Friday, January 4, 2019

2019 Daylily Introductions Released!

2019 Daylily Introductions Released!

Announcing the release of 
13 new introductions for 2019, 
including 7 tetraploid introductions.



Scroll Down for a picture and the name of each new introduction and the link to its information page. 

Click the name with each picture below to go to the information page for that new introduction.

Read my new blog post - Rust Resistance: A Few Words

































Read my new blog post - Rust Resistance: A Few Words

Korean Queen

Korean Queen
(Sdlg#  HFKQC3)



2019 - Reeder - Tetraploid - 
Hemerocallis fulva ex Korea, Seoul National University, NA 54920 x Queen’s Circle - 
32” scape - 4.5” flower - 4 branches - 15 buds - Midseason - Semi-evergreen

Bright, dark orange in morning fading to reverse bicolor of lighter, bright orange with lavender overlay on petals with darker orange band and sepals with a double edge of dark orange and a gold wire outer edge on the petals above a bright golden-yellow throat.

For a complete list of available daylilies and pricing, click here.


I love this little plant so much! It has far surpassed my idea of what such a cross could produce. The pod parent is the amazing Hemerocallis fulva 'Korean', imported to the US in 1984 by Darrel Apps and Barry Yinger. The pollen parent is the beautiful, but tender Queen's Circle which descends from the lovely Awesome Blossom and the tetraploid conversion of the wonderful Lavender Blue Baby. The pod parent is extremely rust resistant, and while the pollen parent wasn't, it does descend from LBB (which carries rust resistance genes, in my experience) and Awesome Blossom (which shows moderate rust resistance). The cross of HfK and QC really turned up the rust resistance, and this plant rated extremely resistant (A+) throughout all five years of my rust resistance screening program. That in-and-of itself would have made this one a useful breeder, but when it first flowered, I was really amazed to get a flower that looked so modern with ruffles, occasional small teeth, a light edge, a darker eye/edge and a lavender overlay. However, the greatest surprise only dawned on me as I watched this lovely flower over the years - it is a color-changer! It begins the day like the picture directly above, a dark orange with a slightly darker eye/edge and a lighter outer edge, but as the day progresses, the color in the center of the petal begins to fade. The picture directly below shows the flower midday, with the petal center just beginning to fade.


In the below picture, at about 5 pm in the afternoon, you can see the fading strongly, allowing the lighter orange base color to show through and the lavender overlay to begin to be visible, especially on the midrib.



The picture below shows the flower by 7-8 pm, with the fading completed and the amazing color combination it takes on showing strongly. The petal has faded out all the way to the outer dark edge, allowing the eye/edge to become very prominent and the lavender tones to really show strongly on the midrib and the petal edges just inside the darker edge. If you notice, it almost creates a third, lighter edge with the midrib lavender, the inner petal light orange, then the lavender layer on the petals, followed by the dark orange edge and finally the pale wire outer edge, all shot through with the lovely dark orange veins. The effect is very fancy, very unique and very pretty. The color-changing trait isn't just a fluke either, and this one has given me tetraploid color-changing seedlings already. I think Korean Queen will be a big boon to breeders on many levels, not least of which for this who want to work with hardy and genetically diverse color-changers at the tetraploid level.


I have registered this one as a tetraploid. I tried it repeatedly with diploids and never got one seed, and really did try it a lot over several years, as I was extremely excited at the thought of taking this plant's genetics into my diploid work. With its descent from tet. Lavender Blue Baby, I very much wanted to take it into my own Lavender Feathers (from Texas Feathered Fancy (which is from LBB) and LBB itself) family line, as I have occasionally seen extra tissue that is cristate-like on Korean Queen. However, that never panned out, as I never got one seed either direction. This and multiple other attempts with diploids strongly suggests to me that Korean Queen is a tetraploid.


Korean Queen is not just a nice flower though. It is also a very nice plant. In addition to the very high rust resistance, the plant is also attractive, making a very nice looking clump in the garden. The foliage is a medium green color and can have some spotting from late spring freezes. It shows much higher tolerance to late spring freezes than its half siblings (LMOPink and KMOPurple), but it can still get some slight damage. The scapes are nice, held above the foliage and with four branches on mature clumps. I have registered it as a semi-evergreen. I have sent it to a few southern gardens for testing, and they all confirm that (much as its pod parent and many fulva clones) it behaves as a semi-evergreen in warm-winter gardens. In my garden, it performs as a dormant, and is really close to the so-called "hard dormant". However, I chose to register it as a SEV because it does well in the south, where it is SEV and I want to get it into the warm-winter, evergreen programs where its tremendous genetic diversity, rust resistance and breeding value for rust resistance and color-changing trait can be put to good use. Korean Queen has been very hardy here in my zone 6 garden, and is currently growing in two gardens in zone 5 where it also has survived and thrived. I think this one will do well in much of the US. I have never seen it show any loss of fans or crown damage from even the harshest winters in my garden, and it increases well without fading away in warm-winter gardens. I think this one can be very valuable in many breeding programs.

In addition to all the good traits I have written about above, Korean Queen is an excellent breeder, not just for rust resistance, but also for the flower! 

Updated for 2022

Korean Queen seedlings from the 2020 and 2021 flower seasons. These show the advances in color, flower form and edges that is possible from Korean Queen in one generation. What is extremely nice is that now in 2022, I can say with high confidence that Korean Queen is a great breeder, not just for modern flower traits, but also for bringing in the vigorous plant traits that derive with the H. fulva Korean genetic package, as many of its seedlings also show those plant traits clearly.




The slide below is from my 2018 Monday Night Lights presentation in Facebook and shows some of the excellent (and amazingly well-colored) seedlings I have produced from Korean Queen. The seedlings pictured below are flowers from the 2017 flower season. I saw many more in 2018 and was completely blown away by the variation and wonderful flower traits I saw. 
(Click the slide below to see a larger version)


I think Korean Queen has so much potential as a breeder, in both southern and northern programs, as well as in a variety of programs for a range of different colors and styles. While Korean Queen has a yellow throat (which I think is perfect with the rest of its colors) you can see that it can produce green throats in its seedlings.

More pictures and information about Korean Queen below.



Another shot of the whole plant. I included this picture to show the plant in a year after a series of severe late spring freezes followed by an eight-week drought. You can see some of the leaves have had the tips frozen off when they were emerging and that then creates some browned tips and brown spots. Even at that, I have seen far worse foliage on other plants, and it still looks good in the landscape. The plant shows a good scape to fan ratio and the flowers make an attractive display, often with the bouquet effect you see above even in the very dry season (and I didn't water it) in this picture. You can see here that the plant forms a clump. As with its half-siblings through HfK, this one will show slight runners that emerge from the main clump once it is established. I have been growing it in containers now for a couple of years and it flourishes, so if you are worried about it potentially spreading, that is one way to use it and contain it.



An attractive shot showing the nice flower and the well-formed buds. You can see that there is not much thrip damage in terms of enations on the buds. It shows moderately high thrip resistance, and is far more thrip resistant than both parents. While I registered it with 15 buds, an established clump can show upwards of 20+.



This picture shows a very unusual day where every flower open was much more purple than normal. It still went through the color change routine, though as the color faded, the flowers were left with dark spots scattered over the petals. Interesting! No wonder it breeds good purple and lavender!



The pictures above and the below show the flower and the plant in 2018 after it was divided and lined-out in 2017. It takes division very well and thrives, increasing quickly. You can see the fading effect in the flower above, which was photographed near sunset. The picture below shows the plant in the afternoon, about 4 PM when the fading is in mid-phase. Look at the interesting effect that creates, and it makes the flower really glow, standout and create an eye-catching effect in the landscape! You can also see some damaged leaf ends from our late spring freezes. I am happy to say that by crossing Korean Queen with more freeze-tolerant plants, I have produced many seedlings from it that show much better freeze tolerance.




Temple Of Bacchus

Temple Of Bacchus
(Sdlg# HCITPS9)





2019 - Reeder - Unknown ploidy - 
Hemerocallis citrina x Papa Smurf - 
66” scape - 6” flower - 3-5 branches - 15-20 buds - Midseason - Semi-evergreen - Fragrant 

Bright, clear purple bicolor, sepals a paler purple with medium purple petals and a blue-purple band above bright green throat.

For a complete list of available daylilies and pricing, click here.



Named for the Roman temple dedicated to Bacchus, which sits upon a massive, mysterious, ancient platform in Lebanon. Bacchus was the deity of wine and revelry, drunkenness and madness. The beautiful, intense purple coloring of Temple Of Bacchus is like radiant grapes and wine. This cultivar's ability to create seeds with both ploidy levels and its own unknown ploidy make it as confusing and exciting as a bacchanalia.

Temple Of Bacchus has been striking from the first flower. Even before it flowered, I knew it was going to be something special. It was always head-and-shoulders above its siblings from the time it germinated. It was the largest seedling and always dark green with little damage or blemish to the foliage. It also turned out to be extremely rust resistant, the most resistant consistently of all its siblings. As the scapes emerged for the first time, I was very excited by the height and by nice branching. But when the flower opened for the first time, I thought I might cry! In my wildest dreams, I would have never imagined I would get such a rich, clear purple, with such a bluish eye, from the backcross to a yellow species clone - H. citrina (Halinar clone #2).

Most of the siblings were much more what I expected - most slightly muddy, lavender-ish with of dull eyes that were a darker purplish-wine color along with a couple of muddy, pinkish/darker-pink-eye seedlings. This one though was exceptionally pretty from the beginning. The mature clump is extremely pretty with scapes averaging 66", some will reach up to 72". Young divisions and young fans in mature clumps average 3 branches, with mature clumps showing mature fans with 5 to 7 branches. Bud counts average 15 - 18, but can go up to 30+ on the mature scapes. The gorgeous, dark green foliage is tall, but arches over gracefully and gives a beautiful display on its own and is a lovely anchor for the tall scapes. 


The slide below, from my 2018 Monday Night Lights presentation on Facebook, details how this cross was made. It was a very intense process, but I felt it was necessary to be as sure as possible about this cross. Do note that the registered branching and bud counts are lower than those mentioned in this MNL18 slide below. The registry data is the average I have seen over the time I have grown the plant. The data in the slide below is the high end that is sometimes seen on mature clumps, but even then may not be seen on every fan that produces a scape. 

(I register all of my introductions based upon average numbers, rather than either high or low extremes, so you will note different numbers based upon which count is being discussed throughout my writing about any given plant from my program).


Temple Of Bacchus is more than just an interesting and beautiful novelty - it is extremely fertile, working with diploids, known triploids (fulva clones) and tetraploids. Most of my work has been with crossing Temple Of Bacchus to registered tetraploids, but I have also crossed it with various clones of Hemerocallis fulva with success, and I have crossed with with multiple diploids with success. In diploids, the list I have successfully crossed it with include Hush Little Baby, Little Grapette, Zelazny, Galaxy Explosion, Volcan Fuego, Heavenly Angel Ice and several of my own seedlings. I made multiple attempts to cross this one to Substantial Evidence, going both ways, with no success. However, I did have success in crossing it with tetraploid offspring of tetra Substantial Evidence. It has been extremely fertile for me with tetraploids and I have crossed it with a large number of them from the mid to late part of the season, when Temple Of Bacchus flowers.

The slide below, from my 2018 Monday Night Light presentation, shows some of the seedlings that I particularly like from Temple Of Bacchus. I think it is going to be extremely good for both purple and spider types, in conjunction with high rust resistance and attractive foliage.



The seedling pictured below is a wonderful surprise from Temple of Bacchus. This one is consistently broken-patterned, and some of its siblings also show this look, with less rich coloring. I suspect there is a lot hidden in Temple Of Bacchus for breeders to exploit. I also think it has use to open more bottlenecked lines at various ploidy levels. My own focus has been with polypoid/tetraploid level plants. I hope others will also use it in this way, but some will also want to use it at the diploid level. I think Temple Of Bacchus has so much to offer!



The photo below shows Temple Of Bacchus after sunset with the new flowers open for the night. They first open at about three to four in the afternoon, being fully open by sunset. They remain open all night and being extended are open throughout the morning, beginning to close just before the next set begin to open in the afternoon. I gather pollen from the afternoon opening flowers, finish drying it in the house and then use it the next day on diurnal flowers. Since I have used it predominantly with diurnal flowers, most of its seedlings are diurnal in my program, but they must carry nocturnal genetics. When crossed with other nocturnals, I have seen predominantly nocturnal flowers. It should be useful in breeding both opening-time types.


Temple Of Bacchus through the years...
It was germinated in late 2012, going through the last four years of my rust screening with extremely high resistance. It is thus a four-year tested A+. 

Below you will find flower and clump shots, along with more information.



At sunset



The lovely, dark green foliage is semi-evergreen and the plant is very hardy here. Much like H. citrina, it is fairly dormant in a very cold winter here, but in warmer winters here, and when grown in a warmer climate, it performs as a semi-evergreen. I suspect Temple Of Bacchus will be hardy further north. I will be very interested to hear how it will do in colder climates. It does well in warmer-winter climates and I think that is very important, as it allows the species genetics and the rust resistance genetics of Temple Of Bacchus to be taken into warm-weather programs where endemic rust is a real problem.


Here on a rainy, gray afternoon, the old flowers are still open in the late evening while the next round of flowers are starting to open.



Freshly opened flower at sunset - above



The scapes hold up well. On young divisions, the scapes are shorter than on mature clumps, so hold up well, while on mature clumps, the taller scapes are also fairly strong, but they can lean with several wilted flowers from the previous day and benefit from deadheading. The high fertility can result in heavy pod-load and that will also cause the scapes to lean at times. What I have found to work well is to weave the leaning scapes into the firmer, mature scapes, creating sort-of an obelisk-like formation that holds up extremely well. If this were just a seedling from two hybrids, the scapes might have caused me not to introduce it because I am obsessed with strong scapes that don't fall over, but I think the multi-ploidy fertility, species parent and extremely high rust resistance along with breeding value for rust resistance in combination with warm-climate survivability make this one too valuable for breeders, and too unique for collectors, to not introduce it.


The flower is a narrow open form that shows moderate thrip resistance, but is not as strong in this trait as I would like, though it will produce improved resistance for thrips in its offspring when it is crossed with partners that are highly resistant to thrips. Even in a non-sprayed garden in the presence of thrips, though, it still looks very good for a flower of this color.






The Spice Must Flow

The Spice Must Flow
(Sdlg# IMPBW2)



2019 - Reeder - Tetraploid -  
Implausibility x Bali Watercolor 
60" scape  - 6.5" flower - 4 BR - 17 buds - Early-midseason - Rebloom - Semi-evergreen

Rich orange overlaid with purple giving a bronze to cinnamon glow, strongest in center of petal with white midrib and lighter petal edges, with darker purple band and thin petal edge above green to chartreuse throat.

For a complete list of available daylilies and pricing, click here.


Like giant sandworms rising from rolling desert dunes, the scapes emerge over the massive, arching, attractive foliage in early-midseason. They unfurl their branches with many buds that burst open into a display of spicy-orange to cinnamon colored flowers that are layered with purple and show a darker eye, blooming through a long season. The effect of the tall scapes, big flowers and massive plant is extremely visible and prominent in any garden where I have grown it. The orange is a subdued tone, due to the purple it is combined with, but it glows in the landscape.


The plant is massive. It is the largest daylily plant I have ever grown. A mature clump can be four feet or more across. The effect is like a giant beach ball of dark green, healthy foliage. There have to be others out there this big. I make no claim of "biggest ever" or anything similar, but in my experience, this is the largest daylily plant I have ever grown, and I have sought out what people consider large daylilies, though I couldn't possibly have seen them all!


The foliage can be in excess of 42" tall on a mature clump, while the scapes average 5 feet in height, sometimes taller up to 72" on old, established clumps. Scapes are frequently in the 66" range in mature clumps. I registered it at 60" because that is the average, not the tallest possible, which isn't consistent enough in my experience to be considered anything beyond an occasional bonus. The scapes are moderately branched, averaging four branches on mature clumps. Two or three is average the first year after the plant is divided. I have noted repeatedly that this plant recovers quickly from division. I have seen no rhizomatous behavior to speak of, though I do occasionally see a fan a few inches from the outer edge of the clump. 

'Spice' is the largest green wave in this picture. Featured in the center, left, you can see the massive plant towering over everything else around it in mid-May. Enlarge the picture to see a larger image of this picture and really look at how large this plant is!


By the end of the season, the straggler fans just look like part of the clump, and don't look like freestanding fans. The growth pattern I have observed is consistently a large clump. The clump above, photographed in 2018, was planted there in 2012 and has only had a few small divisions taken off the outer edges of it over the years. Otherwise the clump has never been touched and there is no fan die-out in the center of the clump. You can see in the picture (2 above) that the scapes are thickest toward the center of the clump, indicating good fan growth in the middle of the clump. Also note the high fan to scape ratio. 


The flower is no shrinking violet! It is big and bold and the colors are bright. The flower is held near your face when you are close to the clump and the effect of the layers of color is quite striking in person, though hard to photograph. To my eye, photographs always flatten the layers of color that the eye perceives as two different wavelengths, which the camera flattens into a single color that is more brownish than the flower actually looks in person. As I have grown this plant for many years, I have a lot of photos but none do justice to the effect of the flower and clump in person. All photos either make it too orange, too brown or too purple, and none are exactly the effect it has in person. It does vary from day to day, like most daylilies, and it can have days in the landscape when it takes on more of one color or the other, but the most common effect combines orange and purple into various shadings. Now to be clear, I love orange and brown daylilies, as much as I love purple daylilies, but I wouldn't call The Spice Must Flow any one of those colors. To me, it is just expressing several colors (or genes for different pigment expressions), which leads me to the most important aspect of this introduction, in my program. It has the ability to breed a range of clear colors on large flowers with large plants and tall scapes.


(click above image for larger view)

Two seedlings (above) from The Spice Must Flow, both with Pacific Rainbow as pollen parent. These are just a couple of examples of pink and purple flowers with tall scapes, large flowers and large plants I have produced from The Spice Must Flow. Even in the seedling stage, right from germination, the seedlings of The Spice Must Flow are large and impressive, hinting at the giant proportions they might achieve. A warning... I suspect that an extended use of 'Spice' in your breeding program may result in blue eyes! I have seen a few blue-eyed seedlings so far, and I have been crossing the 'Spice' with blue-eyed lines, so will know more about the sustained use of 'Spice' within the next few years.

2022 Update
The Spice Must Flow Seedlings

2022 Introduction Spice Eyes 
My first introduction from The Spice Must Flow
Spice Eyes is from (Thingamabob x The Spice Must Flow)

Below are seedlings from The Spice Must Flow that flowered during the 2020 and 2021 flower seasons. Each image is of an individual seedling and illustrates the advances that are possible in one generation of backcrossing to fancy cultivars. In terms of form and color, The Spice Must Flow carries recessive genes for fancy, non-species coloring, and can throw a range of forms, depending on what it is mated with. In addition, The Spice Must Flow throws a high percentage of large seedlings with tall scapes.

The Spice Must Flow x Solaris Symmetry SDLG 1

The Spice Must Flow x Solaris Symmetry SDLG 2

The Spice Must Flow x Solaris Symmetry SDLG 3

The Spice Must Flow x Tetra Rose F. Kennedy SDLG

The Spice Must Flow x Pacific Rainbow

The Spice Must Flow x Divergent 


Below I will share some more information about the cross, the plant and my general observations and will post a plethora of pictures of it, as like any proud parent, I have a lot if its pictures from over the years.

This slide from my 2018 Monday Night Lights presentation details some basic information about sdlg IMPXBW2, before it gained its registry name. Click for larger image. 

The plant shows moderate rust resistance. It does get some rust when there is rust present in the garden, but I have never seen it worse than the high end of my 'B' rating - 'high moderate resistance'. In the first year of my rust screening, it showed no rust at all, but each year of testing after that it did show a small amount of rust. The average of the five-year rust resistance testing was an A rating, but I consider it a B+, as the last three years of testing showed that level. However, it has proven a good breeder for rust resistance and I have numerous seedlings from 'Spice' that were much more resistant to rust. Thrip resistance is moderately high. It will show slight damage from thrips on its first round of scapes, mostly identifiable from small enations (bumps) on the bud. Typically, the flower holds up well to thrips and shows little spotting due to thrips. 

While pod fertile (especially on rebloom scapes), new divisions need to become established for a year or two to show good pod fertility. Pollen is always fertile. Recovery from division tends to be fast, and increase is good in my garden. The foliage is attractive, shows fairly good late frost tolerance and is very hardy here in my zone 6 garden. I have never seen any serious damage from our worst winters. Being semi-evergreen, I suspect this one will flourish in warmer-winter areas, but with the hardiness I have seen from it here, I suspect it will also do well in areas with colder winters than I my area typically has. It went through the exceptionally harsh and cold winters of 2013-14 and 2014-15 with no damage at all. Late freezes have not caused the scapes to be shorter than normal either. I see rebloom every year, consistently, here in my gardens. With all these good traits... The Spice Must Flow into as many breeding programs as possible. :-)

The pictures below are in order from 2013 through 2018.
Click on each image to see a larger version.

2013





2014




2015



2016


2017


Note slight pattern visible in the eye in this picture. I usually see patterned blooms on a day or two every year, generally when the weather is cool.


2018