Getting Started in Plant Breeding!

Plant Breeding, Alpine Plants and the Humor of Gardening Come Together in Joseph Tychonievich’s Books!

Ohio native Joseph Tychonievich now lives and gardens in Virginia. Along the way he spent time in Michigan where he earned a graduate degree at Michigan State University and also found he had a knack for garden writing.  He’s been using his knowledge and talents ever since to inspire home gardeners to try their hand at plant breeding or growing alpine plants. 

Petunias under grow lights. In my class with him, Joseph taught us to create unique petunias.

I was lucky enough to attend a seminar he taught on breeding your own colorful annuals at Master Gardener College a few years ago and it was quickly apparent that plant breeding is a subject Joseph knows well.  He told me he’s been interested in plant breeding since his teenage years and extended his knowledge by studying it in college.

When he started writing garden books plant breeding was an obvious subject choice.  A later interest, Alpine plants became the topic of a second book.

What inspired his interest in alpine plants?  Joseph first learned about them after moving to Michigan.  There he began exploring area nurseries, including Arrowhead Alpines . “I started shopping there and was blown away by the diversity of plants they offered. It was the first time I'd really seen many alpine or rock garden plants. I got a few out of curiosity, and then quickly fell in love,” he says.

“Later I worked at the nursery for a couple years, which cemented my interest in alpine plants and rock gardening,” Joseph adds.

The End Result: Three Books
He’s captured the results of his education and his experience in three books.  Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener: How to Create Unique Vegetables and Flowers was his first book in 2013.  That was followed by Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style and The Complete Guide to Gardeners: The Plant Obsessed and How to Deal With Them in 2016. The Complete Guide to Gardeners grew out of the gardening cartoons Joseph draws, including ones for Fine Gardening’s Facebook page .

“The whole book is a tongue-in-cheek explanation of how gardeners live in the world, written as a guide to "normal people" to help them understand the gardeners in their life,” he says.

Getting Started in Plant Breeding
If you’re looking to try plant breeding, Joseph suggests plants that self-sow in the garden which, for him, are violas, hollyhocks, and columbines or anything you like to grow from seed.

“Usually annuals are a good place to start,” he says, “because you get results quickly, while perennials and shrubs can take longer to get to flowering size. Trees are always the hardest, just because it takes SO LONG, and anything with really tiny flowers can be difficult, just because it is hard to manipulate the blooms to make hybrids.”

Ninety percent of plant breeding is throwing plants away.

It’s not a hobby that requires lots of equipment, he points out.  “With large flowers like daylilies, you can make hybrids using your fingers to move pollen from one flower to the other, and then you just have to grow out the seeds,” he explains.  “The biggest concern is usually space, because once you start breeding you can quickly end up with hundreds of plants! But they key there is to be a little heartless about throwing out the ones you don't love and keeping only the best so you have room for new babies.”

It’s important to be selective, Joseph says, because when you keep plants with a problem, like gladiolus that fall over, every future generation with have the same problem. Purge plants that have a particular problem and pretty soon you've got all wonderful plants that don't fall over.

“It can be hard to throw a plant away,” he acknowledges, “but honestly, once you start breeding plants, it gets easier. Each gladiolus seed pod can have as many as 50 seeds, each of which can grow into a different, unique plant. So it is easy to have hundreds or thousands of new seedlings flowering every year. There is no practical way to keep all of those!

“For me, breeding new plants is a perfect mixture of creativity and exploration. I do get to try and create beautiful plants, and there are a lot of unexpected and exciting surprises along the way.” 

About
Joseph Tychonievich has been gardening most of his life and grows everything from agaves to zucchini. Joseph lives and gardens with his husband and assorted furry companions in eastern Virginia.

If you’re interested in plant breeding or alpine plants, Joseph’s books Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener and Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic are must reads.  If you’d like to explain the mystery of your garden obsession to someone you love  The Complete Guide to Gardeners: The Plant Obsessed and How to Deal With Them is a fun and funny guide that may help them understand your need for plants!

Joseph’s three books are pictured below. To purchase one or all of them just select each book’s individual “Buy on Amazon” button.

Photos courtesy of Joseph Tychonievich. Banner photo shows lupine, sweet peas and poppies.

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