DAYLILY BREEDER BLOG
Cultivar Name: Lavender Blue Royalty
Seedling Number: PHLF6
Bloom Diameter: 5”
Scape Height: 28”
Branches: 3
Bud Count: 15
Bloom Season: Mid-Late
Rebloom: Yes
Color/Description: Amethyst purple with darker purple band and double edge, one faint edge same as band and the outer edge light bluish-white, above green to chartreuse throat.
Ploidy: Dip
Bloom Habit: Diurnal
Foliage: Dormant
Pod Parent: Phoenician Royalty
Pollen Parent: Lavender Feathers
Year Bred: 2012
Rust Resistance: A+/5 year
Fertile: Both ways
For a complete list of my available daylilies and pricing, click here.
Comments: Lavender Blue Royalty is a seedling from the early days of my breeding program that went through all five years of my rust resistance testing program with an A+ resistance rating all five years. It has been a very interesting flower. When it was growing in the hybridizing garden, which has afternoon shade and low 5.6 - 6.0 pH levels, the flowers were intensely purple with very strong blue tints. The blue was so strong in that garden that it was shocking to me. As you can see in the first two pictures below, it was intensely, deeply pigmented with a strong double edge, the inner one dark purple like the band and the outer one a bright sky blue, with the blue being even stronger to the naked eye than it came out in pictures. Once I moved the plant to the line out garden though, where there is full sun all day and the soil is a neutral 7.0 pH, the flower has rarely shown such depth of coloring. In the line out garden it tends to be a very bluish lavender with a pale whitish/blue outer edge and a darker lavender inner edge that is matched to the band. The last four images below show Lavender Blue Royalty during different times in the afternoon in the line out garden. The next to the last image below was included both to show you the plant and because a flower of Substantial Rosebud is in the background of the image to contrast its strong rose-pink coloring with the strongly blue-lavender coloring of Lavender Blue Royalty in the full sun in the line out garden.
Regardless of the particular color saturation phase, Lavender Blue Royalty shows a lot of blue pigment, combined with strong rust resistance, and that is why I have kept it so long and introduced it this year. It is fertile both ways and I think it can be a very useful breeder for both rust resistance and intensely purple coloring in the blue-toned direction. The thrips resistance is only average, which is typical for most daylilies, and it is better than many purples, of which many are below average. Many of the seedlings I have seen from it also show the intensely bluish lavender to purple coloring and many also showed high rust resistance. The foliage is dormant and looks nice. The branching is average as is bud counts. The reason I am introducing it is the exceptional rust resistance and the exceptional pigmentation. As with many of my introductions, I suspect the branching and bud count will increase in gardens where inputs such as water and fertilizer are used.
%20X%20(TFF%20X%20-)%20A%203.jpg "LAVENDER BLUE ROYALTY - seedling picture near sunset")
%20X%20(TFF%20X%20-)%20A%2033.jpg "LAVENDER BLUE ROYALTY - seedling flower closeup")
Cultivar Name: Korean Dragon King
Seedling Number: HFKWSM22
Bloom Diameter: 6”
Scape Height: 52”
Branches: 5
Bud Count: 23
Bloom Season: MID-LATE
Color/Description: Medium orange with darker red-orange band above chartreuse throat with wide, antler-like branching.
Ploidy: Tet
Bloom Habit: Diurnal
Foliage: Dormant
Pod Parent: H. fulva 'Korean' clone
Pollen Parent: Women Seeking Men
Year Bred: 2018
Rust Resistance: unknown, bred after my screening program ended. Pod parent is A+/5 year and pollen parent is 3 year/B.
Fertile: Both ways
For a complete list of my available daylilies and pricing, click here.
Comments: Korean Dragon King is really something special. A first generation seedling from H. fulva 'Korean' (Apps accession) crossed to Women Seeking Men, it is a magnificent combination of the two parents. It shows the tallest scapes I have gotten from the many crosses I have made using this species clone pod parent. It also has the most elaborate and impressive branching of any of the seedlings I have produced from fulva 'Korean' (and I have many), showing the power of Curt Hanson's selection for incredible antler-like branching, and especially the high breeding value of his cultivar 'Women Seeking Men'. Of Curt's program, which I have worked with a great deal, Notify Ground Crew and Women Seeking Men have been the two most important of his introductions in my own work.
Korean Dragon King shows great traits from both parents, with extreme vigor and robustness coming from the fulva 'Korean' pod parent. While the flower is the classic orange of the pod parent, it has a flush of pink which becomes more obvious in the evening (second picture below) when the intensity of the orange coloring lightens letting the pink pigment express in a visibly peach tone. The flower also shows petal broadening and flatter form than the species clone pod parent, which came from the pollen parent.
The plant is fertile both ways, and as you can see in the last picture below, it sets pods well, meaning it has a great future for breeding, allowing for creating tall, robust scapes with amazing branching while bringing in the species genetics of the pod parent to open up bottlenecked hybrid tetraploid lineages. In addition to its high breeding potential, it is also a lovely garden display (third image below) making a nice clump that does not spread by runners. The flowers, wider and flatter than the fulva clones, also represents an improved fulva look, allowing it to present with a species-like look, but with larger flowers, having more substance and impact in the garden. Korean Dragon King is also very useful for permacultural uses, both for its own traits, and for breeding new and improved permacultural daylily specimens. While most of my introductions for 2025 show more advanced flowers, I think that Korean Dragon King may be the most important introduction from my program for the 2025 season.
Cultivar Name: Midnight Stardust
Seedling Number: MDSDD4
Bloom Diameter: 5”
Scape Height: 28”
Branches: 4
Bud Count: 19
Bloom Season: Mid-late
Rebloom: Yes
Color/Description: Purple with bubbly gold edge and darker purple band above wide green to chartreuse throat.
Ploidy: Tet
Bloom Habit:
Foliage: SEV
Pod Parent: Midnight Dazzle
Pollen Parent: Stardust Dragon
Year Bred: 2013
Rust Resistance: A+/3 year
Fertile: Both ways
For a complete list of my available daylilies and pricing, click here.
Comments: Midnight Stardust is a lovely flower, with nice bubbly gold edges, coming from two interesting parents. The flower is beautiful and the scapes carry four to five branches that are heavily budded, and with instant rebloom, there are a lot of flowers for a long period of time. I also frequently see a second round of rebloom in the late summer or early fall. The bubbly gold edge and nice branching/bud count has been consistent on first scapes and rebloom scapes. On bright, sunny days, the flowers are a shade of lavender, while on overcast or rainy days, the flowers are a deeper, richer purple. In both phases the coloring is in the blue direction. You can see images below on both sunny and overcast days, and they show the differences in tone between the two types of weather conditions. The flowers are open and rather flat, and the throat is wide, retaining green coloring in it until sunset.
Fertile both ways, Midnight Stardust is a useful breeder. Deriving from the early part of my breeding program, Midnight Stardust went through the last three years of my rust resistance screening program showing A+ resistance. Thrips resistance is average. It shows excellent breeding value for rust resistance, rebloom, bubbly and toothy edges, clear and bright coloring, and great branching and bud counts. The semi-evergreen foliage is deep green. The plant is very hardy here in my garden and I have never seen any fan loss even in the harshest polar vortex winters. It does emerge early here and so will show some damage from late freezes. It carries foliage dormancy so does produce dormant seedlings when bred with dormant partners. With the high rust resistance, its most important uses will be as a gorgeous garden plant in southern gardens where rust is endemic and multiple late freezes are not a concern, as well as a breeding plant for producing high rust resistance combined with very fancy flowers.
