LOW AND COMPACT VARIETIES OF WEIGELA AND POTENTILLA CULTIVATED IN PRŮHONICE

Low and compact woody ornamentals have several irreplaceable characteristics that make them useful in landscape gardening. The small selection of wild species with similar characteristics, however, makes breeding in this field important. A few breeding methods to achieve the given aim exist: interspecific hybridization, induced mutation and selection within the current species. In Průhonice, we focus on breeding the genus Weigela and the species Potentilla fruticosa. In the genus Weigela, the variety Piccolo was selected from interspecific hybridization to become an original breeding material for the further breeding of medium and low varieties with compact habit and relatively good frost-hardiness. In the species Potentilla fruticosa we managed to select varieties with low or cover habit with yellow, white, red and different tinges of pink colour. The first varieties have already been put into cultivation.