I love trailing lobelia in my baskets. Three years ago I got my seeds
from my local Wilko store. They were Johnsons seeds. I bought "trailing
cascade mixed" but when they flowered they were all the one colour
instead of mixed. I think they were sapphire blue.

I thought it was just one of those things so next year I bought some
more Johnsons trailing cascade mixed from the same store. Again they
came out the same colour. This time I contacted Johnsons about the
problem and they sent me four packets of trailing cascade mixed for use
this year and once again they have all flowered in the same blue colour.
That is three years in a row.

My gut feeling is that they don't really know what they are doing at
Johnsons but I was wondering if there was something at the germination
and growing on stage, perhaps temperature related that would force all
the seeds to flower in the same colour. It sounds a bit far fetched but
I thought I would ask around. Thanks.

On 09/06/2021 22:54, Paul Giverin wrote:
> I love trailing lobelia in my baskets. Three years ago I got my seeds
> from my local Wilko store. They were Johnsons seeds. I bought "trailing
> cascade mixed" but when they flowered they were all the one colour
> instead of mixed. I think they were sapphire blue.
>
> I thought it was just one of those things so next year I bought some
> more Johnsons trailing cascade mixed from the same store. Again they
> came out the same colour. This time I contacted Johnsons about the
> problem and they sent me four packets of trailing cascade mixed for use
> this year and once again they have all flowered in the same blue colour.
> That is three years in a row.
>
> My gut feeling is that they don't really know what they are doing at
> Johnsons but I was wondering if there was something at the germination
> and growing on stage, perhaps temperature related that would force all
> the seeds to flower in the same colour. It sounds a bit far fetched but
> I thought I would ask around. Thanks.

That does seem strange and I can't think of anything which could be
responsible other than mislabelling of the pack.

Next time I try mixed colour lobelia packs from different sources
(Fothergills and Suttons do them) and see what you get. If the Johnsons
packs still give only blue and the others are OK, I think it worth
reporting to Trading Standards, as you'd have had three consecutive
years of the same problem.

--

Jeff