That is very nice!

Still blooming into July..
Seedling #203 (Michaels Sword x Super Fancy Face) x Cosmic kaleidoscope

Ashton has had this one on his list to name and register for about 3 years. It has not increased as rapidly as other seedlings but is better in our garden than either parent and unique enough to consider. Also it has 5 branches and 28 buds with strong scapes at 40 inches tall that hold multiple 7.5 inch blooms. We got the seeds from Cindy even though I grow both parents and have for years. I just never made this cross.
Galaxy Explosion x Magic Of Oz

Many of us use what is growing when we get out and daub. I think about what's there, though. Year before last when I made the cross of (Purple Many Faces x Skinwalker), both from Ned Roberts and (Dizzy Damselfly x Art Gallery Etching) both from Lambertson, I figured if those crosses had any merit the hybridizers would have already done them enough to have explored the likely possibilities. Crosses that are less likely to have been made often are interesting to watch. I had a seedling putting on a very late scape and it bloomed today. I kind of doubt it's been made very often, but it's been fun to watch. Here's a couple of photos of (Galaxy Explosion x Milady Greensleeves). The buds are so skinny I thought the bloom might be as well, but only the sepals are very narrow. Bloom never flattened out, but similar in size to the parents.

needrain said:Many of us use what is growing when we get out and daub. I think about what's there, though. Year before last when I made the cross of (Purple Many Faces x Skinwalker), both from Ned Roberts and (Dizzy Damselfly x Art Gallery Etching) both from Lambertson, I figured if those crosses had any merit the hybridizers would have already done them enough to have explored the likely possibilities. Crosses that are less likely to have been made often are interesting to watch. I had a seedling putting on a very late scape and it bloomed today. I kind of doubt it's been made very often, but it's been fun to watch. Here's a couple of photos of (Galaxy Explosion x Milady Greensleeves). The buds are so skinny I thought the bloom might be as well, but only the sepals are very narrow. Bloom never flattened out, but similar in size to the parents.

I love those curls!

@petruske
Sue. I did too. By the end of the day they had curled even more. The two lower ones were ringlets :).

Two seed pods popped yesterday--one can only wonder what babies these will produce:


Dragonfly Dawn pod parent

Katherine Caldwell pollen parent




Moon Over Monterey pod parent

Dragonfly Dawn pollen parent

I forgot this one:


Electric Mist pod parent

Dragonfly Dawn pollen parent

Another one from yesterday.
Lori Goldston x Ruby Ridge

Donald your Galaxy Explosion x Milady Greensleeves looks a lot like mine but mine opened up flat on 2 blooms. I was able to set a pod on Jo Barbre with it's pollen but I wish I had something larger to cross it with, only one flower was over 5 inches the others seem to hover around 4 and some change but boy do they stand out in the garden.

I can recognize Dragonfly Dawn genes, more often than not, in seedlings. When the price of DD comes way down, I am going to have to obtain it. I have acquired other seeds (now seedlings) with other patterns in them, but I am always drawn back to Dragonfly Dawn and it's registered children. Something that I have discovered though, is that crossing it with itself does not produce survivors here in my climate and zone. I've managed to use the children of DD x DD, as parents that produced both pod and pollen seeds. But self-crossing DD seems to produce a weaker child than the original DD. They don't survive after 2 years. I've lost everyone of them now. (I had 4.) .... since I do NOT have DD for comparison I don't know how DD will do this far south. I always love to see DD children though and still pursue growing seedlings from this parent!

Avedon - You have some lovely seedlings of DD! As well as the other seedlings!

Lori - Your Lori Goldston x Ruby Ridge is beautiful!

Donald - I used Galaxy Explosion as a parent during hybridizing this year. The characteristics of that cultivar are noteworthy and I am hoping it's capability to be a bud-builder is passed on to it's children. It seems to have rust and thrip resistant foliage here too! My goal is to keep those characteristics and create a bigger bloom in other colors.

Nice eye and narrow edge, Hilary.

I haven't done crosses in years, so all of this is pretty new again. I just remember reading that Dragonfly Dawn is supposed to put a pattern on everything, believe that was said by the hybridizer, and I hope it's true--guess I will find out if any of these take. This is all fun stuff for me, I just have to live long enough to see if there are going to be any beautiful flowers worth keeping.

How green is my Valley today? All seedlings, dip and tet.

They are beautiful!!

A few more today.

Tropical Jewel x Princess Diana


Precious Candy x Judy Farquhar


Always Afternoon x Doyle Pierce

A FEW SEEDLINGS TODAY

FLUTTERBYE X SKINWALKER



EMERALD STARBURST SEEDLING IN THE MIDDLE OF A CLUMP OF AN UNKNOWN



WILSON SPIDER X STARGATE PORTAL



GENTLE BLESSINGS X NORTH WIND DANCER

Really nice seedlings everyone, daylilies just get better and better.

Polymerous ask.
@spunky1.... Here's a question for you Fred (and anyone else here who has introduced daylilies), prompted in part by my own seedlings (none of which are registration worthy, but hope springs eternal), but also comments by others. Just what is a good enough bud count to merit registration? Clearly plants perform differently in different areas of the country, so a high bud count from down in FL is not going to be the same in other places. Also, I am given the impression that a lower bud count may be mitigated by rebloom, particularly if the rebloom is instant. And that lower bud count can be even lower, if you have something that has multiple reblooms in a season (such as 'Stella...' or some of the Mike Huben cultivars). That is my impression, anyway, but in general (assuming at most one rebloom) where's the bud count line for registration or not?

I am going to give you my opinion which is worth nothing in most circles. I want a large daylily to have at least 18 buds per scape, small daylily at least 24 buds per scape, mini 30 buds to the scape, ufs 18 buds per scape. It doesn't always happen but that's the goal. I believe the smaller the flower the more branching and buds it should have, I would not register a mini with 18 buds and never expect to register a large daylily with 30 buds, although some in Florida say theirs have more than 30.
As far as rebloom I do not think it effects the bud count on the first scape. Everything I register reblooms, some instant and some not, so if rebloom effects the first scape I wouldn't know it anyway. There is no bud count line for the AHS to register a daylily, its up to the hybridizer if he or she wants to register a daylily with low bud count. This is one reason there are over 80,000 daylilies registered today, there is no standard for daylilies in general, each registered daylily sets its own standard. This is probably clear as mud and forgive me for rambling.

@spunky1 - Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my question. My vague sense was that the minis and small flowered daylilies should have a higher bud count than the larger and UF daylilies, so I am glad to see that that is your opinion. I am also grateful to have some sort of benchmark to shoot for, and to help evaluate my seedlings by (other than an arbitrary number born of my own imagining).

My comments on rebloom have to do with some comments that I have seen other hybridizers make (wrt their introductions). The sense I got from those comments was that it was perhaps acceptable to introduce a daylily with a lower budcount, so long as it reblooms (because in the end, you get a decent amount of flowers and a longer bloom season due to the rebloom). Daylilies with multiple rebloom cycles in particular were seen as compensating for low budcount.

In any event, I never get the budcount here that I see registered, even when I am diligent about fertilizing. Possibly the clumps may be overgrown, and I have no doubt that the water restrictions here (* cough, drought, cough *) are not helping any. I also have a sneaking suspicion that our latitude plays into this (Zone 9 in N. CA is not the same as Zone 9 in FL, in other words). I am seeing maiden bloom on most of my seedlings this summer (in a raised bed on a drip system) that are running from 6 to 9; those were regularly fertilized (with liquid fertilizer delivered via a watering can, since I can't trust the drip to play well with granular fertilizer), and from the parents I would have expected a higher bud count. (Yes, I know, a 6 to 9 bud count is pathetic... ) A couple of (pot grown) older large flowered seedlings have managed to pull themselves up to a budcount of 12-15, but that is obviously still not good enough. I would suspect that maybe confinement to pots also restricted the budcount, except that the daylilies in the ground aren't doing tremendously better (somewhat better, yes, but no budcounts into the mid-twenties or higher). Maybe it is the lack of water...

Poly, great question, I was wondering this my self. It's nice to see questions regarding intro quality seedlings. I know that there is no bar concerning quality for registration, but am grateful that hybridizes, like those here, set a high standard. I doubt I will ever register more than a few Daylilies, and also know I'm years away from the first one, but I do want them to be quality plants when I do, and am thankful for those who share their knowledge of what a quality Daylily is here.

A few seedlings from today, some first time, others have been shared here before.

WOW!!!!!