Cultivar Name: Venus On The Half Shell
Seedling Number: AEBWCTMSDSDA1
Bloom Diameter: 7"
Scape Height: 60"
Branches: 5
Bud Count: 23
Bloom Season: Mid
Rebloom:
Color/Description: Creamy-yellow petals heavily flushed in rose with piecrust edges, sepals flushed in lighter rose, wide green to chartreuse throat.
Ploidy: Tetraploid
Bloom Habit: Diurnal
Foliage: Dormant
Pod Parent: ((Ancient Elf x Bali Watercolor) x Cooler Than Me) x Sun Dragon)
Pollen Parent: (Sun Dragon x Astraea)
Year Bred: 2018
Rust Resistance: Unknown (bred after the completion of my rust resistance testing. Multiple highly resistant grandparents)
Fertile: Yes (pods require effort, pollen very easy)
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Comments: Venus On The Half Shell is named for the nickname for the famous painting by Sandro Botticelli, 'The Birth Of Venus', and represents a landmark within my program - a true birth of the floral beauty I have imagined from day one of my program. When I was starting to formulate my plans for a daylily breeding program back in the period from 2008 through 2011, one program that I was very influenced by was that of Brian Mahieu, and especially his diploid unusual form introduction 'Amy Mack'. I wanted to produce plants with flowers in that style, but on large, robust tetraploid plants. From my first crosses in 2011, one goal image within my mind has been something like the flower of Amy Mack, but a little more robust and with braided or pie crust edging. I have been blending plants for years, always selecting plant traits first, while keeping an eye out for particular styles of flowers. The original crosses from 2011 that led to my introduction Sun Dragon, in which I can see hints of the flower of Venus On The Half Shell, and has all the fine plant traits I wanted in my lines. A half-sibling of Sun Dragon is the pod great-grandparent and was a lovely plant with a pinkish flower verging on UF form. It was fertile both ways, showed excellent rust resistance, but it just never quite made it to the cut to be an intro. I crossed it to Dan Hanson's Cooler Than Me, which had the flower style I love - a clear pink UF form with white edging and teeth, but was a very tender evergreen with shorter, weak scapes. Cooler than Me produced many interesting seedlings for me from this cross, many that showed nice color and form due to the combination of Cooler Than Me with the UF genetics of Bali Watercolor, but I also got a few dormant plants as well as some hardy semi-evergreens, and many of them showed very fine rust resistance. I still have two of them to this day, and I will probably introduce one of them in the next couple of years (I should have done it before I introduced Venus On The Half Shell, but I just couldn't wait!) I crossed those seedlings to Sun Dragon to increase dormancy and scape height, and I got a lovely seedling that showed taller scapes with dormant foliage and the flower was basically identical to Sun Dragon, but just a bit more pinkish in tone. That seedling is the pod parent of Venus On The Half Shell.
On the pollen side is both Sun Dragon and Astraea. I crossed them as soon as I realized how good Astraea was, but that year I just did a small cross to get an idea of the combining ability of those two cultivars. I got one seedling that is a tall, nice pink that is well-branched and blooms profusely. I think it will also be an intro at some point (I should have done it before Venus On The Half Shell too, but...) I have since remade the cross of Sun Dragon and Astraea, and have a row of promising seedlings in evaluation.
The cross that created Venus On The half Shell was actually just a cross I made one day on a whim. I had no particular plan for the cross, other than, "...there's a lot of good genes in both of these, and they are both in the pink range." It was a 'let's just see' kind of cross, a test mating in very small number (7 or 8 pods), but it yielded quite a surprise when they flowered for the first time and I saw the seedling that would become Venus On The Half Shell. It was one of those moments when you could have knocked me over with a feather, as the flower far exceeded my expectations for that generation. It was the type of flower I had seen in my mind when I was preparing to start my program, and it was on the type of plant I wanted that flower on - a robust tetraploid plant with tall, strong scapes, nice branching and strong visual impact in the garden.
The Venus On The Half Shell shows tall scapes averaging around 60" on a mature clump. I have seen scapes even taller, especially in my shadier hybridizing garden, but in the line out 60" is the average. The tallest scape I have seen was 70", but I only saw that height the one time. The plant shows tall, elegant foliage that makes a large, impressive clump. The branching on mature clumps is very nice, averaging five branches, sometimes six branches, sometimes four on shorter scapes. The buds range from 20 up to 23 or more, depending on the size and branching of the individual scape. The plant recovers quickly from division, shows fast increase and makes a massive clump when left in place without constant division. It can be left in place for many years without having to divide it, as it does not show center clump die-out that requires frequent refreshing, but it can handle frequent division as well.
Now, with all of that said...THE FLOWER! Just look at that flower! It is large, it is bright, it has a nice edge and it has an open form with narrow petal bases that make it have a near spatulate form. Sometimes the flower (see below) can be a true unusual form, but not every day, so I didn't register it as a UF. The color is bright. In shade in my hybridizing garden it showed more yellow in the background with a pink flush, while in my line out garden it can be very bright, clear pink, especially in the morning. By late evening, it can fade into a near white edge with a pale creamy colored base and rose-pink flush to the petals. It always shows a braided or piecrust edge, giving it a fancy appeal. I could wax eloquent about the flower for many more paragraphs. I love it. I love it every day it flowers, and I love it every year more and more. It has powerfully fertile pollen, and while the pods can be difficult, they are possible. I have a lot of great seedlings in the pipeline from this flower, which I consider to be a breakthrough in my program, and I consider it, along with The World Tree, to be the first introductions from my program to fulfill my original vision when I started. I have a ton of pictures of Venus On The Half Shell. I can't pass by it on any given day without snapping a few. Below are a few of my favorites from over the years to give you more insight into how it looks in real life, something I think a single photo pf a single flower can't really do efficiently.
%2020230630_((AE%20X%20BALIWAT)%20X%20COOLER%20THAN%20ME)%20X%20SUN%20DRAGON))%20X%20(ASTRAEA%20X%20SUN%20DRAGON))%20AFTER%20HEAVY%20STORMS%20AND%20RAIN%20NIGHT%20BEFORE%20111%20copy.jpg "Venus On The Half Shell - clump - Hybridizing garden")
%2020230630_((AE%20X%20BALIWAT)%20X%20COOLER%20THAN%20ME)%20X%20SUN%20DRAGON))%20X%20(ASTRAEA%20X%20SUN%20DRAGON))%20AFTER%20HEAVY%20STORMS%20AND%20RAIN%20NIGHT%20BEFORE%20111111.jpg "Venus On The Half Shell - unusual form flower")
