Charlemagne said:
I like tall daylilies with strong scapes and well spaced blooms. Davisson, Gossard, Reed, Murphy are some stalwarts and in that characteristic. What other hybridizers could you add to that list?
Charley
Kenneth Wilkie has a couple of very good introductions from Davisson's Mean Green; 'American Idol' and 'Land of the Free'. Both did very well for me here this year. American Idol only set a few pods, but the pollen was extremely fertile, setting on difficult pod parents. Land of the Free was very fertile both ways. They both looked so good I'm putting them in the ground as soon as pods are harvested.
Selman has some nice tall ones; I have his Asheville Summer Breeze and it was exemplary, opening flat and early every time. Super plant habit. He has a few other near whites from similar breeding to choose from, and I'm hearing good things about them.
Other tall favorites were Bremer's Fire Fountain and Judy Davisson's Conspiracy Theory. Both have very nice scapes and bloom spacing. Fire Fountain as a first-year plant was good, but fairly ordinary last year, but it really settled in over the winter. This year it was chest-high and beautifully branched, with no leaning whatsoever. The blooms were also far more sunfast when established. Conspiracy Theory, also in its second year, performed perfectly, with branches everywhere, looking just like its picture.
Guy's Outrageous from Floyd Cove had tall, stout scapes, but the flower, while good, didn't really shine like his photo. It opened OK, but didn't really flatten out and roll back, and the huge green throat never developed. I imagine that in a warmer, more humid climate (pretty much everywhere east of here) it would look a lot more like its photo. I'll put it in a bed and see how it does next year. I used it anyway–I'm accustomed to hybridizing by catalog picture, (especially early in the season) and the results are pretty good.
I also like Gossard's Stardust Dragon. It has nice, consistent opening, form, and sparkly near-white color. It surprised me with the scape in its second year–it must have picked that up from the pod parent, because I don't think it came from Heavenly Angel Ice.
