Mona summed up my main reasons exactly. My focus with patterns has been with tets since 2001 and changing over or adding dips would mean moving plants out of the garden to make room for plants to come in, something I am already doing with my other hybridizing goals. Another factor for me is many, not all, of the fabulous dip patterns are southern bred evergreens. My experience is that even if a southern bred plant has a great plant with bud count + branching in the south by the time it gets way up here it more often than not is top branched with 4 -8 buds, be it dip or tet. If it survives the winter I may get to see it bloom a second year provided it bloomed the year in which it arrived. With the survivability of southern evergreens questionable here and the decrease in blooms there really isn't a resonable expectation of getting very far with starting a new direction in dip pattern hybridizing. My choice is not a rejection of dips, there are many beautiful ones some of which I do grow, rather a personal preference based on my location, time, room and hybridizing goals. Without the limitions of being in the north I would be in serious trouble trying to keep to a budget for daylilies!
