Heaven’s Throne is one of our 2012 introductions. We purchased Heartbeat of Heaven in 2005 from Karol Emmerich and as promised, it was a great breeder. With Heartbeat of Heaven being an evergreen, we crossed it with our best dormant seedlings. The best one we had in 2005 was one that became Heir to the Throne. When we observed new seedlings in 2007, one of that cross was Heaven’s Throne. We began hybridzing with it the next winter and are still using it as a parent.Â
Heaven’s Throne captured the color and watermark from Heartbeat of Heaven and the dormant habit from Heir to the Throne. It was one big clump in the spring of 2011 and we lined it out early. All the single fans ended up blooming and had scapes with several laterals and bud counts over 20. This behavior led us to introduce it this year.Â
As a parent, we did not get much from Heaven’s Throne in 2009 because it bloomed late in the basement and did not make many seeds. In the summer of 2009, it bloomed outside for the second time and we put lots of pollen on its flowers. As a result, we had many seedlings from it that bloomed in 2011. (We get 2 years bloom from pollination to outdoor bloom). Last summer we marked 18 seedlings for further evaluation that had Heaven’s Throne as a parent. What we saw in the seedlings was a dramatically larger edge in many cases with clear colors and good opening characteristics. We believe some of these will be future introductions. Some good ones are below:
Seedling 1014-1
Seedling 198-5
Seedling 198-8
Heaven’s Throne looks to be a powerhouse breeder and already is a fine garden plant.