Breeders and originators.
Breeder is the one who selects the best of the already grown hybrid groups. Originator is the one who pollutes the mother plants himself, obtains the seeds, produces hybrids from them, and finally selects the best and gives them names. It turns out that sometimes the work of bees has to be done for more than 10-20 years in order to get good crosses and reproduce them a little! In 2017, the Association of Latvian Ornamental Plant Originators was established - with the aim of uniting the creators of new ornamental varieties in Latvia and protecting their interests. So far, almost all garden friends and plant breeders in Latvia thought that the creation of new ornamental varieties (origin) is only a hindrance to free time and everyone has the right to use (reproduce, sell) the results of other work free of charge.

Baltic Peony Festival - 2019.
In June 2019, the Latvian Association of Ornamental Plants Originators applied for the "Baltic Peony Festival" at the University of Latvia Nature House at Jelgavas Street 1, Riga. The event included an exhibition of peony flowers - more than 300 varieties and hybrids were shown on 4 tropical heat days, as well as demonstrations by tea masters, flower vases created by florists, metal design garden rarities, cosmic installation, ancient furniture corner for family photo enthusiasts and artists Brigita Ekterman's peony and latvian sign paintings. The event was supported not only by members of the Society, the Botanical Garden of the University of Latvia and the National Botanical Garden, the whole administration of the Nature House of the University of Latvia, but also by the peony growers with flowers from Panevezys, Vilnius and Kaunas (Lietuva). Thanks to the botanical garden of Tallinn(Estonia) for their responsiveness and future plans. Unfortunately, we were not able to show the newest registered US in 2018 The Franciscan Puidoka (LT) breeds Lietuvos Patriotas and Lietuvos Ateitis, because the author gave us the answer that his garden has a "tropical climate" and that all the peonies have finished blooming.

            The floral exhibition and decorations were seen in natural light. This provided a proper floral color demonstration, which is not possible at exhibitions with artificial lighting

            Despite the fact that several other peony events took place at the same time in Latvia - the flower exhibition at the Nature Museum in Riga, the Peony Festival in Kalsnava Arboretum, peony parades in several peony farms in Latvia, the Baltic Peony Festival was attended by more than 500 visitors - among them were flower friends from Georgia, Poland, USA and Scandinavia.

            “Baltic Peony Festival” was the first international peony popularization event in Latvian gardening history.

            The champion of peony exhibition

-  Old Faithful (Glasscock, Falk, 1964).

            The champion of 21st century Baltic selection (origin) group

-  Latvijas Zeltene (J.Dukaļskis, 2006).

            The champion of 20th century Baltics

-  Prof. K.Grybauskas (O.Skeiviene, 1958).

Jānis Dukaļskis collection was recognized as the biggest in young hybrid demonstration (more than 50) and Andris Berkins had the largest showcasing intersection peony collection (over 20).

             
Old Faithful                                 Latvijas Zeltene                    Prof.K.Grybauskas