Heart Of The Quasar
(Sdlg# EHSD3)
2020 - Reeder - Diploid -
Endless Heart x Sharon's Delight -
30" scape - 4.5" flower - 3 branches - 15 buds - Midseason - Rebloom - Dormant
Flat flower with deep red petals, green throat merging into bright, fiery orange-red section below a black-red eye.
Heart Of The Quasar is a lovely flower, with petals of a deep and mysterious red above the darker eye and the bright glowing orange-red radiating outward into the black-red eye from the green and golden throat. The effect is of a glowing eye in an expanse of darkness, like the glowing heart of a quasar in the vastness of space. The parentage is stellar, combining the fine pod parent from Darrel Apps' breeding program with the gorgeous pollen parent from Richard Norris' Substantial Evidence program. The combination of the two parents is perfect, with the flatness of the father combined with the rich red coloring and strong rebloom of both parent lines.
The foliage of Heart Of The Quasar is consistently beautiful, dark green and dormant. It is from my 2011 breeding season and has grown as a large clump that showed no die-out in the center of the clump through 2019, yet the increase is strong. It was extremely rust resistant throughout all five years of my rust resistance screening with a consistent A+ rating. The thrips resistance is also high. Heart Of The Quasar shows excellent breeding value for both rust and thrips resistance, so the lovely flowers look good in the garden throughout its long bloom season.
The clump is an explosion of color throughout its long bloom season. It shows excellent rebloom, with there usually being three rounds of scape in fast succession, and I generally see a fall rebloom cycle as well. It is usually the first frost that puts the rebloom to an end in the fall. You can see in the picture above and below that the instant rebloom scapes are plentiful. The combination of many fine traits - attractive and exotic flat flower, gorgeous deep green plant, strong rebloom, strong dormancy, extremely high rust resistance and high thrips resistance - make for an outstanding garden plant, but it is also a fine breeder, being fertile both ways and an easy and generous pod parent. In my experience, it will set a pod on every flower you pollinate. The seedlings tend to show its fine traits, with lots of intense colors, gorgeous plant habit, flat flower form, rebloom and resistance to pests and disease in the seedling patch.
In the above picture you can see three cycles of scapes emerging. The first are just starting to bloom in this picture, while the second are about half as tall and will start blooming in a couple of weeks, while the youngest are still down in the foliage. As with many of these strong rebloomers, the branching and bud count are not high, but the volume of rebloom more than makes up for that, producing lots of flowers and a long period of flowering in the garden.
Heart Of The Quasar is a beautiful flower that is a joy to grow, bringing much to the garden and even more to any breeding program. I think my introductions combining the modern, flat flower form with strong rebloom and dormancy opens a whole new door to people interested in these types. Even though most of my introductions in this category are small flowered, they also work very well in breeding for mini flowers.
