Daylily BReeder Blog: Ancient Ent

Ancient Ent

(SDLG# AESS11-1147)

2021 - Reeder - Tetraploid

Ancient Elf x Solaris Symmetry

56" scape - 5" flower - 5 branches - 25 buds

Early-midseason - Dormant

Light orange with a maroon band above a chartreuse to yellow throat.

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

With exceptional tree-like branching, you might mistake this tree-herder for a real tree! The flower may look old-fashioned, but under that deceptively simple exterior lurks some incredible genes. With pollen parent Solaris Symmetry providing a bevy of modern color and pattern flower genes, as well as amazing plant traits, then combining with the amazing plant traits of pod parent Ancient Elf, Ancient Ent is a potent and advanced breeder that is fertile both ways, as well as a gorgeous and reliable display in the garden.

A stunning display from the first year it flowered. Here is Ancient Ent in the seedling bed in 2015 as a four-year old seedling.

Click this image to see my new Youtube video detailing full siblings Sun Dragon, Origin of Symmetry and Ancient Ent!

Bred in the early summer of 2011 and germinated in the late summer of that year, Ancient Ent went through all five years of my rust resistance screening, scoring A+ all five years, and went on to produce a high percentage of seedlings showing rust resistance, as is also the case with siblings Origin Of Symmetry and Sun Dragon. Ancient Ent has also shown exceptionally high thrips resistance, owing to pollen parent Solaris Symmetry, and also passes this valuable trait to many of its seedlings. And while those traits are outstanding, the thing that has always set Ancient Ent apart from its many full siblings is the exceptional branching on very tall scapes.

Here you see the amazing scapes Ancient Ent has shown every year since first flower. Here in 2015 in the seedling bed, the year before it was moved to the hybridizing garden. With the scapes rising high above the rest of the garden, the flowers glow like a beacon from a distance.

Here the branches in the seedling bed before the first flower had opened. Branches like this are almost as glorious before they flower as when the flowers finally do open.

Ancient Ent in the line out garden in summer of 2020.

Line out garden summer 2020

But the flower too is gorgeous, looking much like some of the original A. B. Stout introductions, such as 'Linda'. The foliage is the type often referred to as "hard dormant" by daylily growers, with all the foliage dying back after the first freeze, forming a resting bud and then staying down until fairly late in the spring, and not reemerging to be frozen off again in every warm spell throughout the winter. Both parents also show this behavior. The foliage is dark green and attractive, with nice wide leaves, looking more like the foliage of pollen parent Solaris Symmetry. Ancient Ent will also pass these dormancy traits and the attractive plant traits to a high percentage of its offspring.

Ancient Ent flower in the hybridizing garden 2017

Ancient Ent flowering in the hybridizing garden summer 2020 at sunset

And while Ancient Ent is an exceptional and lovely plant for the garden, showing exceptional plant traits, and it is a great breeder for rust and thrips resistance, as well as branching and scape height, it also produces beautifully flowered seedlings, as you can see in some of the examples below.