I'm hoping to get a seedling that is worthy of being registered as a memorial to my mother. I think I finally got what I've been wanting, but it isn't quite perfect. It needs diamond dust! She was in love with anything shiny! The seedling is now 2 years old, and I think I see just the tiniest amount of diamond dust on it, but I wish there was more. Is this a trait that shows up better with age? I noticed zero on it last year, which was its first year to bloom, and now I see a tiny bit. It was actually ugly to me last year, and this year, I think it is beautiful. I have other seedlings blooming for the first time ever this year with lots of diamond dust, but the flowers aren't worthy of putting her name on them.

If this isn't a trait that shows up better over time, is there a daylily that I should maybe cross it with that normally passes along this trait? I really don't want to change the bloom or the color too much, but it just isn't sparkly enough! I'd love to hear any suggestions!

Here is the seedling, Strawberry Candy X Pearl Harbor

I am another one who loves diamond dusting . My best guess is that to improve the degree of diamond dusting, you need to cross your seedling with something else that has the trait, and the more extreme, the better. Unfortunately, I have few suggestions for mates for your seedling (which has a lovely color, by the way ). 'Dancy Nancy', as I recall, had a great deal of diamond dusting, but it may not have the plant traits that you want, and my guess is that it might muddy the color. But maybe you can look at the parents - perhaps one of them can be used with your seedling to bring out the bling? (I'm just guessing here. The most notable seedling I had for diamond dusting was a diploid which was a grandchild of 'Sparkling Opal', which was extremely diamond dusted. I still think, though, that your best bet is to find something else which has prominent diamond dusting, rather than merely having it in its background.)



You might do a search on the web (too bad the data base does not have "diamond dusting" as a yes/no attribute) and see what pops up. I did a Google search and found comments on another forum, which suggest that 'See His Glory' might be worth pursuing. It has both 'Ed Brown' and 'J.T. Davis' in its background. The latter has enough yellow in it that I would not use it as a pod parent. I don't know about diamond dusting on the former, though I find it suggestive that it is in the background of 'Dancy Nancy'. So that makes two more daylilies for you to check out (depending on what you are looking for in scape height and bloom size and other important attributes which should not be overlooked). Both of those last two reputedly have some degree of rust resistance (so maybe 'See His Glory' does also), which imo is a good thing to have.



Good luck to you - we need more diamond dusted daylilies!

Natalie, your seedling is lovely! I love diamond dust too, but I don't have any suggestion apart from what Polymeorus just said. Congratulations, and good luck!

Thank you both so much! It is prettier in person, and I can't really describe the color. I have nothing else in the garden that is the same color, so nothing to compare it to!

Polymerous, thanks for all of the wonderful suggestions, and I will look into all of them. I have Ed Brown, so I could use that one, and I know I have others with lots of diamond dusting, so I should probably look into their children and see if it is passed along. I never even thought to do that earlier! I'm kind of worried about losing the gold around the edge, because it does look like a gold chain to me, and Mom would approve. She actually had a jewelry room! I wouldn't mind if the form is changed a little, but I'd sure like to keep the color if possible, and I have no idea how to go about doing that. The height is perfect, and so is the bloom size, so I'd like to just make it a little more flashy. I've got a lot of things to consider that I hadn't really thought about before! I was so stuck on getting sparkles on it that I didn't think about messing up what I love about it! I'm just really excited to finally have a prospect to register with her name on it.

Hopefully someone else will know if the diamond dusting may show up better after time. Like I said, there was none there last year, and this year there is a little, so I've got my fingers crossed that next year will be even better, but I have no idea if that is really possible or not.

Thanks again for the help!

I think diamond dusting is the flowers sugars crystallizing , all my flowers with diamond dusting get attacked by ants while others without it seem to be left alone. I've also tasted one of mine that was loaded with dust and it taste a lot like cantaloupe while others I've tasted seem to taste more like a slightly sweet loose leaf lettuce. I wish I was still getting blooms on my Fiji so I could send you some pollen. it is by far the most diamond dusted flower I have.

I'm just not 100% sure if it is Fiji because mine looks different than the others in the database but it could be a sport or Fiji

Thanks for that information Daniel. I've never tasted one of my daylilies, and I've never had ants on them, so I don't know what the reason is. Interesting though!

That is a lot of diamond dust on that daylily! I've got a few myself that have a lot, but I'm not considering them as parents just yet. I need to figure out what I'm doing first. I also need to figure out which one of my daylilies has the most diamond dust, and go from there.

What you might do is cross your seedling with something like 'Ed Brown' (presuming it has some degree of diamond dusting) or 'Fiji' (as suggested above). I imagine the color of the resulting F1 seedlings will be paler than your current seedling, but then you could either cross those F1 seedlings among themselves, and select for color and diamond dusting, or else (if you have an F1 with good diamond dusting) cross that back to the original parent seedling to try to recapture the color.

In any event, if you want to keep that lovely color, then you are either going to have to find something similar in color AND diamond dusted to cross your seedling with (good luck with that, I haven't a clue, maybe someone else might jump in here) or else resign yourself to a couple generations of work. That is imho... advice from the more experienced hybridizers on board is welcome and will probably be more useful to you.

(Fred? Anyone?)

Good luck and I think it's great that you are doing.

I was wondering if diamond dusting is dependent on the weather. I had several flowers the other day when the weather was a little milder that seemed to be sparkling...and that wasn't something I had noticed before.

Thanks again Polymerous! Great ideas. I better get busy!

Amber, I have never paid any attention to the weather when I notice the diamond dusting. Well, not if it is better depending on the weather. If it wasn't almost dark here, I'd go out and have a look. Seems like the sun really makes them shine, but I know I've seen it easily on cloudy days too. I'm just not sure about each daylily, and if it makes a difference.

I was able to find over 1,400 daylilies in the database here that mention diamond dusting, by putting that into the bloom characteristics box. I didn't check any of the other boxes. I'm sure that there are way more than just the 1,400 or so, but it's a start!

EDITED to say that I sure got that wrong about the search! I clicked on the box for Diamond Dusted, under Bloom Traits. And, there are 1246 daylilies that matched, not over 1400. My brain is fried!

Natalie! I didn't even notice the "diamond dusted" box that I could search on!

You're very welcome!

I didn't know it was there either until I looked for it, and I know for sure that I have several diamond dusted ones that aren't marked as such in the database. I loved that I could search my own plant list for this feature too, and only one came up, but it is a dip, and I wouldn't use it anyway. I need to get busy making notes in my garden so that I can add the information to the database! That will make it so much easier to decide which daylily to try with my seedling!

Natalie - If you don't want to lose the color, I'd try crossing it with a "near white" or red diamond dusted cultivar (or seedling). I have some that are heavily diamond dusted with the gold braid along the edges of the petals. So very pretty and eye-catching. But none of mine are near white or red.

I grow Pagan Ritual. It's a nice red with a beautiful yellow border, I never checked for diamond dust on it. I tried to look at this picture but I can't see if it glows.
I will check the next flowers.

I did a search in the database for near white and diamond dusting tet cultivars and this is what I found photos of:

A Tribute to Mary Gaskins
Call of the Mild
Platinum Angel
Small World Christmas Angel
Snow Bride
Snowbrooke
Tripping through Tekamah

Good luck! I hope you get the perfect daylily seedling to honor your Mother.

I had a fair amount of rust on 'A Tribute to Mary Gaskins' this past rainy winter. It was its first winter here; I don't know how it will perform in the future. (I still haven't seen bloom on it! ) You might want to take that into consideration.

In my experience, crossing something colored with something near white, lightens whatever color you started out with. I don't know if that generally holds true, though.

One of the hybridizers here on the forum suggested white to clear up muddy colors. That's why I suggested near white blooming cultivars. I honestly don't know myself, as I haven't produced many seedlings using a near white parent crossed with a deep colored cultivar.

I wouldn't know about rust, since I don't have any, and I live in a cold enough zone where it's going to die over winter anyway. I seriously doubt that anyone would want to grow one of my seedlings, especially if it's just a memorial plant to remember my mom, so I haven't even considered that to be a factor. But, it's a very good point! I will probably register this one, even if it doesn't end up with my mom's name on it.

I put some Great White pollen on it! Great White isn't white for me, and never has been, but it is light in color, and I've always loved it! The form is nice, and it has a good amount of diamond dusting too. Hopefully I get a pod! I only had one bloom today, and I wish I had thought about this earlier, because I've missed several chances to dab some pollen. Luckily I've got a lot of blooms on the way, so I can have some more fun with it!

I put some pollen from the seedling on a few others, because I have nothing to lose by trying. If I get some seeds, I'm almost certain that the bloom won't be anywhere the same, but maybe it will be better! Wild Cherry Roundup got some pollen dabbed on it. That one is covered in diamond dust, and it also has the same gold braid edge, if that is what it is called. It's also a smaller bloom, but my head hurts just from thinking of how ugly the combination of the two may be! I probably would have used Wild Cherry Roundup pollen on the seedling today, but the pollen was too dry by the time I got to it. I'll try again tomorrow!

Another one that is covered in diamond dust is Plum Eyed Delight. Wow! It is so sparkly!! I think I've got about 20 to add to the database, and that is just for the tets. I didn't check the dips yet.

I'm thinking that I should try putting Pearl Harbor pollen on the seedling. It's the pollen parent for it, and that has to be where the diamond dusting came from, unless it was from a grandparent. Won't hurt to try, right? I'm very much a novice at hybridizing, so I have no idea if that would even do any good, but I'll try it anyway, just to see what happens. Hopefully the seedling is fertile!

Becky, I knew about white to clear up muddy colors, which of course, I didn't think about earlier! The color isn't muddy at all on this one, but I think using something white, or near white, may not change the color too much. What do I know though?

Natalie -You have the space to grow many seedlings, so dab away. You really never know for sure what you will get for blooms. You might (and probably will) be pleasantly surprised down the road when you grow any children out. Might get another really nice seedling or many! Have fun dabbing and dreaming!!!