DogsNDaylilies said:@Char.... I'm considering purchases for spring 2018 and I am seriously considering getting a cristate to start some cristate hybridizing. Any particular recommendations?
I was thinking of getting Michael's Sword...is it a reliable cristate daylily and is it hardy enough up North to thrive? Any idea if it throws it's cristate form to its offspring well? There was another one.... (edited to add: Kendra Marie) , that appears to be a nice dark pink or red with cristations that I might get instead...
Before I made any final decisions, though, I thought I should ask you!
Cristates are a lot of fun to work with, I'll try to give you a few ideas
A bit long so anyone not interested please skip over.
The first thing you'll want to do is figure out if you want to work with dip or tet cristates, Michael's Sword is dip, Kendra Marie is tet.
A small dip start could include any of these Michael's Sword, Texas Feathered Fancy, Crimson Enigma, Emperor's Crocodile, Wooster Mindcraft, Lavender Feathers, Greetings Earthling, the Bee's plants Bettie Sue, Bob Baker....some are more expensive or harder to find than others. There are a number of cristate intro's from the Michael's Sword line also, just note that many of these are only pod fertile. Michael's Sword is hardy and works well, but has a wimpy plant. Texas Feathered Fancy blooms at the tail of mid season so plan crosses for that. Crimson Enigma is a early/mid for me. Wooster Mindcraft is new this year so I haven't seen it yet. I don't grow the others currently but have had sdlgs from the Bee's plants and they have been hardy. Greetings Earthing is mid Ohio bred/Lavender Blue Baby line should be plenty hardy. Other Lavender Blue Baby line plants can work well crossing into these. Another line I've played these into is the Substanial Evidence plants from Richard Norris. I mostly work and grow tets so I'm a bit limited on what else to work the dips with although my mind and eyes are always open.
Tets can be a bit trickier to work with. I don't know how Dave's Kendra Marie breeds as I don't grow it...yet...but you could ask him. One of the easiest and best producers for Tet cristation even when crossed to a non sculpt line is Southport which can be found cheap on the LA or from sellers. I've found working the tet cristates into other Sculpted forms will bring the cristation out easier and faster than working them into non sculpt lines. Cabbage Patch has worked well with limited use for large blooms, Ellen Laprise is a hard dormant (goes down early and is always the last to poke it's head up in the garden), Extra Effort good, gives lots of bright yellows, Little Big Ears, gives cristation with small flowers, Sigourney, gives cristation and pleats but is difficult to use, System of Edges works well, Tarpon Back, deep saturated bright reds, nice plants, tall, with some cristation, Tiki God, pretty sdlgs works best crossed into other sculpt lines for me, Trenton Many Faces, haven't seen much from this one yet, Two Views, seems to work well, it has nice color and large flowers. These are the most reliable of all the ones I grow for getting cristates, I haven't purchased any of the new southern bred ones due to heavy losses with southern plants the past few years. Man in the Maze, a pattern of mine is also figuring heavily into my lines even though it only shows cristate blooms occasionaly the seedlings are very consistant. You could try some Tet. Lavender Blue Baby kids in with these if there are no other Sculpted forms in your collection to use.
Plant habit and consistency are two things that need work with all the cristates. So consider the plant of whatever you are crossing them with. Also, be aware of how many times you go back into the same parentage, at some point you need to bring in new traits to correct the fixed poor ones.The biggest thing I can suggest is to use the database here when you have time to research the cristate and Sculpted form lines and get clues as to what plants and lines might work well for what you hope to see in your seedlings (bloom size, color, plant, etc.). You also might want to watch the Lily auction seed listings for cristate crosses available through the winter, Rich normally lists quite a few diploid crosses and some tets. Rather than buying several plants for spring a few seed crosses planted will give you a year or more head start on seedlings to work with. I always figure if it was a cross I would have made it saves me time to purchase the seed. Sometimes it might be a cross with one I know how it works with a southern plant...biggest thing is to have fun, the sculpts will do some crazy stuff sure to make you smile in the sdlg bed.
