Tell me--do most seedlings come a blek (yuck) orange or am I just "lucky?" I have several 2 year olds with their first flowers and so many of them look alike--blek orange. And some are not even related. I do have a few nice ones, but I have never had so many of one color before. My horse is going to love his extra snacks.

I'm going to jump right in with a theory that I have no particular basis for, just to see if there's anyone who can come up with something that has some deeper science behind it. I do that only because I have long experience of yuk-orange (YO) flowers, and I know your meaning - lots of yum-oranges around, but these are not them!. Most of my YO experience has been with second-generation snapdragons that re-seed, though. Bought and enjoyed as clear pink, deep purple, and even white - in their second blooming year, after having a random cross-pollination party on their own, suddenly the offspring are a sea of YO!

Warning: continuation of mostly wild, nearly off-topic speculation continues: Since wild snapdragons, like species daylilies, are either yellow or orange-y (YO) for the most part, some offspring really want to revert to that coloration when cross-pollinated with a mix of more "modern" colors! Yellow, red, orange ... this end of the color spectrum also represents daylily's deepest preference, and we only get our other colors through intense fool-eration of the daylily genetic stock. There might still be 20% YO color genes behind a nice pink, for example, and bred to a red that, say, has 30% YO genes, suddenly 1/4 or 1/2 of the offspring are YO

So, 1. different colors together tend to run brown-orangey. Purple pod and Yellow pollen parents can give some orangey-brown offspring. And, 2. more historical cultivars that are not so many generations away from species yellow and orange-red in their background, might be even more likely to throw YO when used as parents.

Okay ... that's my theory and I'm sticking to it until someone comes along who can set us straight! Any chance the seedling's parents were different colors or included some much-older or species daylilies?

Most of these seedlings were from unknown parents. Tags lost, bee pollen, whatever. But they were from several different people. I do like surprise seedlings and not knowing the parents, I have gotten a few very nice and very cheap flowers that way, but this was overdoing it on the yuck factor.

I hear you ... muddy, motley colors! Bon appetit to the sweet horses!!

My theory is that they all turn yellow. I hate to think how many yellow ones I will have again in the next season.

I think yellow is the base color, for sure, and orange-red seems to have been less common, but may also be the key to why we can get different colors in modern daylilies (pink, red, purple).

All hail the yellow and orange origins of our beloved daylily flowers, eh?

Gleni said:My theory is that they all turn yellow. I hate to think how many yellow ones I will have again in the next season.

Glen, when you say "they all turn yellow" are you referring to ALL daylilies including registered cultivars or just seedlings ? I've never heard that the blooms of daylilies, seedlings or registered, will "all turn yellow" in the next season or any following seasons. Could you explain your theory for us.

Glen - Do they turn into the dreaded "Daylily Zombies"?????!!!!! Ack!!!!

Char, I think it has more to do with my incompetency as a hybridiser than to an explanation of reality.

It has to do with the color flowers you are mixing. Sometimes I just cant believe the crosses I see for sale. The colors are bound to make nothing but munge. I still am sometimes totally guilty of this in my own crossing.
You can always mix a mungy flower with a white, and hope. I was given some advice that until you REALLY get the hang of it, mix pinks with pinks and reds with reds, etc. Ive gotten much better flowers since then. I mix anything with a white. Think about mixing paint colors. If you put, say orange in with purple..your gunna get munge.
There are alot of good article in the AHS magazines on color mixing. Probably can find some good info on line.

Not always the case Pam. I don't always mix orange with purple but in this case I did and look what I got.

LIGHTHOUSE NEON GALAXY


X
SEEDLING (WILSON SPIDER X LILTING BELLE)


AND THE RESULTS:

MILKY WAY EYES

One more cross I did that was odd colors but had great results:

GOLLIWOG



X

BLACK PLUSH




RESULTS:

REBEKAH'S GOTHIC SPIDER

Now maybe with tets, the results are entirely different.

There are some oranges that are used to clarify colors. Here's Mick Morry's link to talking about color and he says orange is the most important color.
part 1 http://www.avaloniadaylilies.c...
part 2 http://www.avaloniadaylilies.c...

Ive always loved your Neon Galaxy. That would have been one in a million for me.

Interesting about the oranges that clarify.

Thanks Pam. I bet with tets though you would get a lot more dogs if you crossed colors like I did.

Decades ago I crossed old Hortensia with a red thinking I will get some nice ruffled reds.I'm still finding muddy tans and orange flowers with brownish eyes and really strange dull oranges and I think if there is an orange or yellow it will pop out somewhere; also when I first bought daylilies there were a great many solid orange and yellow ones. Some of the colors now amaze me, I avoid looking at the blue eyes because I don't even want to think of buying any more daylilies' I'll just continue dabbing around with those I have especially the reds.---Weedy