Della - Your plants are dying? I wonder if something is eating the roots? I'd dig one or two dying ones up and take a look to see what is going on.

Della, I don't know what it is. Saw it while taking my great-grandnephew for a walk and loved it against that beautifully blue sky.

Della, I wonder if the plants are too dormant for your climate. I am trying to think what the PS is on that cross and let you know.

Went back over my seed list and the only PS I could find was Purple Satellite.

I like the Ruffles A La Mode x Euromazing. Hopefully it is just going dormant and not dying on you.

Oooohhh..... Thanks Cindy.

Thanks Becky, I think Hemlady might be on the right track. It never occured to me. These little guys are only 12-14 months old and have spent that short life in small pots. I unexpectedly had to move house after I had literally thousands of seedlings (daylilies, lilium mostly) started and the idea of planting them out in new beds vapourised. So they have moved with me in their pots while enough garden growing space is still down the track. The new place is an acre but the soil needs some serious work. One bit at a time!

But back to those pots... it would be so easy for little daylily roots to be overheating and I guess dormant types would suffer the worst from warm soil? What happens is some seedlings just put up a scape without the leaf area to support and feed the plant. Some put up a scape with no leaves at all! I assumed they were exhausting their energy and just expiring. Other seedlings are happily making fans all over the place but haven't thought about flowering yet. It would make sense if it was something to do with heat/cold tolerance/requirements. I must check the pots of some of the earlier disappear-er-ers to see if there is a living crown just under the surface... or if they have cooked.

Purple Satellite doesn't ring a bell. I wonder if it was BS instead but the label has become unclear? I remember I got some Big Smile seeds from you. I had records somewhere... but I've moved house! Thanks for looking. Another seedling from the same cross has flowered a strange sort of orange:



Thanks Debra.

Della, how about if you just dug the little pots into the ground until you get growing beds prepared? That would help to insulate them from the heat. You could even just do a trench & line the little pots up in the trench side by side & shove the dirt that came out of the trench back along the edges.

Oh! Good thinking!

Della - I didn't even think of dormant daylilies! That could very well be the issue going on. Unfortunately, here in the heat of Florida, dormants only last about 3 years in my yard until they eventually die. I have to grow semi-evergreen and evergreen daylilies that can tolerate the heat of our Summer and Autumn.

Della, are you sure the second letter on the cross was an "S". How about Picket Fences???
The "P" could have been a "B" I suppose and you are right, it could have been Big Smile. I get a lot of pods from that plant.

Hmm... Haven't heard that name before. I've been wracking my memory and keep thinking of "Big Sister", but I have no idea if I just constructed that in my head.

Here's a pic of another seedling that flowered today that I guess won't make it...

Opening this morning and then late this afternoon; a Khorassan seedling (from Nina on the auction). I see that Khorassan is a dormant...

but then yesterday Malcolm Brooker (dormant) (should that be Malcolm David Brooker, Senior? ) x Van Helsing (dormant) produced his second flower and has the rest of the scape and two more scapes coming yet to bloom. (Seed from Nams.)

He's a year old and a healthy little clump in a 6 inch pot in the sun. I think daylilies are a mystery!


edit: Becky and Cindy, I keep meaning ask, what are the daylilies in your avatars? They're both

I love that first one Della. Cut off the scape -- that may save it.

My avatar daylily is a seedling Hailey Henrion Memorial x Lake Norman Spider.

Hope that seedling makes it, della. I like the color.

That is a beautiful flower, Cindy.

Thanks guys - I hope this seedling makes it too! It had a lovely fragrance....

Thanks Karen

Della - I, too, hope they come back for you. When I grow dormants, I try to cross them with evergreens to get something that might be less dormant within 3 years before they expire. There are so many very pretty dormants, that I just have to try to breed them with something that will grow in the south.

Cindy - I sowed a number of your "freebie" seeds. Many have sprouted. Some I am still waiting on. It's weird, one whole container (which has 7 styrofoam cups in it each containing seeds of 7 different crosses) has not sprouted any. I am beginning to wonder if I did something wrong or there is a problem with the potting mix I used. Doesn't make sense. If they don't germinate, I will be planting some more with new soil. I always hold seeds back for gardener error! LOL! I had added sand into the mix to keep the gnats out and I may have added too much sand and compacted the soil.

The seeds I got from you last year are doing well in my raised beds outside. I am hoping some of them bloom this year for the first time. I am rather excited about seeing some new bloom faces this Spring/Summer. I love this time of year .... the anticipation of a brand new hybrid bloom to show itself is always such great fun!

I'll be anxious to see them too Becky!!!!

I just read the World News and there were two cyclones that hit Australia:
http://news.yahoo.com/massive-...

I hope Glen and anyone else there are ok. I read that the damage may be pretty substantial.