Dwarfs and the endless procession of blossom drop

[Patrina_Pepperina]

It's quite difficult to tell the length of the stigma in relation to the anther cone (inner yellow part of the flower that comes to a point) in most of those pics because the flowers are past their prime, and the petals (specifically the outer yellow layer that fold backwards when the flowers are bright yellow) have withered and folded over the parts I needed to see

Anyhow, in the 4th pic the lower flower looks OK for setting fruit IF the pollen is not clumped, however, notice that the yellow tips are curled away from the central green tip of the stigma rather than covering it to a tight point? This means that instead of concentrating the pollen to the actual stigma tip, the pollen easily just escapes into the air. This flower still sets fruit some of the time, especially with the electric toothbrush buzzing the flowers. The flowers in pic number 6 look similar.

Most of those flowers in your pics are past setting fruit stage and will probably drop if they haven't alread set, and you won't know for sure until they drop or stay put. The flowers in the last pic look like they "could" be the type that have open ends with curled yellow anther tips, or even too short anthers like in my pics, but it's too hard to tell once the old petals kinda close over the dead blossoms, sorry.

My suggestion for new flowers is to gather some pollen in a shot glass by buzzing the flowers with the electric toothbrush - that will tell you if the pollen is clumped or not - and paint it on the stigmas with a fine brush very very gently so at least you will get some fruit to eat from this lot! Bright yellow flowers are when you should get little clouds of pollen, and if you don't then it would suggest it's too humid in there. I would move Dwarf Mr Snow to an accessible position to do it so you don't miss out on tasting this one.... Might have to negotiate a plan with the owner of the electric toothbrush tho

Dwarf Mr Snow is definitely delicious! Tasted my first real fruit from a volunteer person yesterday. My container plant did too poorly to evaluate regrettably, but most of my container problems are nothing to do with the plants - I hate growing in containers and they rarely do well unless the containers are really BIG!

Patrina