Probably too early to think about crosses for next year's seeds crop, but as I have some time on my hands, I am thinking ahead and hope to have a better plan and do more focused hybridizing next year. I plan on doing more crosses with my seedlings particularly those with white teeth and edge. I will also try to do some unusual forms like wide petals in diploids and spider tets. If my striped daylilies bloom, I like to do some unbroken colors and striping crosses.

Here are a few crosses that I plan to do for striping.
Ida Mae Norris X Dr. Strangelove
Quieter is Louder X Dr. Strangelove
(NEUSA BERGEMANN X YANKEE PINSTRIPES) X Dr. Strangelove
Tande X Dr. Strangelove

For white tooth and edge, I will be using these seedlings











Stardust Dragon and Angel Bay

Spacecoast Better Late


Quoting Hemingway


Back Scratcher


Jim Weissenberger.


Heavenly Danger Zone

Beautiful seedlings Karen.

You have some WOW seedlings Karen!! I am thinking ahead to next summer already because I had beginner's luck setting pods on the last blooms of Panic in Detroit. I have been told it is a very reluctant pod setter and my seeds sold out quickly. I am going to try other crosses next year and hope it is receptive again.

Also, I made so many seed crosses over the summer that a few that I planned on doing didn't happen. Those will happen next year. And all the seedlings that will be blooming in 2020 for the first time....who knows where that will lead?

Thanks Robin and Celeste! I hope I can put these seedlings to good use as bridge plants. Hope that they can help me to produce more and whiter teeth that won't turn yellow when faded. My goal is to produce future seedlings whose genes will have the white teeth or edge as the dominant trait. I had been making crosses all over the place and had not specific goals in mind. It's akin to going around an amusement park with no map! I don't have much land, labor, and resources to plant thousands of seeds. It's good to narrow the goals somewhat. I still like almost too many daylilies!

I got your packet of seeds, Celeste! They look great! Thank you! Those seeds are for my large UF or spider tets hybridizing goal. Can't wait to get them going. I was also interested in your Panic in Detroit crosses, but had to pass on them for now. Hopefully you will be able to set pods on them again next year. Do you think your seedlings will bloom next summer? I would love to see their blooms!

Karen, could it be that it takes time to narrow your goals? My name is Mary, and I like too many daylilies!

Lovely seedlings Karen! Good luck next year! Seems like you should get some winners from those. I love watermarks and got a few new ones: Jellyroll Morton, Hakuna Matata, High Water Mark, Make it Snappy, probably a couple more. I hope to cross them with some of my plants and get something interesting. If I have pollin in my hand, I have a bad habit of dabbing it on everything I see. My goal this year is to actually keep track of both parents. Not sure how many years I have been saying that though.

I did much better this year than in the past two years when it comes to focusing. The first two years I was all over the place putting pollen on everything, but that was mainly because I was so new to it and secondly because I didn't really have the plants needed to work toward my goal of Sculpted Relief. So this year almost all my crosses were devoted to trying to finally get some blooms with Sculpted Relief. Over the year I purchased a few more plants that were more in line with my goals, also received some in trades and as outright gifts. So this year I will be very eager to get out there and start spreading pollen.
I will have a lot of plants blooming for the first time this year, but don't really expect much from them, some slim chance still of maybe getting a few relief blooms, but next year my hopes will really be high for some decent blooms. A lot of my crosses the past two years were actually done mostly for nice foliage. I did manage to get a seedling with outstanding foliage, and a few with really nice looking foliage.
Also this year with my plant purchases and trades I picked up a lot of plants that even though the blooms do not show relief, the plants were chosen to be crosses with a parent that might produce relief plants. I was trying to be selective for height (28 inches or higher) bud count (at least 20) and branches(minimum of 4 and as high as 8). Also tried to stay away from yellow and orange blooms because it seem for some reason most Sculpted Relief blooms are some shade of those two colors generally.
I still ended up with hundreds of seeds, and seedlings, still have seeds in the fridge also.

Lovely seedlings Karen! Good luck next year! Seems like you should get some winners from those. I love watermarks and got a few new ones: Jellyroll Morton, Hakuna Matata, High Water Mark, Make it Snappy, probably a couple more. I hope to cross them with some of my plants and get something interesting. If I have pollin in my hand, I have a bad habit of dabbing it on everything I see. My goal this year is to actually keep track of both parents. Not sure how many years I have been saying that though.

Larry, so interesting! Can't wait to see how they all work out.

josieskid said:Karen, could it be that it takes time to narrow your goals? My name is Mary, and I like too many daylilies!

Hey, I resemble that remark.

That sounds so strategic Larry, you're hybridizing from the ground up.

I'm not good at planning my crosses because I never know what is going to bloom from year to year. This past year was amazing in that almost every daylily bloomed and some for a very extended period. The record breaking rain from the year before plus the mild winter/early spring must have been the cause. It was really wet for most of this year too (we just had a mini-drought in late summer) so maybe next year will be almost as good.

But I may plan some crosses this winter as I believe I finally had some success with refrigerated pollen. That opens up a whole new world for me. Of course I have to remember to save the pollen first! And get out really early because beating the bees to the pollen is getting a lot harder. If I'm out after 8 am there is none left!

bxncbx,
Let us in on what you think are the reason or reasons for you finally being successful with refrigerated pollen. I have read that you can put blooms in the refrigerator and use the pollen the next day, but mine turned to mush. Daniel sent me some little viles to try this year, so I am hoping to try those.

Yes, Elena, let us know! I'm especially interested in how long it's good for in the fridge!

I'm pretty sure it worked but not 100%. I need to make absolutely sure the pollen parent wasn't blooming the same day as the pod for one particular cross I'm thinking of.

If it did work I have no idea why it started working. Maybe I took the pollen earlier than I did in the past to keep the bees from getting it? I think I plucked the pollen off and left them to dry while I went to work. After work I snipped off the green parts with my nails and put the pollen in glassine bags and stuck them in the fridge. I think some I used the next day but some others I forgot about and it was probably a week or so when I got around to using it. I didn't keep good notes on which crosses were with refrigerated pollen but hopefully I can figure it out based on what was blooming each day since I kept very good notes on that. But that's a project for the cold winter months.

I do want to test to see how long refrigerated pollen can last. I have an early bloomer that I would like to use as a pollen donor on some much later blooming plants. I have had zero luck with frozen pollen but I may try that again with glassine bags instead of microcentrifuge tubes.

Thank you, Elena! I can't wait to hear more!

When refrigeration of blooms float in water they mine doesnt mush.

I like this topic. I only have enough space and time to support a 200 seed a year process, and 50 of those seeds will be seeds I bring in from the LA to stir in new genetics into my seedling bed. About two years ago I realized it's not in my best interest to just go out and see what looks like a good cross every day. So I started planning my crosses the previous winter.

Two years ago I was focused on Pinks and Couturiers. Last year it was more about yellows (a lot of Davi's) and oranges. As Elena mentioned, sometimes my plans get messed up when a plant I was counting on doesn't bloom, or blooms late. But I try to stay disciplined.

I haven't thought through what I'm going to do this year. I do have a special purple seedling (year 3) that is going to be part of it, though. I'm thinking it would pair well with the lovely and ultra performing Party Every Day. Maybe I'm due for a year where I focus on purples and watermarks again.

Larry, wish you many successes on achieving your goal! It sounds like you are on the right track and have a great plan for getting there.

Mary, it seems that is my problem too! Too many daylily interests! Now, if I can have the discipline to carry my plans through next summer.

Elena, I am glad that you brought up using the refrigerated/frozen pollen. I am interested to try that next year. I found Daniel's great videos on Youtube that show how this was done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/channe...

From Mansfield Daylilies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Tim, that is a wonderful way to cover all your interests by rotating hybridizing goals from year to year! I think I will do the same. Thanks for the idea!

Copying me is probably no one's path to success, Karen! I think it would suck the joy out of making crosses for a lot of people. But it works for me.

One good thing about the way I do it, I don't have to tag or wire anything. All I have to do is livehead or deadhead the plants in my plan to make sure I'm nipping any bee pods. Every pod on the purple seedling or Party Every Day next year will be against each other, if I put that in my plan.