Love #1 Fred

beckygardener
Just to keep you labels and collages correct, I think that should be 'Soft Summer Night' I grow it and I catch myself adding a "s" to the end.

Wild Dreams and Lillians Vapor Trail....outstanding. I will buy that in a heartbeat. Looks like a spider sitting on top of the bush. They are all wonderful and would be keepers here

Becky, you could save todays' flower for tomorrows early morning pollen. All the seedlings are looking great. First blooms on most daylilies are not always perfect. It may take some a few blooms before they hit their stride. It could also be temp related. Cold/cool nights can affect the bloom among other variables. Love that Francis Of Assisi seedling

Mike - How do I "save" today's flowers for tomorrow's early morning pollen?

I agree with you ... the Francis of Assisi seedling bloom is quite stunning because of the large red bloom with a faint pattern around the throat. I feel like I hit the jackpot with so many nice seedlings this year. My love affair with daylilies just gets stronger and stronger each year.

My next step is to evaluate and cull those that are the most rusty plants. I will always keep rust in my yard to test new seedlings, but my next goal is to create some rust resistant seedlings.

I have a check list with each new seedling where I record the bloom size, the scape height, and the number of buds. And whether it is showing rust or not on the leaves. I will say that I do in fact have a number of plants that are showing minimal damage from rust. I have many that are what I consider to be rust buckets too. If there is a flower I like, then I will cross it with a rust resistant daylily whenever possible to see if I can keep some of the bloom characteristics as well as breed for some rust resistance. This will take many years of breeding, but that is my goal. I hope to some day have a garden with very little evident rust.

Larry - Thanks for that name correction. I will make a note of that and eventually change the collage and that daylily file to the correct cross name.

I wish I knew how to save todays flower for tomorrows pollen. Ive always just saved the tomorrows pollen and put it on the next bloom of todays flower. Yes, many a time, its the last flower, and you basically just move on, and repeat murphys law to yourself.

Love all of those, Fred -- really beautiful! And I'm so glad you were able to get some seedlings from TET LILLIAN'S THIN ICE before it died. Are you starting to make decisions as to what you will be introducing in 2016? I'm dying to find out about that pink COFFEE TO GO seedling!

I have never personally done it, but some hybridizers pick the flower and save it in the fridge. Here is a old link where "Tink" and others discussed the many ways that they use and save pollen.
The thread "Pollen-ways to store it" in Daylilies forum
Lilylady mentioned this in her post on the first page number 248351

So which is better ..... storing the pollen in the refrigerator for 1 day or freezer for however long? I haven't had much luck with the freezer method. Maybe I am not doing it right. I may have to resort to just crossing what is in bloom that day as I have been doing, but I want to use the pollen of a few choice daylily seedlings.

I have another question .... does the pollen on UFO's and Spiders not last very long? I have noticed that the pollen seems to disappear on these forms of blooms very quickly. (Usually by noon time.)

I have had some flowers with good pollen in the fridge for a week!
I store pollen in the freezer for some really early dayliles that won't be blooming with anything else.

So maybe I should try the refrigerator? I have had zero success in the freezer. What have I got to lose? Either way, it will either still be good pollen or done. I need my favorite daylilies to just bloom for months on end so I can just use fresh pollen daily!

If you pick the flower and put it in the fridge., how does it set a pod. I thought you had a flower you wanted to cross one day, but the pollen would not be ready till the next. If all you want to do is hold pollen a week or so, I just leave mine on the paper plate I dry it on. The pollen stays fine for me, for about 4 days....could be more, but that is minimum. Heck, it takes a couple of days to dry before you would store it anyway.

Why would you store the whole flower to save the pollen?

I am trying the pollen in the refrigerator. We shall see if the pollen is any good in the morning.

I have several unknowns that bloomed today. I also noted that one of them is currently showing some resistance to rust. It is also my largest red flower daylily. Very little rust on the leaves. Looks really good compared to others near it. I will be watching this one and others that are currently showing rust resistance to see if that resistance holds up as the season progresses.

It is so interesting to see the change in a bloom over time:

CCC14:
Morning photo:


Afternoon photo (petals curl back later in the day).


ZZZ37:
Morning photo:


Afternoon photo. This one is also displaying rust resistance. No rust visible:


CCC11:
Stippled Statement x unknown has shown very little rust and tons of buds/blooms!


CCC01:
This one is probably my favorite spider seedling. It stands tall with those red with yellow eye blooms. I have been using this one to cross with many of the other spider forms. No rust evident. :

Nice reds Becky, I also like the last one the best.
Karen all the seedlings I post are my own, I do not buy seed.
Betty I am waiting on two of the Coffee To Go kids to increase, hopefully this fall.
Waiting for increase #1

Waiting for increase #2


These three babies are from the yellow above, this
is the reason it's so important to know the parents
of what your using to get the results your looking
for. You would never guess the yellow one(#2)
has a pattern daylily (WILD DREAMS) for a pollen parent

Fred, you must have the magic touch as everything you show is so beautiful. I can't imagine the anticipation of waiting to see what your seedlings will turn out to be. I had always planned to hybridize someday since meeting Marion Hagerstrom who lived just a few miles from here. He was a kind and generous man who was willing to share his knowledge with anyone that asked. As often happens, I got side tracked and ended up raising money for severely handicapped children for several years. I will never regret that part of my life, so now I will enjoy the flowers that people like you are turning out.

I agree Fred! Though sometimes an unknown shows up that is worth using or even registering despite the lack of knowing it's family tree.

Plants like Dragonfly Dawn and Waves of Joy (which is a child of DD) often consistently produce patterned children. Others consistently produce ruffles or teeth. I find it helpful to look in the Plant Database at the children of such cultivars to see if those traits do indeed pass on to their children. I am also discovering that some plants are very fertile while others are not. I have 2 siblings right now where one plant is very fertile and the other seems to be sterile. So if you are using a plant for breeding, you need to verify that it will be fertile both ways.

The more I learn, the more I am sucked into this vortex of hybridizing. It really can be mind-bending at times to get something totally unexpected! Those are the ones I give pause to and do some research to make sure that I didn't mislabel them or to discover something from generations before showing up. It's quite the unexpected ride with daylily hybridizing!

Those three seedlings are a such beautiful example, Fred. And that's what makes hybridizing so totally fun! Seriously, I hope you will put me down for a plant of that pink COFFEE TO GO seedling when you do introduce it -- and the other one too, especially now that I know it can be used as a pod parent!

Pam @gardenglory in answer to your question, saving pollen could almost be compared to starting daylily seeds. Everyone have their preference on how they do it. I have never done it that way. I saved some pollen for the first time in the freezer from last season blooms.

Your right about that, and as long as its dry....its all 'gravy'.

I just put some in the freezer yesterday, have some drying to freeze. I didnt really want to set my own pods this year, so the plants could get strong, but old habits die hard.