Cultivar Name: Elizabethan Courtly Love
Seedling Number: POLMIB 3
Bloom Diameter: 5.5”
Scape Height: 36”
Branches: 3
Bud Count: 15
Bloom Season: MID
Rebloom: Yes
Color/Description: Violet purple with slightly darker band above chartreuse to green throat.
Ploidy: TET
Bloom Habit: Diurnal
Foliage: SEV
Fragrance: UNK
Pod Parent: Power Of Love
Pollen Parent: Men In Black
Year Bred: 2014
Rust Resistance: A+/2 years
Fertile: Fertile both ways, pollen is easier than pods, but pods are not impossible and I get a few every year.
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Comments: This beautiful clear purple has been a standout since it first flowered in 2016. A combination of two good cultivars, both with rust resistance, resulted in this knock-out seedling that was more rust resistant than either parent with very refined color. Purples of this color clarity were very difficult to find with any usable level of rust resistance, so making such plants was a priority in my breeding program. Getting purple or lavender with strong rust resistance was a challenge, but I did achieve that in a few instances on such plants as Elizabethan Minerva, Elizabethan Royalty, Little Dragon On The Prairie and now with this spectacular purple, Elizabethan Courtly Love.
Bred in 2014, Elizabethan Courtly Love went through the final two years of my rust screening program scoring A+ rating both years. The thrips resistance is also above average, especially for this color range. Fertile both ways, it is easier with pollen, but I always get a few pods every year. I have gotten excellent coloring and hardiness in the seedlings. Elizabethan Courtly Love is a semi-evergreen, but has been very cold hardy, showing no decline here during Polar Vortex years. It usually blooms late enough to avoid having flowers impacted by late spring freezes, but the severe late freezes of 2024, extending far into May after the daylilies had emerged in early April, did seem to result in the scapes being shorter than usual in the 2023 season. I suspect that was because the plant was in full growth when some of those most severe late freezes occurred in mid-May, and so the scapes were probably already beginning to grow down near the crown. Plant growth/increase was in no way impacted, and the flowers looked great. The only negative effect seemed to have been a reduction in scape height.
I think Elizabethan Courtly Love will be an extremely good cultivar for southern growers concerned with rust resistance, but will also be useful to northern breeders looking for strong hardiness combined with excellent color clarity. Purple is hard to photograph, at least for me. The photos mid-day come out too red/burgundy, while the late evening photos look too bluish. I have included photos from different times of day below so you can see the variation, but the color of the flower in person usually falls somewhere in between the day and evening photos. The color is very clear, clean and purple, showing a lesser range of variation than you might think just from looking at the photos. I have produced an interesting range of clear colored seedlings from Elizabethan Courtly Love and suspect that it could make an excellent breeder for both the great plant traits and the great flower traits. Multiple photos below.
%20X%20MIB%20111.jpg "Elizabethan Courtly Love")
