This guy says he has a daylily with flowers that last one week instead of one day. I can't wait to see these!

http://www.newplantsandflowers...

With Monsanto in the mix, who knows what's really going on.

I don't know if he uses some Monsanto "novelty", from the article you can't understand if the things are related. He's close to us European. I didn't even know Monsanto was in Europe too!

How wonderful. We won't have to deadhead everyday. Whooopppeee.

There is nothing I can find about the weeklily on Verhaert's website http://www.eurocallis.com/

This is so weird - most of the ones I grow should really be called 'morning lilies'.

Where is the brown blob emoticon ? ...
It is worded cleverly.

A few years back folks were talking about how sweet potatoes would erase your wrinkles and make your boobs bigger...

brown blob, .

Good one, Frillylily!

One of the things I like about daylilies is that you get a fresh flower every day whilst they are blooming. If one gets damaged or is splotchy, just wait till tomorrow and you may get a wonderful one! I don't think I am keen on weeklilies. Most of the time, nature just does it best

I think he was saying he hopes to sell it to companies like Monsanto, since they are currently attempting to genetically modify flowers to have unwilting blooms. He however is claming to have bred his own week long lasting blooms on a daylily naturally. Thanks for posting Clint, very interesting article.

Yes. Monsanto had nothing to do with his plants. They aren't some crazy GMO. I actually think this is interesting. I would love to have flowers that last longer. You could actually put them in a vase.

I think it would be nice too, if it worked. But I read and re-read this little blurb and like I said it is worded interestingly. He doesn't say he has a daylily with blooms that last more than a day. Maybe I am hung up on technicalities here, but 'flowers' is a noun and a verb depending on how you use it. Also, he says he is 'sure' about the valuable information his plant could provide to scientists.... I think the article is saying he is looking for interested parties to sell his plants TO. But the whole thing is not worded well, translation glitch or something?

He said they normally last one day but he has one that lasts a week.

From the article,
"However I hybridized a daylily that flowers for 1 week and more. The cooler the weather, the longer this hybrid flowers."

I think there may be some confusion (if there was translation). Both these sentences apply to the length of the flowering season.

In cool weather a daylily flower may remain open with acceptable appearance for two days. I have very strong doubts that a daylily has been selected that remains open for seven days (and more) with acceptable appearance. To do so would typically mean that hundreds of crosses were made and seedlings flowered. The length of time that the flowers of those hundreds of those seedlings remained open would be measured and averaged. Then a small number of those seedlings with the longest lasting flowers would be crossed together and hundreds of seedlings produced for the next generation. The process would be repeated. After enough generations the length of time that a flower remained open in the selected line would be substantially longer than one day. Under cooler temperatures it would probably be longer than two days. I doubt that a daylily with longer lasting flowers has been produced by selection; if it was it would not be a single daylily but an entire selection line of daylilies.

The only other way to get genetically longer lasting daylily flowers would be to have incredible luck and find a dominant mutation that allowed the flowers to last longer than a day. Most mutations are recessive and since diploid daylilies (where it would be easiest to find new mutations) tend to be self-incompatible and suffer from high inbreeding depression I doubt that anyone has found a recessive mutation for long living daylily flowers. Typically the odds of finding a dominant mutation versus a recessive mutation are about 20 to 1. I doubt that anyone has found a dominant mutation for flowers that live one week or longer.

the longer this hybrid flowers


*flowers* as in verb, flower=blossom would be a noun, but he is using this as a verb. So he talking about the plant flowering, not about a blossom lasting.

You left out the part where he said the flowers normally last just one day though. One flowering for a week would be no big deal. Mine have all been flowering for weeks now. Why would just one week be a long time. This makes no sense. Most of them flower for several weeks! Why would he think Monsanto would be interested in a plant that only flowers for one week? That makes no sense at all.

I would agree with Clint, this is a very well known daylily hybridizer, he for sure knows that blooming period would normally be longer than one week.

I have a Verhaert out of Kinnebrew.

Very nice, Glen

I will call myself skeptical. Very skeptical.

Me, too! I would have to see this to believe it.