Bea, I have had to learn about shade gardening with my current house. I'd have to say that I am still learning, but I've gotten satisfaction from finding out what plants in what combinations work well for me. My biggest problem, actually, has been that I can't grow all the
Heuchera and
Hosta that I would like, because of rabbits!
But even then,
Heuchera 'Lime Rickey' and
Hosta 'Sky Dancer' seem to be rabbit resistant, and
Pulmonaria, native ferns, and
Brunnera work well together.
Evelyn, I wait to harvest daylily pods until a slight squeeze cracks them open. (If I wait until they open naturally, I tend to lose seeds.) Everybody seems to treat seeds somewhat differently after that. What I HAVE done, but it is probably not the best thing to do, is to just hold the seeds dry until I have collected them all. When I know that 5 weeks or so later I can start them (without having to worry about going out of town), I dampen them and put them in the fridge to pre-stratify, and generally don't plant them until at least some have pre-sprouted. This is both good and bad - pre-sprouted seeds mean they are up quicker and I don't waste space... but I inevitably lose some seeds to rot/mold in the process (which seems to be cross specific). AND, unlike iris seeds, you can only hold onto daylily seeds so long... you really should be planting them promptly otherwise they lose viability. (One thing I have recently read, done by one commercial hybridizer, is that he stores the seeds in his fridge dry for 4 weeks (others have said 5) and then plants. All of this fridge stuff is to break any seed dormancy, though some seeds will sprout immediately without it (I have had seeds sprouted in the pods).)
Now as to whether or not your bee pods are going to produce anything interesting or worthwhile, I cannot say. It all depends, obviously, on what the pod parent is, and what the potential pollen parents are. (Most daylilies have some resistance to self-crossing.) It's your call whether or not you want to spend the time/effort/garden resources to see what the offspring look like and how they behave. (It can be possible that you will get something good, depending on what your particular goals/interests are. I have a few daylilies which resist crosses that I make, yet seem to make bee crosses okay. If I weren't focused on form (polymerous) wrt those pod parents, I would plant the bee crosses.)
We just got back late last night from visiting relatives out of town. Today and tomorrow will be mostly house related things, though I will have to spend some time deadheading the last 4-5 days worth of flowers, checking the developing pods, and watering pots. Other than moving pictures around on the computer, I probably won't get anything iris done today or tomorrow. Later this week I hope to start on the planting and dividing work. (Some of that will have to be done at the end of the month, as we are traveling again mid-July.)
