Heart Of The Quasar

Heart Of The Quasar

(Sdlg# EHSD3)

2020 - Reeder - Diploid -

Endless Heart x Sharon's Delight -

30" scape - 4.5" flower - 3 branches - 15 buds - Midseason - Rebloom - Dormant

Flat flower with deep red petals, green throat merging into bright, fiery orange-red section below a black-red eye.

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Heart Of The Quasar is a lovely flower, with petals of a deep and mysterious red above the darker eye and the bright glowing orange-red radiating outward into the black-red eye from the green and golden throat. The effect is of a glowing eye in an expanse of darkness, like the glowing heart of a quasar in the vastness of space. The parentage is stellar, combining the fine pod parent from Darrel Apps' breeding program with the gorgeous pollen parent from Richard Norris' Substantial Evidence program. The combination of the two parents is perfect, with the flatness of the father combined with the rich red coloring and strong rebloom of both parent lines.

The foliage of Heart Of The Quasar is consistently beautiful, dark green and dormant. It is from my 2011 breeding season and has grown as a large clump that showed no die-out in the center of the clump through 2019, yet the increase is strong. It was extremely rust resistant throughout all five years of my rust resistance screening with a consistent A+ rating. The thrips resistance is also high. Heart Of The Quasar shows excellent breeding value for both rust and thrips resistance, so the lovely flowers look good in the garden throughout its long bloom season.

The clump is an explosion of color throughout its long bloom season. It shows excellent rebloom, with there usually being three rounds of scape in fast succession, and I generally see a fall rebloom cycle as well. It is usually the first frost that puts the rebloom to an end in the fall. You can see in the picture above and below that the instant rebloom scapes are plentiful. The combination of many fine traits - attractive and exotic flat flower, gorgeous deep green plant, strong rebloom, strong dormancy, extremely high rust resistance and high thrips resistance - make for an outstanding garden plant, but it is also a fine breeder, being fertile both ways and an easy and generous pod parent. In my experience, it will set a pod on every flower you pollinate. The seedlings tend to show its fine traits, with lots of intense colors, gorgeous plant habit, flat flower form, rebloom and resistance to pests and disease in the seedling patch.

In the above picture you can see three cycles of scapes emerging. The first are just starting to bloom in this picture, while the second are about half as tall and will start blooming in a couple of weeks, while the youngest are still down in the foliage. As with many of these strong rebloomers, the branching and bud count are not high, but the volume of rebloom more than makes up for that, producing lots of flowers and a long period of flowering in the garden. 

Heart Of The Quasar is a beautiful flower that is a joy to grow, bringing much to the garden and even more to any breeding program. I think my introductions combining the modern, flat flower form with strong rebloom and dormancy opens a whole new door to people interested in these types. Even though most of my introductions in this category are small flowered, they also work very well in breeding for mini flowers.

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Impressionist At Heart

Impressionist At Heart

(Sdlg# EHFH27)

2020 - Reeder - Diploid -

Endless Heart x Frans Hals - 

28" scape - 4.5" flower - 4 branches - 20 buds - Midseason - Rebloom - Dormant

Flat flower, bicolor of golden yellow sepals brushed red and petals rose red with a red band above green to chartreuse throat with white-yellow midribs and petal edges.

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

Impressionist At Heart is a gorgeous flower showing influences from both parents, but exceeding them both in some important ways. With the look of the pollen parent and the form and rebloom of the pod parent, it combines the extremely high rust resistance of both parents with the thrips resistance of the pollen parent, as well as the pollen parent's strong dormancy. The flower is really pretty, bright and eye-catching in the landscape and the plant is attractive and tough. It is extremely fertile both ways and has been a stellar breeder in my program. You can see some of its seedlings toward the end of this page. Impressionist At Heart derives from the very end of the 2012 breeding season and was made in October on the fall rebloom scapes of a potted clump of Endless Heart that I brought into the house to mature the pods, with pollen furnished by a rare fall rebloom scape of Frans Hals. The cross was made because those were the two parents available, just an afterthought. While I love both parents, the cross wasn't part of any plan - pure randomness. The seeds were germinated in the house over the winter of 2013 and so went through the last four years of my rust resistance screening (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016).

The name 'Impressionist At Heart' is to honor both the wonderful pod parent by Darrel Apps, 'Endless Heart', and the illustrious, tried-and-true pollen parent, 'Frans Hals' (Flory - 1955) . 'Frans Hals' is one of my favorite daylilies of all time, and Frans Hals is one of my favorite painters. Unless you have studied art history, you might not see the paintings of Frans Hals as revolutionary, but they were. Frans Hals is the bridge between my all-time-favorite painter, Caravaggio, and my favorite school of painters, the Impressionists. Hals was very influenced by the use of darkness and light to create mood by Caravaggio, and the later impressionists were deeply influenced by Hals' use of light and darkness, as well as his technique of painting. Artble.com says about Hals, "Frans Hals was a revolutionary in the field of portraiture and used his color and paint brush to express ultimate freedom by breaking convention. Famed for his unique painting style and method of capturing light and atmosphere, he went on to influence many emerging artists and inspired the Impressionist movement some 200 years later...(increased) interest in Hals' work came about in the 19th century and his followers were mainly the Impressionists who regarded Hals as one of their predecessors. Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, "What a joy it is to see a Frans Hals, how different it is from the paintings - so many of them - where everything is carefully smoothed out in the same manner." Hals was a unique artist because he did not give a smooth finish to his works as his peers did but instead portrayed the energy of his subject through the use of smears, lines, spots, large patches of color and few details. Hals' revolutionary technique and oeuvre inspired a new artistic style of Impressionism some two centuries later." 
Truly, an Impressionist At Heart...

The flowers of Impressionist At Heart remind me of a Frans Hals painting, with the splashes, lines and large areas of light and dark colors. While it looks very similar to its illustrious pollen parent, Frans Hals, the colors tend to be more in line with the pod parent, Endless Heart. Rather than being orange, red and gold as in Frans Hals, the colors are variations of rose/pink/red/golden yellow/green/cream. The overall effect is similar to the pollen parent, but more refined and more toward a bright pastel palette. The throat starts out very green, fading some through the day, but keeping some green in the throat right to sunset. The flower has excellent texture, great resistance to sun and rain and holds up well in heat, but also opens well after cool nights.

Frans Hals (Flory - 1955)

A very pale look in the early morning after a very cool night. You can see the flower has opened well even after the cool night.

Impressionist At Heart has lovely, dark green, healthy foliage that is dormant and shows good resistance to late spring freezes, as well as rating A+ for rust resistance through the last four years of my screening program. The plant shows extremely good increase and is mildly rhizomatous, with fans spreading a few inches out from the main clump, but not getting rambunctious and taking over its neighbors. In spite of the strong winter dormancy, I have never seen summer dormancy, and Impressionist At Heart is flourishing in zone 8 and zone 9A gardens where I have tested it. It is also flourishing in zone 5. While I have not tested it further north, I suspect it will be quite hardy, as its pollen parent is extremely hardy throughout most of the continent, and the pollen parent is very hardy in the north, as well, in spite of its evergreen foliage.

Impressionist At Heart shows beautiful scapes with four to five branches and twenty or more buds, both on the first round of scapes and the rebloom scapes. I have seen both instant rebloom and late summer/fall rebloom on Impressionist At Heart. At times, it continues to bloom from the time it starts until the first hard freeze puts it down for the winter. Impressionist At Heart creates a strong impact in the garden for a long period.

Impressionist At Heart is not just a good garden plant, though. It is an outstanding breeder for a wide range of great traits. With the gorgeous, bright, open flower, the great plant traits and the very high resistance to both rust and thrips, it has a lot to offer. Impressionist At Heart is extremely fertile both ways, and fertile on each set of scapes. You can produce a large number of seeds on it without causing any negative impact to the plant, and with the many good traits and a large number of seedlings, you can see some really amazing recombination of traits amongst its seedlings. Here are a few examples. Click any picture to enlarge.

Impressionist At Heart x (Frans Hals x Pigment Of Imagination)

Impressionist At Heart x Substantial Princess

Impressionist At Heart x Kaleidoscopic Evidence

Impressionist At Heart x Wabi Sabi

Impressionist At Heart x Wabi Sabi

Impressionist At Heart x (Hint Of Blue x Kermit's Scream)

Impressionist At Heart x Wabi Sabi

The above examples are just a few samples of the amazing array of seedlings I have seen from Impressionist At Heart. I consider it one of the most valuable breeders I have ever produced at the diploid level. All of the seedlings above were tested for rust resistance during the last two years of my screening program and showed A+ ratings both years. In addition to its fine rust resistance and great range of flower traits, Impressionist At Heart also passes its many other fine plant traits - gorgeous foliage, good increase, rebloom, well-branched scapes and high bud counts - to many of it seedlings. Some of its seedlings even combine many or most of Impressionist At Heart's good traits, which has produced some real advances in my program.

The two pictures below are from Robert Anderson of Midnight Gardens Daylilies in Oregon. I sent Impressionist At Heart to Robert to test for me in 2017. The pictures below are from 2019, when it produced several rounds of rebloom and showed the flowers to open very well even after cool nights.

Impressionist At Heart was a real surprise, and a great example of what randomness - chance - can produce. Sometimes crosses you never suspect would make anything superb can be wildly surprising! A lot of those older cultivars still have a lot to offer. Impressionist At Heart is a great example of what is possible. And while it is lovely in the garden, Impressionist At Heart is pure magic in a breeding program.

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Galactic Center

Galactic Center

(Sdlg# NTHPOD22)

2020 - Reeder - Diploid - 

Nowhere To Hide x Pit Of Despair - 

27" scape - 6" flower - 3 branches - 13 buds - Mid-late season - Semi-evergreen

Deep burgundy red with an eye consisting of a black layer above a red layer, above a bright green throat with black veins running from the eye through the petals.

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

The flower of Galactic Center has been a stunner from the first flower. From my 2011 breeding season, this rich burgundy red flower with striking blackish eye and veins above the bright red splashes below the dark eye and above the bright green throat. The form of the flower allows the throat to show on both petals and sepals, making a very eye-catching and refined six-pointed green star. The glowing eye and dark eye create the illusion of a glowing galactic center radiating out into its home galaxy, radiating light out amongst the dark matter. 

The plant has attractive dark green foliage that is semi-evergreen, but shows strong hardiness and good frost tolerance to late freezes, while also flourishing in warm-winter areas. The plant shows extremely high rust resistance, having been rated A+ through all five years of my rust resistance screening program. It also shows very high thrips resistance, especially for such a dark flower. Galactic Center handles division very well, and the plant holds up nicely in the garden in a clump while also showing good increase.

The breeding value is excellent, both for resistance to rust and thrips, as well as for breeding gorgeous and exotic flowers. Both parents of Galactic Center have interesting flower traits, and both derive from excellent family lines and breeding programs. The heavy veins derive from the mother, Nowhere To Hide, and pass well to many of the seedlings, as does the stunning eye pattern. The gorgeous, deep, rich color derives from pollen parent Pit Of Despair.

 Pod Parent Nowhere To Hide

The flower holds up very well in the garden, looking good throughout the day. It can show an interesting fading effect on many days that lightens the background color of the flower and allows the eye and veins to become super-accentuated by the evening. Even though the flower shows this fading effect, it is sunfast, not melting in sun and heat, and shows very good rain resistance.

Evening effect at 8 pm from fading that really makes the contrast pop!

The flower of Galactic Center starts the day quite dark, with the veins less obvious, and the entire flower shows a more purple tone in the early day. By midday, the veins start to become more pronounced and the flower takes on a deep reddish tone. On some days, the day goes on, the flower continues to fade with the veins becoming very pronounced in contrast to the petal color and showing a snakeskin effect. The background color can become an interesting mauve-sand tone, with the eye becoming more narrow and showing veins running through.

A morning picture showing the deeper color with a more purplish tone and less extreme contrast between the petals and veins.

Galactic Center is a striking flower and a wonderful parent, both for exotic flowers and for resistance to rust and thrips. The plant is hardy, and so useful in cold-winter gardens, but with the semi-evergreen foliage, it flourishes in warm-winter gardens and offers southern gardeners an opportunity to both take advantage of it high breeding value for both rust and thrip resistance, while also enjoying the plant in their gardens for many years.

Galactic Center at midday

The effect of the eye and throat forms the green six-pointed star effect that I love so much in daylilies. The veins are a trait I really appreciate, and they are hard to find where they are consistent and pass easily in breeding work. This flower is above an excellent plant and it offers both a beautiful and striking garden display, while also bringing a host of useful heritable traits to any breeding program. While it has never rebloomed in my garden, I do have reports of it reblooming in zone 8, and it has produced reblooming seedlings for me.

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Creepy Weird

Creepy Weird

(Sdlg# APBA47)

2020 - Reeder - Diploid - 

Apophis x Black Armadillo - 

42" scape - 7.5" flower - 5 branches - 22 buds - Midseason - Rebloom - Dormant - Unusual Form (pinched/cascade)

Velvety black and bright burgundy to violet blend, darkest at petal centers with lighter midrib, black eye with fiery red and bluish tones between eye and throat, bluish eye on sepals with bright green throat.

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

Creepy Weird is a stunning, large, dark flower that is alternately beautiful and eerie. There is something very scary about the flower, subtle and suddenly in-your-face, but once the shock of it is over, you are confronted with a large, complex flower. The blend of colors is really striking. Burgundy turning to black, then moving down to the flaming red-orange in the eye, with bluish hints throughout and lining the flaming eye, all above the big green throat. Because of the height it is nice at a distance, but once you get up close, you see lots of complexity and advancement in this one!

Creepy weird is my second introduction from Apophis and it is a nice complement to its half-sibling Vorlon Encounter Suit. Creepy Weird is a bigger flower with more cascading movement and longer, thinner petals than its half-sibling. The scapes are very tall and well branched with a lot of buds and the flowers are almost predatory and carnivorous appearing, hanging on the tall scapes.

Creepy Weird shows strong scapes on a well-established clump, but in the first year or two, the tall scapes can hang out from the clump and occasionally one will fall over. The scapes are stronger in full sun, and more prone to fall in partial shade. A mature clump in full sun has tall straight scapes that hold up very well. The plant has nice foliage, but not stunning - typical spider/UF type foliage, though an improvement over the foliage of the parents. The rust resistance is moderate, ranging from A+ to B through the five years of testing, varying from year to year. I rate it as a 'B' rating (the lowest observed rating), which is still a lot higher than in either parent. The resistance to thrips is moderately high. I was not sure if I would introduce this one or not, but everyone who has seen it in person was excited about it and insisted it should be an introduction, so here it is.

Creepy Weird is very pollen fertile. Pods have been difficult for me, though I have produced a few pods, but nothing to write home about. It produces beautiful seedlings as a pollen parent in unusual forms, a few quite narrow spider forms when bred with thinner partners, and rich, dark colors with complex eyes. I think if this look is what you are into, Creep Weird will be a wonderful addition to your breeding program, just cross it over very fertile pod parents. When I have done that in my program, I have produced offspring that show much better pod fertility.

Creepy Weird is the plant in the center of the above picture. The picture shows the original clump in my aunt's garden where it grew from 2011 through 2018. You can see the attractive foliage and the tall scapes holding up well in the full sun garden. The other pictures herein are from my hybridizing garden, on a division I took off the main clump in 2016, which grows in partial shade. The plant shows excellent increase in both environments and is a beautiful and mysterious addition to the midseason garden, and on through the late garden on the fairly regular rebloom.

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Barbie's Dream Flower

Barbie's Dream Flower

(Sdlg # NPSE9)

2020 - Reeder - Diploid - 
Navajo Princess x Substantial Evidence - 
26" scape - 5" flower - 3 branches - 15 buds - early-midseason - rebloom - semi-evergreen

Flat open flower of deep, bright intense pink above wide green to chartreuse throat.

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

Pretty in pink and many little girl's dream (and a lot of little boy's dream too), who wouldn't want to grow Barbie's Dream Flower? The brightest pink I have produced or grown in diploids, and with stellar parents, Barbie's Dream Flower is a stunning flower in the garden and a fine parent in the hybridizing garden. With nice foliage and moderate increase, this dream of a flower has been more hardy in my garden than its famous mother and has the gorgeous flower form of its famous father, but color intensity and clarity its father can only dream of.

From the 2011 breeding season, this dreamy confection first flowered in 2013. On the first day I saw it, my mouth simply dropped open. It was a major breeder in my diploid breeding work from that point on and has produced many beautiful seedlings in my breeding program. Barbie's Dream Flower shows moderate rust resistance, consistently within the range of B+/B. The thrips resistance is moderately high. It has breeding value for both traits, and I have produced some excellent A+ rust resistant seedlings from it, as well as seedlings with higher thrips resistance. Several seedlings are pictured at the bottom of this page.

Fertile both ways, the breeding value of Barbie's Dream Flower for flower traits is excellent. As you will see in the pictures at the end of the page, it passes its clear color very well and produces a range of tones from near white to all shades of pink and lavender, and it also tends to pass on the big green throat. The semi-evergreen foliage has shown moderate frost tolerance in late spring freezes here in my garden and the plant has never lost a fan here, even in my coldest polar vortex winter cold spells. I have currently only tested it for hardiness into zone 5, where it has survived. With its semi-evergreen foliage and its sometimes tender mother, I am not sure how far north it will flourish, but it has done very well in zones 6, 7, 8 and 9. It may do fine in zones colder than zone 5, but I have no data to go on at this time.

Flower as sunset, holding up well after an extremely hot summer day

The flower shows thick substance, nice texture and holds up well in both sun and rain. By the end of the day the flower will have lightened at the edges of the petals and will have taken on a decidedly bluish-pink tone, with the midribs showing the bluish tone quite strongly at the base as they rise out of the green throat.

Another sunset image, strongly showing the bluish tones and the strong sun resistance of the flower

The striking beauty of the tone and intensity of the color can't be overstated. It is simply astonishing in the garden and can make amazing strides in improving color in a breeding program. Showing rebloom in my garden, it has been a good breeder for rebloom in addition to the other good traits.

Below are some of the seedlings I have raised from Barbie's Dream Flower. Click each image for larger versions of each picture.

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Announcement - New Interview for Paul Lewis

Announcement  

New Interview for Paul Lewis

I recently did an interview for Paul Lewis for his blog, Lewis Daylily Garden. Paul's blog is great reading and I would highly recommend it to all my readers!

As anyone who reads my blog will have already guessed, my interview has run a bit long, and so it will be published in two separate segments. 

The first segment is now published. Click here to read it, and I hope you enjoy!