like (hense the name 'cherry brandy'), but if (and I'm assuming this is the case) the flower was developed from Rudbeckia 'black-eyed susan' - guess where the yellow comes from.

Unpredictable... What made some revert halfway and others not at all? What will happen next year?

Gardening as a whole is predictably unpredictable... But, add man's desire to play with the DNA of plants and you never know what you might get.

However... I'm not complaining... This is how we learn about the life of plants. And... maybe us gardeners thrive on this challenge of "predictably unpredictable."

Hmmmmmmmm... Maybe that's why I left banking management a few years ago, too. Interesting what you begin to learn about yourself if you start thinking about things too deeply.

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