Back in the late 1960's and 70s, the John Innes Institute, now best known for developing their compost formulae, had been working on a breeding programme of Streptocarpus hybrids. This was led by a lovely man called Gavin Brown MBE. This programme produced a number of wonderful new varieties, which were all given girls names. We still grow all 9 - see below. We just carried on this tradition of the names.

Quoting an article from John Innes Centre:

Brown’s project, which started in 1969, aimed to increase the colour range of Streptocarpus.

The cross that made ‘Constant Nymph’ was remade several times, but a pink or red form of S. hybridus was substituted for one of the parents each time. All the first-generation seedlings were blue, but when these were cross bred with each other in the second generation, white, pink, red, magenta, purple, and pale blue flowers were produced and all retained the constant flowering habit. Ten of these hybrids were selected for naming and further testing.

In 1972 John Innes released its first batch of seven new varieties of Streptocarpus named; Diana, Fiona, Karen, Louise, Marie, Paula and Tina through the National Seed Development Organisation (NSDO). Later Brown developed further varieties, both by traditional breeding methods and by X-ray and chemical-induced mutation.

The new John Innes varieties received considerable attention from plant breeders in Holland (where they were awarded a gold medal), but the British market for these new houseplants was slow to develop.

Brown’s retirement in 1975 ended the breeding programme and this, together with John Innes’ overall policy of closing its ornamental plant work, removed the incentive for John Innes to market the new varieties through NSDO.

Nevertheless Louise, Paula, and Tina were all awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Merit. Today Paula and Tina carry the RHS ‘Award of Garden Merit’(AGM), along with ‘Helen’, another variety bred by Gavin Brown. The pink-flowered variety ‘Tina’, with a more compact habit than ‘Constant Nymph’, remains a popular variety today.

Gavin and Winifred (Win) Brown became close friends of my parents and they would come and stay each year. This always involved wonderful day trips, visiting gardens and eating al fresco in sunny Snowdonia. These picnics always included Mrs Brown's shortbread. We still have the recipe. Gavin Brown, an unsung hero of horticulture, did a lot of work on fruit breeding at the J.I. Institute, but to me as a child, his crowning glory was that he managed to cross a pear tree and an apple tree. This was just remarkable!

The descriptions below are scanned in from our 1976 catalogue!