Now that I have fallen in love with Sculpted Relief plants and I am starting to add them slowly to my gardens I notice plants with traits and I look them up here and on the AHS website to see if they are registered as Sculpted. Now Wonder Of It All is said to be sculpted but I never get much of a sculpted look and then I see the three in the subject heading and I see sculpted in them. What are your thoughts? Are the three mentioned sculpted? What are your thoughts on WOIA? Char I look forward you expertise in this area!!!! Not a great picture of Bill Robinson (last picture)

'Wonder of it All' is sculpted mostly, but not normally deep sculpting.

'Judy Farquhar' is about the same for me, not normally deep sculpting.

Gene Tanner has a lot of nice sculpted daylilies.

The only one of the 4 I've grown is WOIA. So I can't say for certain if the other 3 are relief forms.

WOIA was terrible here only giving one or two open blooms each year and I tossed it. WOIA can show some light relief and can produce relief kids. Lee Pickles used Carr's plants in a lot of his hybridizing. Here's 2 of Lee's WOIA relief registrations.
WOIA x Shelter Cove

Awesome Bob x WOIA

To understand WOIA, or any early relief forms, you need to research the lines. WOIA is Mandalay Bay Music x Wonders Never Cease. Wonders Never Cease goes back to Sherry Lane Carr which parented America's Most Wanted and a number of other early relief forms. The Carr connection is a strong old line behind relief forms. Mandalay Bay Music is an old Salter intro that was a popular parent at the time. Both Curt HansOn and Dan HansEn used it in their sculpted programs.
Bill Robinson and Judy Farquhar both appear to show some light relief or maybe it's simply heavy substance/plumped with water. They both trace back to Tet. Barbara Mitchell, lines going back to Tet. BM or dip BM are known to produce Sculpted forms so there's that connection. Bill Robinson has 4 kids, no sculpteds. Judy Farquhar has a couple of possible light relief kids.
Some What Odd, I remember when Jim Townsend intro'd it and it was on my personal list as most likely relief. It stuck out because it appeared to be an early eyed relief form. The parentage is "some what" vague and I wouldn't use it in a relief program now because there are much nicer eyed reliefs to work with that come from lines of relief. Jim also intro'd Some What Peculiar, again possible light relief but no real parentage line or production as a parent.
Photos can sometimes be a bit deceptive as well where the substance and light create shadows that make a very slight surface texture look like relief. Deep set veins with heavy substance will also fool the eye into seeing relief.

Personally I wouldn't go back this far if starting a relief hybridizing program. Hybridizers have tossed hundreds, thousands of seedlings over all these years from these parents and while several of them are good parents and have produced intro's the number of registered relief forms is small. If you're looking to just add some relief forms to the garden there's a lot of good ones to choose from.

Im unfamiliar with Gene Tanner so I have a new google search to do. Exciting to learn of new sculpted relief hybridizers.

Char your knowledge blows me away. I would have never thought MBM would be a part of a strong sculpted line. Weird!! If you could only have three sculpted plants to work with for sculpted relief (ours or others) what would you reccomend for someone starting out.

Char - Guess what plant I have in my garden after looking it up online??? Mandalan Bay Music!!! I got it from a farmer an hour away and he had Mandalyyn Bay on it and when I got home I could not find the name to save my life. Well then it bloomed and I took a picture and it all came full circle when I looked it up after your reply above and I compared the two and by golly I have a gem in my garden LOL

I think it is Mandalay Bay Music.

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Mandalay Bay Music')

Hi, Dragonfly
Sculpted is my new thing to add to the garden. I love the deep carved look. I was wondering about other suggestions. It seems like most of mine are yellow.

Sorry for the late reply Dragonfly, I've been thinking about your question. Honestly I don't know what to recommend. I don't know anything about what "someone" would hope to accomplish with their crosses other than relief. Everyone's hybridizing is based on personal choice, their goals, influenced by other factors like $, growing zone, garden space, even their understanding of the form, parentage, lines, hybridizers.
I do know that when I started almost 25 years ago I was collecting all the relief forms I could find. Back then we didn't have sculpted form, databases and websites so the search was part of the fun. The yellows were easiest to find, they were the dominant color and even though I had a lot of them in the garden what I really wanted to hybridize for was any color other than yellow. Back then there were 2, Carved in Stone and Coquina Key, neither of which had great relief or were happy growing here, but I managed to get some sdlgs from them. I added others to the mix as they came a long, Bas Relief, Keys to the Kingdom but again tender plants. Each addition of tender resulted in frustrating winter sdlg loss, so set backs. The original plan was to never introduce a yellow... so much for that plan. Forest for the Sun is a high percentage poly with light relief, Through Time and Space a cream overlaid yellow and then Fiddle of Gold which hung around for years before I decided that if it was going to live here it should have a name. Now there are so many more relief forms to chose from and they come in so many colors. You can find better plant habit and ones that grow north or south. The advancements have been exciting to see! If "someone" were to want to start hybridizing relief forms with 3 cv's I would say, define your goals and find plants that will grow well for you with the best relief for that group. Search the databases, take notes, check parentage forward and backward....your best chances of producing relief will be with a cv known for producing relief that comes from parents that produce relief, a line. Then dream big and have fun!

Good morning, Char
What are some sculpted ones that you would recommend that are not yellow??

Hmm, I haven't purchased a relief form in a few years. If I were looking to just grow a few newer ones I would use the "Search By Characteristics" feature in the NGA database by checking the Sculpted Form - Relief box. If you type a color in the Color Description box you might narrow the results to something like "pink" or check the Eye or Band box and see what colors come up. There's lots of images to look at and of course the registration data is there.
Here's the definition for Sculpted relief form..
https://daylilies.org/daylily-...

@bluegrassmom

Not Char nor with her many qualifications, but I have a couple of 'not yellow' daylilies with sculpted relief that I really enjoy. Speaking of Gene Tanner (many of his are available via Browns Ferry Gardens)

https://brownsferrygardens.com...

And I do have Gene Tanner's 'Dixie Dazzle'



Another 'not yellow' sculpted that grows well for me, Embellished Pink (which actually had 3 proliferations last year).

adknative said: @bluegrassmom

Not Char nor with her many qualifications, but I have a couple of 'not yellow' daylilies with sculpted relief that I really enjoy. Speaking of Gene Tanner (many of his are available via Browns Ferry Gardens)

https://brownsferrygardens.com...

And I do have Gene Tanner's 'Dixie Dazzle'

• Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Dixie Dazzle')
• Uploaded by adknative

Another 'not yellow' sculpted that grows well for me, Embellished Pink (which actually had 3 proliferations last year).

• Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Embellished Pink')
• Uploaded by adknative

The first one, Dixie Dazzle, doesn't look sculpted to me. Your comment "the petals are sculpted to look nearly quilted" in the NGA database also points to this. Sculpted relief has an embossed or carved appearance with raised ridges on the petal surface. Sculpted relief does not resemble quilting. What could resemble quilting is heavy substance with deep set veins. Another clue that it is not sculpted is the hybridizer, Gene Tanner who has registered Sculpted forms, apparently didn't observe or register it as a Sculpted form.

Char said: The first one, Dixie Dazzle, doesn't look sculpted to me. Your comment "the petals are sculpted to look nearly quilted" in the NGA database also points to this. Sculpted relief has an embossed or carved appearance with raised ridges on the petal surface. Sculpted relief does not resemble quilting. What could resemble quilting is heavy substance with deep set veins. Another clue that it is not sculpted is the hybridizer, Gene Tanner who has registered Sculpted forms, apparently didn't observe or register it as a Sculpted form.

Well perhaps the photo does not do it justice, but in the real world, the texture is unmistakable.

That can be true. Many of my photos do not do the plant justice! One of my favorite is :
The texture is so thick!

This is one parent, Carved Pumpkin Pie. Love them both!

adknative said: Well perhaps the photo does not do it justice, but in the real world, the texture is unmistakable.

Yes, it appears to have heavy substance and the deep set vein gives it texture. What you don't seem to understand is heavy substance and texture are not Sculpted relief.
This is Ben Adams which also has heavy substance and a deep set vein giving texture.

Better Than Ice Cream also has heavy substance and a deep set vein, texture. The hybridizer descritption
"heavy textured creamsicle orange with bright yellow gold edge and throat"

Now when you look at an image of Dixie Dazzle you see the same thing, heavy texture and deep set vein.


In an image of Embellished Pink, a Sculpted relief form, the substance appears to be average, not heavy or thin, and there's no deep set vein. The raised ridges are on top of (project from) the surface plane of the petals.

Engraved Invitation, a Sculpted relief form, has a deep set vein with relief.


Heavy substance, deep set vein and Sculpted relief.


Carved Pumpkin Pie is a classic Sculpted relief form and a favorite of mine too.

To an inexperienced eye, texture and substance may give an illusion of relief, but they are not what constitutes a Sculpted relief form.
https://daylilies.org/daylily-...