It's been wonderful to look at all the fantastic seedlings posted here. I'm temped to do some crosses, but I need to get rid of a bunch of daylilies first. Over 5 years ago I tried my hand at hybridizing daylilies using the cheap daylilies I had in my own garden. I got around 200 seedlings. While none of them are too exciting, some are bright, vigorous, hardy and floriferous enough to keep as garden plants. This year I'm finally getting around to culling some since they take up a lot of space, although it's hard getting rid of plants that have increased and bloom well for over five years. I had kept good records but the tags with the plants all faded over time.
I made a lot of crosses using Siloams. Many turned out like this so that make it easy to get rid of a bunch.
I like this one little one and it blooms well.
Some more Siloam crosses.
This one is darker than its parent, S. Sambo.
Some Goblin Moon crosses:
Some Light Years Away crosses produced big blooms often with a thin gold edge.
Tabby, I don't think these are boring crosses at all. You have nice results on crossing the Siloams. The one with the blue eye is super nice,, and the second one is a real cutie. The other seedling that caught my eye was the Chicago Apache seedling that is peachy/orange with a red eye. I love the look of that one!
Thanks Deb,
There are more Chicago Apache seedlings blooming today that are nice and bright. I'm going to keep that peachy orange one since it is a great bloomer, strong plant and always opens well. I don't remember what I crossed it with, but it doesn't look like any of my other daylilies.
I did these crosses mostly to see how hard it was to grow daylilies from seed and just about everything germinated.
Name: Dot or Dorothy Parker Fort Worth TX (Zone 8a)
I like the color on the fifth one. You know I have a lot of so so seedlings that I just love, they have a home in my garden. I gave away a bunch of them rather than compost them. My son's friend took all of them, he has now moved out of state I miss him coming by the garden.
I did what you did the first year too. Just used some stuff around to see if I could set seed and start some plants. HA! so easy!
Now, on the advice of Phil Reilly who said things like...
It takes just as long to grow a ho hum daylily as to grow a possible goodie! (here 2-3 yrs for bloom)
Buy the best even if it is just 2 or 3 and use them. Go for unique and distinction.
Don't cross what everyone else is using.
Get a daylily or more that have great plant habits and lots of buds and branching. It is easy to put a pretty flower on a great plant. It is not so easy to have a beautiful bloom and try to get buds and branching on it. How true!
Set a goal. Want tall? Want dormant? Want late bloomers? Like UF's?
If not buying a few of the best ($$$) that have some new gene pool, you could buy sister seedlings or seeds from a good hybridizing program that matches your goal.
I have some very old dips from a farm that used to hybridize daylilies 50+ years ago that have been allowed to grow wild. I have messed some with crossing some of the old genetics with new, just as an experiment. Too soon to see the results yet.
On the other hand, my gift & purchased seeds last year, I can see a difference in the seeds from daylilies with better genetics and impressive flowers. It will be interesting to see what happens next year with these seedlings.
And yours are very pretty. There is nothing wrong with a pretty vigorous flower - there is a reason Stella De Oro continues to sell well! ~Jan
Yup, almost everyone has Stella d'Oro including me. It does it's job well in the perennial bed.
Looking back, I made these crosses back in 2004 and crossed a bunch of Siloams with Rosy Returns in hopes of getting some rebloom. It didn't work. And while I was at it, I crossed some of the Tets that I had just for grins.
While soooooo very tempting, I can't justify the cost of the newer daylilies so I'll just stick with what I've got and behave myself. I know myself well enough to know what would happen if the bug really bit me. I have a yard full of roses from my previous hybridizing obsession.
Some of the seedlings are good general garden plants so they'll get put in the perennial bed. Some have relatively good branching and vigor for being crammed so close together and never fertilized.
This one seems to keep creating more and more buds and makes a nice bright spot in the yard so I'll keep it too.
Tabby, I totally agree with what Chelle said! All of these would look great in my yard! I can't imagine getting rid of any of them! I really understand needing more room, since I'm in the same boat, but these are all such beautiful blooms! Do what I do when I'm out of room - find a neighbor to take them! That way, you can still enjoy them, and you free up room in your own yard! I like to think of my little neighborhood as an extension of my own yard, since most of the yards have plants that came from my flower beds.
My first seedlings ever are blooming this year, and all are from old daylilies. The first one to bloom was horrible, but I've had some decent ones since then. A couple of them are actually pretty! I'm only hybridizing for myself, and never plan on registering anything, but it's a lot of fun! I've got a bunch of "better" seeds in the fridge from crosses I made last year, from much newer and prettier daylilies, so hopefully the next set of seedlings will be a lot better. All of my first ones were dips, and this second set of seeds are almost all tets. Not that it really matters to me, because it's just for myself, but I hope to get something a little better from the tet seeds. But, I won't be surprised if they are nothing special! I'm not about to spend the big bucks to get the latest and greatest, but just waiting a few years brings the cost way down on many of them. I've got some absolutely stunning daylilies (to me anyway!) that are fairly new, and I paid less than $20 for them. Many I got for less than $10 for a double fan. I think it pays to wait, especially if you are in need of a lot of newer ones.
They look Great . The 7th one down has a pretty beige color to it . I love beige 
