Viewing comments posted by CaliFlowers

This daylily performed flawlessly here in its first season. In spite of low humidity and generally cool nights, it opened perfectly every day and held up under the sun. It has bright, clean color, great plant habit and scapes, plus teeth that don't require heat. It was also very fertile both ways. Highly recommended.

An outstanding daylily. Even with cooler weather, every bloom is picture quality.

Fairly susceptible to rust. I'd give it a 3 rating.

When well-grown, Heart's Glee can reach 30" in clump strength and is very well-branched, with many flowers. Fast increase and rebloom give it a long season. The blooms are almost always perfect, even when the nights are cool, as they begin to open very early in the morning.

It also appears to be a partial tetraploid.

In the mid 1980's I obtained a few tetraploid seeds using Heart's Glee as a pod parent. I did this by crossing almost every bloom on the clump for the entire season. At the time, I wasn't aware of the incompatibility between diploids and tetraploids, and the majority of the pollen used was from tetraploids. Most of the pods set on Heart's Glee aborted, but a few persisted, containing one seed each. The seedlings obtained were special, and a good number were Early Morning Openers -- to the point where the petals began to thin and degrade in the early afternoon. In all cases, the influence of the tetraploid pollen parent was unmistakable, confirming the validity of the cross tags. The seedlings were easily fertile with tetraploids.

A couple of years years later, after I had learned that tets and dips shouldn't cross, I asked David Kirchhoff about this, and he told me that Heart's Glee grew from a batch of diploid seed that was treated via colchicine bath. Because of this, I would suspect that all plants of Heart's Glee in commerce share this same breeding trait.

This selection is considered to be a naturally occurring hybrid between two species; Canna glauca and Canna indica. It was discovered in Mexico by members of a botanical expedition conducted under the auspices of Yucca Do Nursery of Giddings, Texas, which then introduced it into commerce.

It is a strong runner, and appreciates moist conditions, as it was discovered growing along stream banks in habitat. When grown in containers, (particularly in an arid climate), it benefits from standing in a saucer of water during the growing season.