Those
stippled daylilies are striking, Char.
My terms for today are
seed,
stratification,
seedling,
small flowered, and
spring volunteer – all of which I will explain below.
Seeds are produced in pods during the bloom season. Once harvested, they may or may not then be
stratified prior to planting out.
A dictionary definition of
Stratify is to:
place (seeds) close together in layers in moist sand or peat to preserve them or to help them germinate.
When I first started producing daylily seeds several years ago, what I learned (correctly or otherwise) was that the seeds needed to be stored moist and cold in order to promote germination, at least for seeds from dormant daylilies. I do this, not with sand or peat, but by storing the seeds in small ziploc bags in the fridge. Each cross has its own bag, to which I add a small piece of paper towel, and enough water to keep everything moist. (The past two years I have also added a bit of hydrogen peroxide to the water.)
Interestingly enough, I recently read a blog post by Brian Reeder, who credits Mike Huben, to the effect that seeds do not need to be
stratified in order to obtain good germination.
http://daylilybreeder.blogspot...
Once the
seeds have germinated and have successfully started growing, they are now termed
seedlings.
The definition of
seedling per the AHS:
In the daylily, used to reference any unregistered plant raised from seed. A seedling may be of any size or age and may or may not be used in a hybridizing program.
Right now I have several daylily
seedlings of varying ages, as well as
seeds stratifying in the fridge (potentially the last time that I do this step, depending on if
I get rapid and good germination without it).
Some of my intermediate sized
seedlings (I have smaller ones, jammed 9 to a 4" pot, awaiting planting out, as well as some larger and older multi-fan clumps):
Some of my daylily
seedlings are
small flowered daylilies, which the AHS defines as:
Daylilies classified as small have blooms that measure 3 inches or more but less than 4.5 inches in diameter.
While I very much like and prefer large flowered daylilies, I think that the
small flowered daylilies are peculiarly suited to both large and small gardens; their size lends them a particular charm, and as with yellow daylilies, every garden should have at least one.
Some
small flowered daylilies currently in my garden:
(The last one is unfortunately rust susceptible, but I am keeping it and am going to plant it out near the new seedling bed that we are building.)
A
small flowered
seedling of mine:
It should be noted that not all
seedlings have a known genetic heritage. In my garden, I tend to stumble upon
spring volunteers. Clearly, these
seedlings are from
seeds dropped or escaped during harvest the previous bloom season (or potentially from seasons before then), which overwinter and germinate on their own. Sometimes the pod parent is obvious from the location of the seedling; the pollen parent is never (with absolute certainty) known.
Last season I saw one
spring volunteer
seedling from ‘Sacrament of Healing’ bloom; this season I await bloom on two more, as well as bloom on various other volunteer seedlings from other locations (and thus, other pod parents) in the garden.
