In a quiet village near the famous Dutch city of Delft, you would hardly suspect that a plant hybridising revolution is taking place. In an area once the private hunting ground of the Dutch Royal Family, René van Gaalen is plotting to produce perennials that turn heads and challenge preconceptions.

The Netherlands.
Some of René's breeding work is carried out close to his home base near The Hague.

But although the little village of Sion is the place René has made his base, his breeding work is carried out in locations as diverse as South Holland and Ecuador.

Working close to home of course has its advantages, but also means being restricted by the annual cycle of daylight hours that mean waiting for a year to see the fruits of your labours. On the other hand, the constant conditions at the equator allow Rene to set the ball rolling with breeding experiments, then revisit them to check on the results just a few months later.

Breeding work begins in a greenhouse such as this, where René grows the varieties he wants to work with side by side. He experiments with ways to make plants mutate and then crosses other varieties into the mutations to alter characteristics such as colour.

As well as using his own, and other locally available varieties, René gathers plant material from around the world to add into the mix.

When a new plant emerges that René is happy with, he uses all the parts of it to propagate by every means possible, it to discover the best method for the particular plant and so ensure success.

Test production in Ecuador

The resulting copies are then grown on a larger scale to test for properties such as stability and strength.