Another challenge we face in our patterned daylily program is having dormant plants to work with to maintain hardiness in our climate. Patterned breeders like Luddy Lambertson and Ted Petit produce wonderful flowers but are evergreens bred in Florida. Jamie Gossard is a northern hybridizer but has produced many evergreens as well by using Elizabeth Salter’s converted evergreen diploids. Northern hybridizers need a larger base of dormant tetraploids – they will come – Jamie has produced some and we have as well. Our breeding program in patterns started with Destined to See and a few others and we did get some dormants with it. As we see from the lengthy crosses, it is taking many years to get some decent dormant patterned daylilies. Hybridizing is often a lesson in patience.Â
Seedling 146-2Â – Secret Ambition x [(August Wedding x Destined to See)x Spring of Living Water] – Nice eye and triple edge.
Seedling 166-3 – Swallowtail Butterfly x [(Delta Blues x Destined to See) x Heavens Proclaim] – Nice petal width and clear petal color.
Seedling 169-1 [(Grace Like Rain x (Monterrey Jack x Clarification)] x [(Picotee Glamour x Light of the World) x Arnold’s Daughter] – Nice double edge and patterned eye -good opener.
You can see from all these crosses that there were a lot of seedlings we used as bridge plants that never made the cut for introduction. Hopefully some of these seedlings are getting close to being potential introductions.