Elizabethan Royalty
Name: Elizabethan Royalty
Seedling Number: TSDD14
Bloom Diameter: 5”
Scape Height: 34”
Branches: 3
Bud Count: 19
Bloom Season: EM
Rebloom: Yes
Color/Description: Rich, bright purple with white edges on the sepals above chartreuse throat.
Ploidy: Tet
Bloom Habit: Diurnal
Foliage: Sev
Pod Parent: Thingamabob
Pollen Parent: Stardust Dragon
Year Bred: 2013
Rust Resistance: A+/3 Years
Fertile: Both Ways, pollen easier.
Elizabethan Royalty was the first really nicely colored purple I produced that also showed extremely high rust resistance and good thrips resistance. The beautiful, flattish, odd and maybe unusual form(ish) flowers are a sight to see in the garden. The color is gorgeous but hard to photograph. Full sun photos always look too magenta or cranberry, while shade photos always look too blue. The color is a very clear grape purple. The plant tolerates late freezes very well and blooms very nicely. With the combination of late freeze resistance and thrips resistance, Elizabethan Royalty gives an excellent performance, and has been my most consistent early season, rust resistant purple for several years. Only some of its seedlings are beginning to surpass it.
Elizabethan Royalty was used a small bit in breeding from 2015 through 2019, mainly just to test fertility, combining ability, rust resistance breeding value, etc, but in 2020 and 2021, Elizabethan Royalty was given a much wider use in the early breeding season. Results from earlier seedlings have been good and a few went through the last year of my rust screening program with high resistance and often quite fancy and clearly colored flowers. One very interesting seedling is shown below at the end of the images section. I am very excited to see the new crop. Previous seedlings have also shown Elizabethan Royalty's good traits - freeze resistance, rust resistance and thrips resistance.
Elizabethan Royalty is not just a good breeder or collector's flower for the beautiful coloring. It is also an excellent and reliable performer in my early season garden, and it will put on a real display when established, as you can see in the images below.
Below you will find multiple pictures of Elizabethan Royalty from 2020 and 2021 in the hybridizing garden and the line out garden. The last four images are of one of my favorite seedlings from this introduction (Hidden Cameras x Elizabethan Royalty). It shows the wonderful color clarity that Elizabethan Royalty has and passes to its seedlings, as well as the great plant traits. Click on any image below to see a large image and easily look through all the images in a photo gallery, or scroll down to read commentary on the images.
