OK, I’ll bite on this one. There are so many characteristics in daylilies that I am sure that there could be as many answers as there are people who are willing to answer. As for myself, I choose the daylilies I cross based on what I want to see in my seedlings. I understand the basics of genetics, but I have not made lists of which characteristics are considered dominant or recessive, so I cross based on what I see. At the same time, I do look at which daylily plants have a history of being exceptional parents and whether that plant produces good kids when used as pollen parent, pod parent or both. With that said, this is what I like:
Bloom Form: I like “round” daylilies as opposed to star shaped or unusual form daylilies. I have not found it to be typical that crossing two very round daylilies will result in a bunch of equally round seedlings. However, crossing two unusual form daylilies and hoping for round seedlings is, in my opinion, totally illogical.
Color: I like bright, rich colors like red, orange and purple. Therefore, I choose daylilies which I would describe that very same way. I would not use a plant with a "soft" color, one that is muted, weak or shows variegation. However, I do like orange daylilies that mix orange with yellow, so that would be an exception to my own rule.
Edge: I do like edged daylilies, but how much edge? To me that depends on the individual flower. Heavy edges like one might see on the plant Miss Scarlet are sometimes too large. On some flowers, a wire edge is enough to enhance the appearance whereas a wire edge on another daylily may not. I have learned that if you want an edge, you will most likely start with edged parents. At the same time, I have not found any relationship between the size of the edge of the parents on the size of the edge on the seedlings.
Teeth: I like many, but not all, toothy daylilies. Several years ago there were few round, toothy daylilies, and the only thing you could do was cross a star shaped toothy daylily with a round daylily. Over time and with continued hybridizing, there are now more round or nearly round toothy daylilies. Unfortunately, many of them are still fairly expensive. So, if you don’t want to spend a lot, you will have to make round-to-toothy crosses until you get your own round, toothy seedlings to bring into your hybridizing program.
Eye/Watermark/Band: While I do not dislike dayliliy flowers with eyes or bands, I prefer watermarks on darker flowers. A lot of daylilies have an eye in their parentage even though they themselves do not have an eye color. Because of this, I try to look back a couple of generations to see how many eyed flowers are there and if there are several, I decide if I want to use that particular daylily. On the other hand, there are a lot of daylilies with watermarks today, but one needs to look at parentage for them as well because watermarks tend to skip generations too.
Flower Substance: This probably plays back with my comments about color because if the petals and tepals are thin, they will probably not have the bright or rich color I would want. However, you will always get variation in substance from one seedling to another, so you may need to eliminate daylilies from your program if they continue to result in a large percentage of poor substance seedlings.
Scape Height: Everyone likes a daylily to bloom comfortably above the foliage, so crossing two short-sacped dayllies may not be the best way to get tall scapes. There are a few daylilies that are said to help increase scape height through adding them to a hybridizing program. However, not every seed from such a cross, and in fact probably only a small percentage, will develop tall scaped-seedlings. I believe that more of my own seedlings have diminished scape height because I haven’t watered enough, amended my soil properly or applied the right kind or amount of fertilizer than are a result of my choice of parents.
Branching and Bud Count: I think this is much like scape height. No, you don’t want to cross two mature seedlings that have two branches and ten buds and expect to get four or five way branching and 30 buds in the seedlings. But I have seen in my own hybridizing that if I don’t do my job, the seedlings won’t perform as well as I wish they would.
Again, there should be a lot of opinions here that disagree with me, and that’s a good thing. Different people get different results. I live in Georgia on an oversized city lot with water supplied by the city. My results will be different than those from someone in Ohio or Wisconsin, and probably different from my own if I had a well with unlimited water availability. Also, many people have been hybridizing longer than I have, are more observant, and have a better grip on genetics.
Hope this helps if by no other way than getting others to add to the conversation.
