I spent much of yesterday in the garden. It may still be January but the weather was warm and shorts were in order. Many of the semi-evergreens are now showing their spring growth. Unfortunately, so were many of the weeds.

Neighbors from up the street were walking by and commented that "it won't be long now and your flowers will be in bloom! We always look forward to it". It pleases me that others enjoy my flowers.

Racing The Moon

Today's picture is Racing The Moon (Stamile 2009). It has an appliqué eye which it inherited from Spacecoast Sea Shells.

I've had a couple of inquiries about the name of the cultivar I used in my blog banner. The cultivar is Jessica Lynn Bell hybridized by Tim Bell and registered in 2010. I first saw it blooming in one of the local growers garden in 2012 and was quite taken by it. So I purchased it that fall. It has quickly become one of my favorite daylilies.

Jessica Lynn Bell

It has multiplied well and puts on quite a show.

Yesterday, the weather warmed into the mid 50's with only the slightest breeze so I decided to spray for rust. I'm hoping to get a jump on the problem this year by starting early with preventative sprayings. I usually wait until I start seeing rust before I start spraying but I've heard that's considered too late.

The evergreens are growing nicely with many fans already getting plump and lush. Some of the semi-evergreens are starting their spring growth and I suspect the others will follow soon as the days continue to get longer. Can you tell I'm already starting to get excited about this upcoming bloom season?

Jump Up And Kiss Me

This is Jump Up And Kiss Me (Harry, 2010). It does nicely in my garden with tall well branched scapes. I have not been able to set any seed on it but will bloom some new seedlings this year using its pollen.

With winter in full swing around the US, daylily blooms are probably just a memory. So here's another image to hopefully cheer you up.

This is Barbie's Favorite (Smith-FR 2008). It has been one of my favorites since it first bloomed in my garden. I especially like the double edge.

Barbie's Favorite

This morning it was 34F. I'm waiting until this afternoon to 'play in the garden'. With the cold and rain this year, I haven't been able to spend as much time outside as I'd like. I can't imagine what it must be like to garden in the 'tundra' of the northern states (smile).

Today's image is seedling 15-088, another from this past season's crop. It first bloomed somewhat later than most which was nice because I don't grow a lot of mid-late blooming daylilies. Of course, the maiden bloom season is often not a good indication of when a cultivar will bloom once it has matured and established.

Seedling 15-088

I'm hoping it will warm up enough this afternoon for me to do a little more weeding. I really don't like the cold...

This morning I sprayed insecticide to knock down my winter aphids. They usually show up here sometime within the first couple weeks in January and they were right on schedule. I would rather not spray but a lengthy infestation can do a job on the new foliage and there are never enough ladybugs to keep them in check.

I followed that up with a couple of hours pulling weeds. I can remember when weeding meant removing even the tiniest unwanted weed. Today my goal is to keep the weeds to a reasonable level (smile).

May I Have This Dance

First KnightEdge Of Heaven

Today's image is May I Have This Dance (Jarvis 2006). I had heard that First Knight passed on good vigor to its offspring so I decided to cross it with Edge Of Heaven because I liked the gold edge. The biggest surprise was the 40" scape coming from two parents both of which have 28" scapes.

It's been a while since I posted a picture of anything other than daylilies. This is a Hybiscus that I have growing in a pot placed in one of my daylily beds. Hybiscus are tropical and cannot handle a freeze. In fact, they start to look quite unhappy when the temperatures fall much below 50 F. A short term light freeze will nip the newer growth but a long term or hard freeze can kill the entire plant.

I used to grow lots of Hybiscus but I had to bring them in to my garage every time it was supposed to freeze and take them back out again when it warmed up. Eventually it got to be too much of a chore and I decided I would just leave them outside regardless. That year we had the hardest and longest freeze I've seen in 35 years (figures) and they were all killed. So now I grow a single pot which I can cover if necessary. If it gets clobbered, I just replace it.

Winter continues here with our normal cool but not cold temperatures. The daylilies are looking better after the rust outbreak around Christmas brought on by an unusually warm and lengthy wet period. I'm seeing seeing some new clean rust free growth.

We periodically get one or two warm days and they always tempt me to break out the fertilizer. While the daylilies will benefit from a little fertilizer, I'm concerned that it might encourage a flush of new growth. Daylilies can handle a short term light freeze with no problems but a hard lengthy freeze can really turn the new growth into a mushy mess. So I'm trying to hold off until around Valentines day.

Today's image is Sweet Reverie (Salter 2008). It is one of those edged cultivars with no apparent eye. As is typical with many of the Salter's daylilies, no parentage information was included with the registration.

Sweet Reverie

My brother used to say that cupcakes were nothing more than a delivery mechanism for the frosting on top. Similarly, today's image shows a daylily that I feel is just a delivery mechanism for a great gold edge.

I'm really not a fan of the petal color but the gold edge on FOR AUNT MARIAN makes it a showy bloom nonetheless. Years ago, one of my first heavy edged seedlings was a color close to this. I tried working with it but the muddiness of the color seemed to be a dominant trait and none of the resulting seedlings had good clean color. Of course, I do give up easily (smile).

For Aunt Marian

I thought it might be of interest to post a couple of different cultivars that have the same pollen parent. Both of these Stamile cultivars have Tet. Peppermint Delight as the pollen parent in the cross that produced them.

This would suggest that the roundness of the bloom may come from Tet. Peppermint Delight but I have grown other cultivars that have Tet. Peppermint Delight as a pollen parent like John Hawkins and Bart Roberts and they didn't exhibit the same round form.

In fairness, the blooms are not always this round but most cultivars are never even close to round.

The cross for Sir Francis Drake is (Morning Colors × Tet. Peppermint Delight) while the cross for Robert Searles is (Aragon × Tet. Peppermint Delight)

Today I thought I'd post another 2015 seedling picture. This is 15-028. It has a shorter scape than I like (22") and only has a 5" bloom. But it looks like it may be a good performer because the branching and bud count were above average for the first year bloom.

It's difficult to anticipate what a seedling will do once it gets established. A good bud count is the most common measure that hybridizers look for in a new seedling, but a seedling with a lower bud count that multiplies well and repeats several times during the season can often put on as good or better overall show than a slow multiplier with only a single repeat. I'm always happy with something in the middle - multiple repeats with a better than average bud count.

Seedling 15-028

Mississsippi MementoParrot Jungle

Here's wishing everyone a happy new year. I hope you are as excited about the possibilities for 2016 as I am.

2015 turned out to be a very wet year in here in Houston. A little over 70" of rain fell making this the 5th wettest year since they began keeping records. Of course, the daylilies loved it. The long range prediction is for a wet spring which should make for a great bloom season this year.

Today I finished my spring yard sale web page. This one day sale is how I support my daylily hobby or should I say my daylily addiction... (smile). When I started 20+ years ago, I used to put out signs along nearby streets to let everyone know about the sale. Today however, all that's needed is to post pictures of what I'm be selling on my website. In case you're interested, here's a link to my yard sale page Yard Sale

Today's image is Gina Jarvis (Jarvis 2015). The parentage is (Regal Fantasy x Blue Eyed Angel).

Here's hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas day yesterday. It was unusually warm here in Houston, beating the previous highest Christmas day temperature on record by 3 degrees. 83F with high humidity just didn't seem right.

The upside to a warmer than usual December has been some great daylily growth. I'm hoping that translates into a super bloom season. The downside however has been an unexpected flush of rust in the garden. It's supposed to be cold again next week and that should put a halt to the outbreak.

Today's image is HAPPY HAPPY (Smith-FR 2008). The blooms in my garden were typically in the 5" to 5.5" range. While it's registered at 6", I never saw it reach that size even after two seasons. Still, the bloom is great and always seems to open flat and round.

I finished transplanting all the marked seedlings I have room for into the evaluation bed today. I still have about 20 or so flagged seedlings that I don't have room to transplant. I always like to flag more than I have room for just in case I have losses during the heat of the summer. I also updated my Access database adding all the seedlings that I transplanted along with their new locations and pictures.

Today's image is FEATURING THE GOLD (Petit 2008). The heavy gold edge can make for a truely stunning bloom when it opens properly but unfortunately, like so many heavy edges, it tends to hang more than I'd like.

The weekend is finally here and it looks like the weather will be perfect for working in the garden. I still have about 20 marked seedlings to move to their permanent locations in an evaluation bed but I should get that done tomorrow.

Today's image is CELTIC MOONGLOW (Jarvis 2014). In the evaluation bed, this seedling did well especially considering it was constantly competing with roots from a nearby Crepe Myrtle. I moved it to a pot a couple of years ago and it has done even better without the root competition. It received a purple award in our club flower show this past spring.

The parentage for CELTIC MOONGLOW is [(Victorian Lace x J.T. Davis) X May I Have This Dance].

Seedling 15-090 (pictured below) caught my eye because of the clear golden yellow color set off by the bright red eye and edge. Another of my flagged seedlings from this past season, it's too new to claim any other notable traits. Bloom was only 5.5" and bud count was average for first year bloom.

It's always great when a brand new seedling has many good daylily traits but typically, that doesn't happen a lot of the time because I grow my new seedlings very close together to maximize the small amount of space I have available. But I have found that some of what I look for in a seedling (20+ bud count, ample branching, & good foliage) often shows up after the plant has been moved to a good garden spot and allowed to get established, especially if the parents have good traits.

Seedling 15-090

Dragon KnifeBella Vita

I've been told by quite a few of my blog visitors that they come for the pictures. With few daylilies blooming right now I thought I'd try and post more often, just so there will be plenty of pictures to enjoy while our gardens are resting.

This is a picture of APPROACH TO DRAMATICS (Salter 2009). While I like the bloom, it didn't fit very well into my hybridizing because the bloom is fairly small. So I will be selling it in my spring yard sale. It's registered at 5" but typical blooms were a little smaller in my garden.

APPROACH TO DRAMATICS

I entered APPROACH TO DRAMATICS in my local club's daylily show last spring. Not only did it receive a purple award, there were lots of positive comments from show attendees. It is quite showy especially in a clump.

When I make a cross I am always hoping for some measure of success. That success can be some level of achieving what I was trying for in the cross. Based on that, seedling 15-034 below was at least partially successful.

The pod parent of this cross was MAY I HAVE THIS DANCE, a cream with a bubbly gold edge. When established this cultivar has a 40" scape with 5-way branching and 30 buds. To me its main drawback is that it doesn't have a particularly heavy edge, something I like.

The pollen parent was WONDER OF IT ALL, a very pretty pale lavender bloom with a ruffled gold edge. I find that this cultivar performs very well but the blooms are at best just above the foliage and sometimes they are a little down in the foliage. They also tend to hang when opening when the mornings are cool.

The objective of this cross was to produce a large flower that opened flat and had a nice heavy ruffled edge on a daylily with tall well branched scapes.

While it's still too early to know how it will turn out in the long run, it seems from the first year bloom like I have achieved at least some of my objective. The blooms are 6" and they open flat most of the time. The scape is around 36" and has a decent bud count for the first year bloom. The branching wasn't up to par but sometimes that's just because it's the first year bloom.

Seedling 15-034

May I Have This DanceWonder Of It All

It has been quite a while since I've posted. That doesn't mean I haven't been busy in the garden. Quite the contrary actually. I have dug and potted all the plants for my 2016 annual daylily yard sale. I have also started transplanting the newly flagged seedlings into their new homes so they can be evaluated. So far I have only had time to transplant the ones that are going into my pot garden. I still have a couple of dozen that will be relocating to the front beds.

I was very pleased that I only lost one marked seedling over the course of the summer. The number of losses in this particular seedling bed has varied widely over the past several years from several plants to a couple of dozen. I added a fair amount of expanded shale some years ago and while the quality of the plants and bloom improved noticeably, the number of lost plants during the summers increased especially the first couple of years after I added the expanded shale. I still don't know if there was any correlation. This is the first year that losses seem to have gotten back to normal.

Seedling 15-010

Seedling 15-010 pictured above is the only flagged seedling I lost this year. I flagged it because I liked the clean pink color with the bright red eye that set off a vivid green throat. The bud count was better than average for first year bloom. But that's the way it goes with hybridizing. You win some and you lose some. If everything was a winner and there were no setbacks, there wouldn't be any challenge and challenge is part of the fun!