LAVENDER BLUE ROYALTY

 

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

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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.