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
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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.
