Sunday, January 5, 2020

Substantial Angel

Substantial Angel
(Sdlg# SEHAI1)


2020 - Reeder - Diploid - 
Substantial Evidence x Heavenly Angel Ice - 
28" scape - 6" flower - 3 branches - 12 buds - Midseason - Rebloom - Dormant

Flat flower with prominent ruffling, extremely pale, icy lavender-pink above large green throat blending into chartreuse extending far onto petals and sepals.

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Substantial Angel is a soft, sweet touch of pastel glory in the garden. With the flat form of Substantial Evidence and the pastel clarity of Heavenly Angel Ice, this is one flower filled with celestial beauty, but it is more than just a pretty face. Deriving from my 2012 breeding season, Substantial Angel went through the last four years of my rust resistance screening program rating A+ consistently in each year. The plant is one of the so-called "hard" dormant types that goes underground in the winter and forms a bud that doesn't emerge until fairly late in the spring. In spite of the strong dormancy, I have never seen it show summer dormancy.





The foliage is a nice medium green and the flower and buds show moderately high resistance to thrips. The plant shows fairly high resistance to late spring freezes and there is excellent increase, with the plant recovering well from division. There is rebloom in my garden each year. The fertility is very high both ways.





The color of Substantial Angel is very interesting. I consider it a pale, icy pink when viewed in person, but it always seems to photograph as a near-white or a pale lavender. Some people upon viewing it in person call it a near-white, while some call it pale pink and yet others call it pale lavender. The eye of the beholder... I registered it as a lavender-pink, sort of as a compromise. I have rarely seen it be what I would call a near-white, but I have seen that on rare occasions. The throat though is always huge and very bright green moving out to chartreuse, with a lot of chartreuse shaded throughout the flower as an undertone to the petals and sepals.





The picture above shows Substantial Angel's baby picture from its first year of flowering. I was simply blown away when it first flowered. I had made the cross to combine the flat form, high rust resistance and great plant traits of Substantial Evidence with the great color dilution and clarity, as well as the extremely high rust resistance, of Heavenly Angel Ice, while hoping to also improve the plant traits of HAI, which is not the best plant ever in my garden. I expected to get some advances from the cross, but I didn't expect to get this great flower, and certainly not to get it on a really good plant as well. 

Substantial Angel shows very good breeding value for all its many desirable traits. It is very fertile both ways and has good breeding value for its many gorgeous flower traits and its many excellent plant traits. I have produced a good number of seedlings that show "hard" dormancy, extremely high rust resistance, very clear colored flat flowers and rebloom, some just showing one or two of these traits and a few showing all of them combined as in the parent. Substantial Angel is an excellent garden plant and is a great breeder for a wide range of traits that are important to many modern diploid programs.