Larry - I have been removing ugly leaves. In fact what you see in my border daylilies photo is after I had cleaned up the foliage. It looked much worse than that! I've done that twice since the beginning of Spring here in Florida. More leaves just turn ugly. Sometimes it's so bad that if I pulled all the ugly leaves, there would be none left.
Leslie - Boy! You are a wealth of information! I didn't realize about the moisture getting into the pollen containers if they weren't thawed before opening and that's interesting about the pollen only being viable up to 80 degrees. I love those freezer storage boxes and the snap-cap plastic storage vials. I will be on the look-out for those items and the reverse tweezers! Great suggestions! I have favorite blooms that I want to use on other blooms for crossing even when they are not in bloom at the same time. I had attempted that earlier this year and it didn't work out at all. Must have been the way I was defrosting the pollen. Someone else on the forum had mentioned about the use of those cheap white paper plates to dry the stamens/pollen on before freezing. Thanks for the visuals! Very helpful. You need to write an "article" here on ATP about all of this! You'd earn 50 acorns for such an article! You could just cut and paste what you wrote in this thread ... Just saying ....
The only thing I really found on Matthew Kaskel was this site which lists his website (which unfortunately no longer exists):
http://www.gulfcoastdaylily.or...
So ... no idea of where to go for more info on creating rust-resistant cultivars.
I do check the AHS website for cultivar info as well as use the ATP database to see parents of cultivars as well as children they produce.
Here is what I am discovering so far ...
1) Most cultivars with a pretty face that I like are NOT rust-resistant.
2) Many cultivars with really good scape branching and lots of buds are often NOT rust-resistant.
3) I rarely get what I was expecting from a cross.
4) I have limited space to grow many seedlings.
5) I need to separate or somehow mark my seedlings as to whether they are dips or tets. Nothing more aggravating that crossing blooms only to find out I wasted the effort by crossing a tet and a dip.
Should I do separate beds for specific qualities? Like use one of my raised beds for good scapes and lots of buds. Another bed for pretty faces. And yet another bed for rust-resistant cultivars. I am at a loss as how would be the best way to find some success with the qualities I am wanting to create in some hybrid plants.
