Let me go! Turn me loose!

All this long winter I've been pondering the need to de-select daylily seedlings and give myself fewer opportunities or dead ends to think about when the pressure's on and the pollen is fluffy.  I shed about fifty of them in February on the Lily Auction and then the itch to simplify hit me again last night and I put this one up for bidding.

This is seedling 09-21 from Forestlake Ragamuffin x Belle of Ashwood.  When I look at this picture I see the form of Belle of Ashwood combined with the orange toothy edge from Forestlake Ragamuffin.  In fact, it has some edge properties from both parents, and the orange on the edge is intensified.  Unfortunately, I succeeded only in creating a more interesting face than I saw on either parent.  I failed to put this flower on a tall, well-branched scape, though it grows vigorously.

But as interesting as one might find this, I just don't want to find out where this might lead.  I'm not enthusiastic about the possibilities.  Yesterday I heard it sing to me, "Let me go, let me go, let me go, lover."  This morning it sang, "Turn me loose....I'm gonna get a thousand kicks and kiss a thousand chicks, so turn me loose!"  One confirmation of my disinterest in this is the plain fact that I've walked right past it and not grabbed the pollen in the last four seasons.

There's another one in the keeper bed that sings, "lover, come back to me!"

This is 10-74 from Desiree x Belle of Ashwood.  The flower is 5.5", the scape 35" tall.  It's dormant, a mid-season bloomer with 5 branches and 36 buds.  The halo around the throat suggests the potential for breeding a patterned blue eye, something I haven't tried with this one yet.

The color drew me to this one.  It reminds me of a color that might have been fashionable for women's evening wear or the boudoir back in the nightclubbing era of the late 1930s or early 1940s, which I must imagine, as I wasn't around to see these garments first-hand.  I don't mind the brassy edge on the petals, though I certainly would not want to see any more of it.  I would prefer to see a platinum edge or a white one on this color.

Hybridizing is a romantic chase.  Nobody wants to chase all the girls.  You just chase the one or the ones who work their way into your nature and say or do something irresistible.

Yuletide Work in the Daylily Database

Fierce winds and horizontal snow defined yesterday and gave what I hope is the promise of some real winter cold in the offing.  There's not even enough snow on the ground to hide the grass, but the wind chill is something else.  I want to see truly dead foliage on all the daylilies, no exceptions and no excuses.

I've begun the work of continuous running through of my photo-enriched database to try to come to grips with a game plan for the pollen-dabbing in the summer.  The down side of having too many keepers is that each one expects me to imagine a couple of smart crosses to improve the turkey, or latent babe, as the case may be.

Here's what my database screen looks like.  I built it with FilemakerPro a few years ago.  It has three places for pictures and two windows where I can write the pollens I want to bring to a daylily and the daylilies I want to take this one's pollen to.  This seedling 07-153 on some days is white with a blue eye, and the plant is Dormant, but not pod-fertile, so I'm about to erase the names of pollens I want to bring to this one.  I want to use this a lot, so I'm going to consider carefully the crosses that might yield tall, large flowers with clear backgrounds and blue patterned eyes.

This coming year has to be one of heavy purging after serious early evening evaluation.  I can become too easily encouraged by pictures I take before 8 am, before a day of sun has revealed flaws in substance and color.

I got a good handle on plant habit, rapidity of increase, and hardiness last March when I ventured to confirm the foliage classification of my whole collection as well as my keepers.  I need to do another check of plant vigor before the foliage is up in 2013 because everything has been in place undisturbed since May of 2011.  Anything that seemed a slacker last spring had better show better growth three months from now, or show cause why it should not receive a disposal flag.  Here's one I know I must discard:

It's one of several beautiful keepers from SHERRY LANE CARR X SASSY SALLY.  All the flowers in the cross are "melon blends" with quasi-oatmeal tones.  All have nice yellow ruffles, green throats, and plant vigor.  All are too short to care about, and none have the good scape I hoped would come from SHERRY LANE CARR.  I could make more crosses to try to improve these in the next generation, but I could do as well or better by starting over again with different parents.  In fact, I have much better yellows and blends from other crosses already made.  

This cross was an attempt to do better than either parent, but only the flowers of the kids are interesting.  Their presentation is a disappointment.  I've got to dig these keepers out and work on something else.

Now I'll show a few keepers I will keep working with.  This lovely flower is a result of using WYOMING WILDFIRE to correct the opening flaw of MAPLE HUES.  I did correct that flaw, and I got a dandy flower, but the scape is shorter than either parent and the flower is extremely reluctant to set a pod.

I'm going to take this pollen to my collection of orange flowers with red centers and edges.

Here's another I like, and will take here and there to see what will come of it.

This is the result of trying to improve a favorite seedling (BEST KEPT SECRET X ROSE IMPACT) by crossing it with GREAT WHITE.  My favorite seedling very often imparts its form, as it did here.  GREAT WHITE gave this seedling a well-branched scape.  But I want to see more height, and want to overcome this flower's habit of beginning to decay in mid-afternoon, and I want to see fewer flowers open at once.  I've got a nice keeper from attempting those reforms through a cross with SHANTIH.  Now I want to cross this one with some others and see if I can retain the clear rose pink coloration.

There are several things I do not want to work on, much less achieve.  Among them is an increase in the already Rococo look of attention-grabbing yellow edges on convoluted petal surfaces.  I know, I know, some people like that look...it's well beyond the metaphor of "full-figured" and even "Overfull-figured."  Metaphors engaging the mind in memories of skin mag models and soft porn are avoidable, but not very, as we're conditioned to spicing our talk of flowers with words like "mighty," "husky," "feminine," and "voluptuous."  And, may I add, without a libido, where would we be?

So, these somewhat excessive flowers exist, and I am a garden judge, and my job is not to criticize the taste of such creations but to take them for what they are and find the ways to discern merit and demerit.

One other thing I am not working on is "fringe."  But this seedling came along a couple of years ago, and I saved it to see if I could make anything good happen with it.  I call it my "Shaggy Dog."

The cross is HEARTBEAT OF HEAVEN X ((BUTTER CREAM X VICTORIAN LACE) X J. T. DAVIS).  The pollen parent was a craggy-edged cream seedling with a big flower and lousy substance.  I knew I would have to compost it, but thought I'd see if anything good might come of it anyway.  The smoothly-ruffled edge of HEARTBEAT OF HEAVEN came though with rough, shaggy stuff in this mongrel.  The color is poor, the substance is poor, the scape is poor, and it won't set pods.  I believe the odds are against generating success from such a monster, but God gave it to me and I have to see what it will do.

I'm still a disciple of Oscie Whatley.  I like size, vibrant color, and a great healthy plant.  Unlike Oscie, I like patterns and want to fool with them.  But I can't fool with all of them in my keeper bed, so I'm going to have to cull and "add value by subtracting."  Wish me luck.

Hybridizing Daylilies in the Bliss and Torment of Ignorance

Out in the garden morning after morning, there is the bliss of birdsong and breeze, the pleasure of working a plan based on dreams of what might be.  I have saved a lot of seedlings because they represented "success" in a failure kind of way, know what I mean?

Here's one I love to have in the keeper bed.  I keep hoping that some year I'll lay claim to a full version of success.  I selected it in 2005 from a cross I made probably in 2003.  I wanted to correct the poor opening of MAPLE HUES by crossing it with a consistently fine opener, WYOMING WILDFIRE.  When I first saw WYOMING WILDFIRE in the Salters' catalogue, I knew I wanted to cross it with MAPLE HUES.

The success of correcting an opening problem was offset by a failure to breed a scape with adequate height, branching, and bud count.  My successful opener is to low too offer any garden pleasure except when it's on the outside edge of a border on a slope, so you see it as you walk up the slope and ignore it when you walk down.  

Every year when I remember to do so, I cross this with something better and hope for magic.

Here's another sort of success.  I wanted to try to get something clear pink out of my friend Mike Derrow's PRELUDE TO PANOPLY, so I bred it to Patrick Stamile's TRUE PINK BEAUTY and kept two seedlings for further work.  One of them is darling, but like my success/failure in orange, it nearly hugs the ground in shyness.

I love looking at flowers like this, and all too often in my keeper bed, I have to look way, way down to see them!

Here's another sort of tarnished success.  I forget why I thought it was a good idea to cross Matthew Kaskel's orange CLOCKWORK with Patrick Stamile's yellow STONE BEACON, which is taller.  I imagine I couldn't think of how to use CLOCKWORK and had decided to let it go.  What happened?  I got a plant full of these delightful orange flowers that are smaller than either parent on the short scape of Clockwork.  I like orange in the garden, so I'm using this from time to time in a try for more height and a better scape.

However....my seedling lacks distinction.  It reminds me of Curt Hanson's wonderful polychrome named THE GOLDILOCKS EFFECT.  Curt's daylily is all around better than this and there is no reason on earth why I should waste seedling bed space growing seeds from this one when I have far better chances of success if I breed with Curt's "Goldi."  They may look alike in a photo like this, but one is not at good as the other.  Saving something like this puts me at Square One, which is where I began sixteen years ago.  This is knock-off hybridizing, child's play.  Neil Young's "I Am a Child" should be playing in the background right now.  Saving this is a portrait of my ignorance.  I've got to throw it away and everything else of its ilk and concentrate my attention on things that strike me as different and special.

Here's one I'll keep working with.  I have four or five seedlings that are a clear lavender or orchid lavender.  This one from BELLE OF ASHWOOD X AUGUST WEDDING shows just a hint of a blue eye, which is generally overlooked in the garden because the form and color are at the right height and lend a soothing effect.

This next is from the Big and Tall shop.  While I now recognize the shade of pink in the eye as the genetic stamp of its grandparent, CLARIFICATION, that doesn't detract from the effect of seeing it in the garden.  I hope I like it as well a few years from now when I line it out for its final audition.

And this is one of two kids from BRIDGETON FINESSE X COSMIC ODYSSEY that have an identical pattern but display it in different colors.  This is the darker one.  

The lighter one shows a lavender eye with a neater scalloped edge.

I like seeing the eye broken into segments like that.  Or course I should cross them with each other, but part of my ignorance is just thinking of that NOW!

Another aspect of ignorance is wondering what to do with someone else's plant that appears to present both opportunities and challenges.  For instance, a few weeks ago at our club auction I won a plant that should have gone for three times my bid.  It's RUFFLES HAVE RIPPLES by Ted Petit in Florida.  Sometimes what looks "lavender" or "cream" in Florida suffers a color shift in Missouri.

The first morning it opened, just a month after I planted it, this was the flower.  The rippled eyezone was apparently triggered by a succession of cool nights.  The name of the flower comes from those ripples, and the large size and toothy edge are what makes this one coveted on auctions.

I took the picture before the sun was up over the trees.  Aside from the splotches and wonky opening, the background color seems to have a suggestion of pale khaki in it.  A couple of days later, same time of day, but after some warmer nights, the flower looked like this before the sunlight added red color to everything.

The color problem and opening and blotchiness are all transformed here, but the ripples are hiding.  I feel the weight of ignorance when I consider breeding with this.  I don't know if it's ever possible to clear up the underlying khaki hints.  I consider this plant a mixed success but one that's light years ahead of my keepers.  On its good days I'll allow myself to be swept away and on its bad days I'll dwell on something else.

This one never has a bad day.  It's QUEST FOR ATLANTIS by Jeff Corbett.  I aspire to make a majority of my collection meet this standard.  I want constant reminders of what the best of success looks like.

The Nurture and the Battle

This is a tale of two crops in the back yard.  The seedling sprouts look like they are growing with a lust for life after the big rain in the early morning.

A couple of days ago I got this little patch weeded in about ten minutes.

The other crop is going to be the bane of my existence here.  It's nutsedge.

I've been over and over this bed with Roundup's generic equivalent.  It's quite effective on whatever it touches.  These little guys emerged from the zillions of sedge "nuts" under the surface.  I'll have to spray again....and again later.

Over at the seedling bed in University City this morning I saw several more patterns. 

This is Blue-Eyed Butterfly X Rock Solid.  The form is more like BEB, and the fancy pattern is, too, but the colors are from Rock Solid.  Next step is to see if I can set seed pods on this or use its pollen wisely.

This 7" flower is from Bridgeton Finesse x Toward the Blue.  In form, this gets its neat appearance from Bridgeton Finesse, but it gets its eye and somewhat toothy edge from Toward the Blue.  The next picture is of its sister down the row.

The genetics are fascinating.  This flower's eye traded the blue quality from both parents and took on purple.  The form is Bridgeton Finesse, but the main color is a brightened Toward the Blue, and the edge is much more like Toward the Blue.

Here are the two parents I've been talking about.  First Bridgeton Finesse by Darrel Apps.

Now Toward the Blue by my friend, Paul Aucoin:

New Bridges in the Seedling Patch

My curiosity keeps driving me to save seedlings that don't look suitable for naming and registration, but that carry what I suppose to be "promise" in their genetic profile.  I intend to start crossing some of these right away, as soon as the weather will cooperate with dry mornings under 93 degrees.

Let me show you a few.

The first two are siblings from (Clarification x Maltese Falcon) x Meet Joe Black.  Neither parent carries a bubbly edge, but Maltese Falcon does, so here we have a genetic mix that favors the expression of the edge that went recessive in all the kids from Clarification x Maltese Falcon.  I thought I ought to try the pollen from Mort Morss's GOD SAVE THE QUEEN on these, but the convenient thing to try is a sibling cross, since they are right next to each other in the row.  More interesting would be to cross them with the INTELLIGENT DESIGN offspring pictured below.

This is a surprise result from CLARIFICATION X MYSTERIOUS EYES.  It's all about raspberry colors and that big washed and webbed band.  It compels attention, as it is tall.  I have to try some crosses with it to see if it will set seed pods.

This is BRIDGETON FINESSE X COSMIC ODYSSEY.  Cos Od is pretty tender here, and I'm always surprised to see it survive.  It's a good breeder for complex blue eyes, so I took it to a hardy plant with great growing habits, Bridgeton Finesse, which has a blue eye on a white background.   I have to try a cross on this with a seedling that shows a patterned eye.

This is CLARIFICATION X COSMIC ODYSSEY.  Once in a while Clarification throws white kids with very dark eyes.  I don't think you would guess that Cos Od is one of the parents from the look of this.  I'll try crossing this with other patterned blue eyes to see what pops out in the next generation.

This is a break from the normal look of the offspring from INTELLIGENT DESIGN X MEET JOE BLACK.  Every other kid looks like a take on ID.  Because of the extreme recurve, the flower only measures 5 inches across.  This is a first-year bloom, so there's no way to tell what a mature version will do.

Here's a surprise from INTELLIGENT DESIGN X COSMIC ODYSSEY, the only white one in the row and only hinting at a potential for patterned eyezone.  It's ugly sister (below) has the best scape in the cross.

The blossom is some kind of disaster.  Maybe on subsequent days it will look more presentable.  The scape, however, is fine. 

This is JUST LIKE CANDY X POINT OF DIVERGENCE.  The flowers don't open flat, which is a must, but the eye pattern is what I hoped for in POD crosses.  This might be one to take to the other seedlings pictured here.

This is MYSTERIOUS EYES X THIBODAUX TANTALIZER.  The eye is an expression of ME, while the form is TT all the way.  Color is pastel charcoal pink, if you can imagine such a cadaverous color.  I'll try crossing this with the others just to see what happens. 

Here's one that will be de-selected.  The photo I took yesterday matches a photo I took a year ago.

No amount of wishing for a better day will make this into something it is not. 

It's rainy all day today, but I can't wait to get over to University City, where this seedling patch is in its final season, to see what's open today!