chalyse said: :
A question for you all: There is a saying that you must build your house before you paint it. Meaning that you assemble the physical attributes you desire early in a breeding program, and by doing so you will then become free to concentrate on colors, markings, etc., later on without needing to double-back again much to fix the basic foundation.
So, what are the physical attributes, not the colors or patterns, that you think are most important to work out first, then? The "must haves." I know each breeder will differ, and the registration club will have their own ideas and rules, but what of everything you've heard/seen/tried did you find the most compelling? Did you want blue-green foliage? Did you try to set tall or miniature heights? Probably everyone wanted massive scapes with 50 fragrant and diamond dusted complex-eyed buds reblooming with their golden gnarly teeth? No? Would love to hear your building-code lists, and why you found those things compelling, if you feel like sharing some of it.
This would probably be a topic for a whole new thread and I believe there is another thread from last year where we were discussing this you may want to try and find but........
What I am looking for to begin with and trying to work for is a nice scape. The scapes need to be sturdy (not thin and floppy) and have good, well spaced branching and then the bud count would be next which these would go hand in hand for the most part. Sure I'm working for patterns, teeth, and patterns with teeth but I am trying to use things that have the branching and such already there. If I have an ugly (in my eyes) or plain jane daylily that has excellent scape/branching/buds then it will be kept to use for those attributes as long as it will set pods of course. It may never be registered since the bloom is not what I want but it can be used to pass on those traits. In order for me to keep a seedling that has nothing going for it other than the bloom it would have to have something unique about it like a different pattern than I have ever seen or teeth all the way around on the sepals too. More and more are getting the teeth on the sepals (or part of the sepals) but most you find just have them on the petals.
this is a seedling that I will keep because of the scape but the bloom is just so-so
