Cool!

I'm pretty new to DL myself. Murphy's 2007 intro (Eli Murphy) was the first really tall DL that I had heard of. How exciting to know there are others out there- and my favorite--vintage!

What's the cultivar name?

Have you found it in the AHS online database? That is the best source for validating the information.

Have you looked for it at Valley of the Daylilies? He's got one of the best selections of oldies around. I did see one 60" named Joy Russell (Russell '42) on his price list.

Here is a link that might be useful: Valley of the Daylilies

I have looked for Hamblins plants and have not been able to find any. They all had H. altissima in them. There are 3 that are available CHALLENGER, STATUESQUE, and AUTUMN MINARET (often sold as H. altissima). I have all 3 and they have all hit over 5 feet tall here, but next year I expect they wil all really preform since it will be the 3rd year for all of them here.

A lot of Hamblins plants are altissima X HYPERION or "RED FULVA". I just got altissima last spring, it flowered, I pollinated, and have many seeds. I used LIGHTS OF DETROIT, PRAGUE SPRING, SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE, PARADE OF PEACOCKS, and SILOAM FRISBEE.

I have 'Autumn Minaret,' and it's a great garden plant. It bloomed for a long time this fall, at 5-6 feet. I've found that it doesn't set pods well for me. I know that Bloomingfield Farms in Vermont has a good selection of oldies, including 'Challenger' and AM. I also have 'Hyperion,' and another taller oldie, 'Golden Chimes.' They are very nice plants at the back of a border.

{{gwi:361851}}
You can see 'Autumn Minaret' behind the Shasta daisies and cannas in the middle left of the picture. I have 'Golden Chimes' and 'Hyperion' in that same area, but they're done blooming in this late August picture.

Laurel

Ned Roberts tried to find some of Hamblins cultivars a few years ago. As far as I know he had not found them.
Joe

Wow, I have Autumn Minaret, but mine is only about 4' tall. Wonder why, I would like for it to be taller.

Thanks for the responses everyone! I really like the idea of some very tall daylilies in my garden, and since you all have gotten me interested in hybridizing, I would like to cross for some tall beauties as well. This was a lot of good information-thanks so much! I will check out Valley of the Daylilies and Bloomingfield farms.

Bambi too, sounds like some fun crosses. I would love to see what you end up with!

Thanks everyone. Jodi

I just checked Bloomingfield's list- they have all 3!

Or at least they did until all of us went out to order them...LOL

You all keep talking and I may get interested in hybridizing too. Right now I've just been happy to order some lovely DL for my mixed borders.

I can hardly wait to see what you all come up with breeding these tall ones!

Here is a link that might be useful: Bloomingfields Farm DL list

I am looking for tall spatulate spiders, next year I will use more traditional spiders with altissima.

Looking at Hamblins intros on Tinkers, it looks like altissima passes on its height well. Its a sahme none can be found, and I spent hours looking. There is a Hamblin in the AHS, they are the Secretary for one of the Regions (I think it was Secretary), I e-mailed them asking if they were related and never received an answer.

I have been using STATUESQUE, CHALLENGER, and AUTUMN MINARET for a couple of years, I should bloom seedlings with them as parents next year. AUTUMN MINARET will occasionally set pods the other two are easier. I purchased JOY RUSSELL from Valley Of The Daylilys this past spring, DAN sends GREAT plants, and really nice Bonuses. Its worth ordering from him just for the Bonus!

I had time for some research last night.

STATUESQUE, CHALLENGER, and AUTUMN MINARET are listed in AHS db as Stout intro's. These are the ones I found at Bloomingfields Farm.

Hamblin has 22 intros listed in the AHS db. All are very tall. None are listed at Bloomingfields Farm or VOTDL.

They are:
Altitude Hamblin 1951 72"
Cloudy Sky Hamblin 1951 72"
Cyclone Hamblin 1951 72"
Daylight Hamblin 1951 60"
Dogstar Hamblin 1951 72"
Dreamcloud Hamblin 1951 72"
Dreamlight Hamblin 1951 84"
Grey Hamblin 1951 84"
Highlight Hamblin 1951 96"
Late Sun Hamblin 1951 84"
Lunal Light Hamblin 1951 72"
Morning Red Hamblin 1941 72" (note this date may be a typo in the db?)
Opal Light Hamblin 1951 72"
September Sun Hamblin 1951 72"
Stormy Dawn Hamblin 1951 72"
Stormy Wind Hamblin 1951 72"
Sun Halo Hamblin 1951 84"
Sundog Hamblin 1951 72"
Supersonic Hamblin 1951 84"
Thunderstorm Hamblin 1951 72"
Tornado Hamblin 1951 72"
Wishing Star Hamblin 1951 72"

Thanks for all the info and research! I find this all really interesting and I am glad at least a couple of you do too. Something interesting to look into during the long, and apparently snowy winter!

Jodi

Good information on an interesting topic. I'd like to try some of these taller varieties up here.

OT, laurelin, is that a fieldstone fireplace or grotto in the corner of your yard? Did you build it or know the history? Do you have a close-up picture?

Thanks very much.

If you like the spidery types you should read this article by Brian Mahieu "Breeding for Tall Daylilies" http://www.brianmahieu.com/tall_hems.html
Check out RNVALDUR ! I have this one on order.
Dan Bachman also has a very tall seedling that he needs to polinate with a step ladder. It's under dip seedlings , half way down this page. http://www.valleyofthedaylilies.com/selected_dip_seedlings.htm
Joe

I love those Maheiu intros also, Joe. Here's an active link to make it easier for others to see them. :)
Jan

Here is a link that might be useful: Brian Mahieu intros

Wow, those Maheiu intro's and future intro's are gorgeous!
The article was facinating too.

I'm really excited now that I ordered Persian Pattern for next spring. I can see it's influence in many of his intros.

Thanks for sharing.

Mahieu's daylilies are fantastic, thanks for the link. Now I have to think of where I could put more tall daylilies, lol. I'm running out of room!

Laurel

I don't like to say anything bad but I ordered from Valley of the Daylilies this past fall and the daylilies were awful. Very very small single fan if you'd call it that.
I emailed and asked about it and they told me they were in a drought and so the daylilies were not doing good.
If I had a daylily farm and was selling daylilies I would not have sold any for that year, it least warning the person buying them that they are not doing good.
Believe me the fans were like a green onion in size and some smaller :(
Luckly they are doing ok but it may take a few years before I see any blooms on them allowing them to mature.

There was a post here by Brian Maheiu earlier, but he listed his own Web site and it was deleted, which means someone probably complained. As far as I know, and I have been coming here for years it was his first post here.

Mike and Barb,
Contact Dan in the spring, and I am sure he will replace the plants if you are unhappy. He is that kind of person, as far as that goes contact him now.

The fall is really a bad time to order plants from northern gardens anyway, many of them are beginning to decline from the weather anyway. I have plants that die down to the ground in late August. At the same time it is the only time for us up north to purchase plants from the rust belt. I bought 2 last year from down south for spring arrival, and will never do that again, 1 showed signs of having had rust, and you could see the scars from the pustules, the other caused me to spray from June through August in parts of the garden.

Another thing to consider it the plant its self. Plants like CLEOPATRA, and INDIAN SKY along with a bunch of others DO NOT make very large fans.

I got an order from Dan in May, and the stuff was nice, most of it bloomed here last summer.

Anyway none of that has anything to do with the topic. Brian commented on how H. citrina worked out better for him in his program for taller scapes, because the scapes were heavier than those with H. altissima which he said were "willowy". I have been using H. citrina as well as H. thungbergii, and H. hakuunensis which is very nicely branched.

Brian also commented on how he was also intrigued with Hamblins introductions but had never seen any, and that he was probably going to do the altissima x HYPERION cross himself. He listed HYPERION and some other plants as ones he picked out early on to use in his program. I am sorry I do not remember which other plants he listed, I just skimmed the post quickly, and ment to come back later and take some notes.

Last but not least there will be an article with color photos by Brian in the Winter AHS Journal. I hope he has not been banned from here for his mistake. Brian, try Tinkers. If you want a Membership, I will give you a year.

Dear Bambi,
Thanks for the post above. I actually contacted the list owners about my post. I was horrified when I read that if one has a "dot com" website that they are considered a business, and thus any links in a post would be considered advertizing. Though my site is strictly informational (I don't have a sales garden or sell my plants) and my link was to an informational article, I wanted to play by the rules and I reported my post.
Anyway, I would really like to participate here, and I have a lot to offer but I won't ever be able to give any links to my articles. I love helping beginning hybridizers out, as I have been helped by so many, and I regularly mentor quite a few people who have contacted me.

Regarding infertility with cultivars like Autumn Minaret. These are altissima-based plants. Altissima is a nocturnal daylily, and the bulk of my hybridizing program is based on nocturnal cultivars and species, most notably H. citrina. I know from experience, that many times nocturnal based plants (even if they have diurnal anthesis (day blooming habit) may need to be pollinated at night to get pod set.) Often when mixing diurnal and nocturnal lines one gets a plant in which all the reproductive hardware is not in sync. You may have seen daylilies that will poke a pistil out late in the day, and maybe the pistil is wet with stigmatic fluid. This is when this daylily wants to be pollinated! Sometimes a daylily will be open (say in the morning) but the pistil is not receptive until later in the day. I do about half my hybridizing at night with a headlamp. it is a magical time to be out working, and the pod-set is incredible. Please try it, especially with nocturnal-based lines of breeding like the daylilies of Frank Childs, John Lambert or me. of my 40 registrations this year 38 are nocturnal extended bloomers. This means that they open at night and are generally open 24 hrs.

more in a minute! Brian

Here are some early cultivars that involve H citrina. Note that HYPERION is here, and it was used by Hamblin to get those really tall ones. I would encourage lots of people to reproduce those 2 crossed Hamblin made to get all those tall plants (H altissima X Hyperion) and (H altissima X fulva red form). I don't know what the "red form" of H fulva is. I would try to use a red H. f rosea plant. There are many early rosea seedlings that are red, look for a tall one :-) That is one big problem with the Daylily registry, there is no way to identify particular clones of a species. H fulva rosea is just supposed to be H f. rosea. NOT! These plants are from freely interbreeding (open pollenated) populations, and just like siblings every one is different...There are probably amazing clones of rosea, citrina etc. waiting to be discovered in Asia now...

Stout did give names to some of the early rosea seedlings he had from China, and he intermated them and named those. Two such plants that bear attention are H f. Rosalind, and Jenny Love. I feel it is critical to cross the fulva tribe with branched nocturnals as (in my opinion) fulva is responsible for ratty foliage (tendancy to go summer dormant, think of H f. Europa...) and lack of branching. In my experience nocturnals, especially citrina give beautiful, disease resistant foliage, of deep blue green.

Though many have used H. altissima and its progeny to breed for height I have had much more success and experience using H citrina. In my experience H altissima-based plants have more willowy scapes and my H. citrina based seedlings are giving heights to 78" or more with much thicker scapes. It seems to me that H citrina will give larger bloom sizes too. H citrina based cultivars (with scape heights) found in the parentage of many early daylilies include:

Ophir 50", Golden West 48", Sir Michael Foster 48", Hyperion 40" and Yellowstone 36".

I looked for these foundation stock plants when I was researching plants to start my program with. Many plants in my tall lines trace ancestry back to H citrina via these classic foundation plants.

happy gardening! Brian Mahieu

Well Brian, thanks for the e-mail (I will answer it tomorrow), and coming back and posting again.

You might as well know that your web site oh probably 8 to 10 years ago got me interested in using species to reinvent the wheel. Finding good clean, pure stock is the hardest part. I got AUTUMN MINARET 4 or 5 times as altissima, which I just finally got from Darrel Apps before he closed up and sold out.

I am also working with H. fulva "Korean" with Tetraploid pollen, it is very fertile that way, nearly every try sets pods and gets seed, and H. fulva Europa with TET pollen. Last year (2006) I set one pod and got 4 seeds for my effort, this year I got 7 pods and a total of 21 seeds! I did literally hundreds of crosses this past summer, I just pollinated every bloom when I was finished with the rest of the garden with what ever tickled my fancy. The project is intended to try and produce better Tet spiders with new sets of genes. They should also increase well. Next year I'll also hit the neighbors clump too. In 2006 it was just to see if it would work, and I almost gave up. The bad part is, I didn't mark a single bloom with the pollen parent. Usually by the time I got to that point I was hot, tired, and ready for lunch.

I will keep in mind trying to pollinate AUTUMN MINARET at night next year THANKS for the tip, of the three talls I mentioned earlier, it is closest to a spider. You are right to the garden is a different place after dark what with the bats flying around and the different moths and other insects. I did find out fast that if you want pollen from Nocturnals, you have to save it or there will be none in the morning.

My yard is surrounded by privacy fence, I have had some very bad neighbors, and I just hve this vision of layers of height from the fence out to the border , but there are not enough really tall plants unless you like sunflowers, or Castor beans. The Castor beans scare me because they are so toxic and sunflowers bring the squirrels in, which irritates the dog, because she wants to kill them, and the barking makes me crazy.

Dear Bambi_too,

That is just great to hear that my website inspired you to use the species. I think "reinventing the wheel" is a very good idea. One very good reason is that H. minor was in the foundation stock of many or most early hybridizers. If any of you have ever seen H. minor you will know it has 2 to 4 buds per scape scapes that arch out from the clump (horror) and though this is not a fault: tiny fans. I firmly believe that H minor is the culprit in many of the popular lines of breeding that have no branching, and also many lines with small fans.

On small fans, believe it or not, there are people who have never grown diploid daylilies. In other words, they have never seen a daylily with a natural chromosome count, only tetraploids with artificially doubled chromosomes. I think it is important for all daylily growers to see daylily species the way natural selection made them as a frame of reference if nothing else. Once when speaking at a Regional Convention at a northern state I asked for a show of hands of people who grew diploids. There were very, very few, I was amazed! Only the UF and spider fans were growing diploids the rest (vast majority) were growing southern-bred tetraploids. I've got nothing against tetraploids, but back to the frame of reference idea: nature did not make daylilies with fans as big as your wrist! H gracilis (means grassy) has tiny fans maybe a quarter inch wide, and I believe it's a form of H. minor. This is what I mean by "genetically small fans" (I'm not talking about poorly grown fans or immature fans of a particular cultivar.)

H minor was in the foundation stock of Bechtold, and I believe it is behind "Kindly Light". There are about 7 "versions" of KL in the trade,(ie the cultivar was mislabled and thus mixed up in the trade) but the ones I have grown all have small fans (maybe 1/2 inch across). 'Kindly Light' was one of the first prototypical spiders and thus those genes for "small fans" are in the spider gene pool quite a bit. However, lots of species have fans about the size of a human thumb. When I saw the wrist-sized ones I was awestruck, frankly they look a bit monstrous to me...

Ok, I am belaboring the fan-size point, genetically small fans don't bother me, but 4 buds and no branching do! Back to re-inventing the wheel, I think it is a good idea for many reasons, today's hybridizers have much more material to work with (newly discovered species) plus, we can make (modern x species) crosses. And a modern hybridizer will make totally different crosses for totally different reasons than a hybridizer working a hundred years ago. One key difference is that in the early days breeders were trying for ever fuller blooms (wider segments) and ever shorter scapes. So, if one is breeding for spiders or talls the modern gene pool that has been systematically stripped of these genes is of limited use!

The spider definition that Rosemary Whitacre and her committee labored over for 10 years was later changed. I prefer the original, beautifully nuanced definition. Originally, Rosemary wanted a requirement for openness in the center of the bloom, I don't think this made it into the final, but I do prefer that look. Think of flat-faced spatulates like Lambert's "Cerulean Star". I still like openness in the bloom and species with their trumpet forms will not give you that readily. It is critical to cross species and early primary hybrids and historics with flatfaced, open throated flowers to save yourself several decades of work...

There are other reasons for needing to reinvent the wheel too. Some are trying to put branching back into lines of daylilies that have been bred for shorter and shorter scapes for 50 years or more. There is no room on that scape for well-spaced branching, so it is top clustered. I never understood the fixation with 24 inch scapes, and in this instance it is obvious that sometimes nature does get it right :-)

I am going to post this and come back to the idea of making dip x tet crosses using the principle of unreduced gametes.
cheers, Brian

Thanks for all your info Brian, I am truly enjoying it. You've put into words what I've been thinking for sometime, "And a modern hybridizer will make totally different crosses for totally different reasons than a hybridizer working a hundred years ago. " I totally agree. Although I've not been hybridizing for spiders I do make diploid crosses, and I also feel that even those of us breeding tets today, can benefit from using earlier hybrids as opposed to the same "newest" thing going that everyone else is using. There's got to be lots of wonderful older hybrids out there, that's never been used in hybridizing, and who knows where that can lead one.
I appreciate your insights into daylily hybridizing.
Thanks,
Jan

I honestly like all the different forms of Diploids and Tetraploids, I find nothing interesting in a garden that is a round with edges, or one that is just a bunch of spiders. I really have a small backyard garden, and I can't even bring myself to organize the beds by polidy so I can hybridize more efficently.

I have been moving away from Tetraploids some for awhile now. There are a couple of reasons, the first being fertility, it is so much easier to get good numbers of seed out of the Dips, just because they set pods more readily. I also believe that the overall quality of diploids can and will be improved if people work on them. The Shooters are producing some really outstanding ones.

That is interesting about KINDLY LIGHT, I do not own that plant, I have thought about purchasing it many times but never have. After reading about how much it has been used I considered getting it again. I have had oppertunities, and I will look closely at it next summer while I'm out visiting gardens. I belive one place I visit has always had small fans, and the other larger fans.

I like the open look myself, all of the spatulates I used on altissima open wide and flat, I used the same pollen on hakuuensis, and for the most part on both clones of citrina that I have here.

If you read some of the very early daylily journals -- the ones from the early 50s and then continue on into the 60s and 70s, you'll see comments about a daylilies that are considered too tall. You can essentially follow the hybridizers as they labored to reduce scape height. Eventually (I don't recall when, and I've moved all my daylily journals to our new house), hybridizers achieved success! All the daylilies were 24". OK, that's an exaggeration of a sort, but, at some point, you stopped reading about tall daylilies.

Another comment about the early journals (as this is also a comment about the daylilies of the time), there were some FASCINATING sounding intros. I may have to retrieve my journals so that I can post some of the descriptions. Compared with modern daylilies, I'm sure most would be found wanting in terms of color clarity, or branching, or other characteristics. But I sometimes seek out things not widely found any more, whether color combos, or other feature. Sometimes I want a daylily simply because it's rarely grown.

BTW, Brian, no, not all collectors grow only tets. :)

I still buy dips whenever they strike my fancy, and not just SPUFs either. One of my favorites for the last 2 years in a row is a modern round dip by Don Herr, JOLLY GOOD FELLOW. Branching! Bud count! Just a lovely, lovely daylily. Other round dips can be found among George Rasmussen's intros (another huge favorite of mine is his lovely ISLAND GLAMOROUS GUEST). If I think about it, I'm sure I can come up with other hybridizers as well....Ah, here we go: Darrell Apps. He was still introducing dips right up to his retirement last year.

Of course, those aren't SPUFs (with a few exceptions), but IMO they are lovely daylilies to add to a collection.

If you want dips + tall but not necessarily in the form of a SPUF, again -- check out Darrell Apps's intros. He has some that I gave my own term to: "talls and smalls." He calls them his Fresh Air kids, as they are, I believe, all from his FRESH AIR, a 1989 dip. FA is registered as a 2.5" daylily on a 34" scape. Cute! But I don't grow it, as rose red is not a favorite color of mine. I do have his JUSTIN GEORGE, a FA kid not in everyone's favorite color (orange-gold blend).

There are some non-FA from Darrell as well. His LAVENDER MINUTIA is a pretty, real lavender tall and small, tho not from FA as far as I know (and kind of low bud count + top branched).

I plan to put together a little collection of talls and smalls for the back of a border. Maybe I'm once again marching to the step of a different drummer, but I find them charming.

So there. :)

Hi Everyone,

Great to see the interest and excitement here about diploids and tall daylilies, historics, species. That is heartening. I could never "leave diploids" because I can't bear to leave the huge species genepool. I want to be able to back cross a line to H citrina or introduce H yezoensis, H f. sempervirens or H hakuunensis if it needs a shot in the arm of hybrid vigor etc. (Bambi_too, you will get some GREAT things out of hak! It will give clear, intense pinks and purples....)

Famed tetraploid hybridizer and Missourian Oscie Watley gave me a great tip on the phone one day. He said that he believed: "Mutations occur at the diploid level and these are developed [or enhanced] at the tetraploid level." That is as close a direct quote as my brain will permit. At anyrate, he was quite adamant about this. As Bambi_too said it is so much easier to shuffle the genes on the diploid level. When you get something outstanding (and you will) it can then be converted to tetraploid by someone who is working on tets. Or if it produces unreduced gametes you can try its pollen on tets and get those genes to the tet level that way. I absolutely do not believe that tetraploids are better than diploids just because they have twice the chromosomes. And I am not saying either is better, that is an old feud in the AHS that is fruitless. Both offer advantages. For what interests me, diploids offer the greatest variety of plant habit and floral form. And it is simple fact that (converted) diploids are the future of the tetraploid genepool, they always have been. The gorgeous round and ruffled tets of today would not exist if people had not converted the diploids of Spalding, MacMillan and others.

I am very excited about the diploids of Darryl Apps (he was keen on introducing species blood) and the Shooters. I think the more lines going and the more directions going the better. One can get some very wonderful plants by crossing round and ruffled things with spiders/Ufs and these other lines of round diploids provide great potential for that. Early in my breeding program I was doing just that. I was taking the color, color patterens, floral substance etc of round and ruffled plants and crossing them with species or spider/ufs. Trying to get the colors I wanted onto the form I wanted, and this onto the plant I wanted. Actually, I developed the idea of creating "prototype plants" that would have all the plant characteristics I wanted (buds, branching, foliage habit, root structure, etc.) I developed the plant first and then put the flowers on that plant. It is a long road, but beginning to payoff.

many want to get exactly what they want by crossing (A X B)it rarely works out like that. It took me about 10 years to get the plants I wanted to begin to make crosses for the flowers.

Jan: I totally agree with your idea about re-introducing some of the early hybrids. I think this is critical. Lots of the genes of the foundation stock of the daylily were stripped out by decades of breeding for a specific flower form (round and ruffled) and a certain scape height (short.). When spiders became of interest again we had to "go back" to lots of the pre-1970 plants to recover the genes for narrowness. A simple search in the parentage field of the AHS database will reveal plants that have been overused as parents and those that have been underused, if at all. (Unless people used them in secret, or did not publish parentages, as happens all too often)

lynxe: you are exactly right about the old Journals. I was given the entire set, going clear back to 1947. I plan to read them all eventually but they are fascinating reading. It is very interesting to read in the early days people were most concerned about the dayliy as a garden plant. A hardy, carefree garden plant.... that attitude has changed somewhat, perhaps, not to the benefit of the daylily's gardenability. Some early hybridizers were very keen on large flowers on large scale plants and that is refreshing to see. AB Stout was very interested in the daylily as a plant for mixed borders, a specimen plant. One of the main things that struck me about the early Journals is that the daylily was presented as a plant for an open woodland setting, (I think this was an article by Stout.) The ideal sun exposure was considered high shade, part shade or dappled light, not full sun! That is a new concept... I had always heard of daylilies as full sun plants. In my original hybridizing my plants only got 2 hrs. of direct sun, the rest of the day was high shade. They did fine. Probably buds and branching increased in full sun as did rates of increase, but the blooms were gorgeous.

re: unreduced gametes. Dr. Joe Halinar has published the definitive works on the subject at his website. google it. I'm afraid to post links! :-)

cheers, Brian

Now, you people are speaking my language. Not for me the tiny minis. I like my daylilies tall and I want to see them from across the garden. I don't garden in full sun, and I'm glad. I like to be comfortable in my garden, not so hot and sun-blinded I can only see the flowers early in the morning and late in the afternoon. The newest daylily does not attract me. I don't even like the chicken fat edges and triple edges, etc. I like the older forms that look like they flow in the wind. My hero is John Lambert - and Brian I love what you have created using some of his intros. Anyway, all you diploid folks keep up the good work! And thanks!!! Denise

Denise,
Thanks for sounding off. John Lambert is my hero too, I like his idea of "breeding for breaks". That was another bit of advice Oscie Whatley gave me. He said, basically the same thing, to breed for a genetic break, something that is not out there. He said not to breed to improve an existing color/form combination. Basically: create something new.

There is a real need for season extenders (extra earlys and very lates) this is one area in which the species really offer a great bonus. My earliest bloomers and my latest bloomers are out of species lines of breeding. H. yezoensis gave seedlings that started blooming April 25 or so (about a month before Stella De Oro here) and reblooming into September. This year I had a seedling out of Volcan Fuego (out of H hakuunensis) and Tangerine Ibis that started blooming the first week of July and was a bud builder, last flower open Oct. 19! It was a beautiful intense orange cascade too. Next year I hope to introduce some of the exciting things out of H f. sempervirens (a bud builder that will bloom till frost when happy.) This is another species that is basically unrepresented in the modern daylily genepool.

Regarding the incredibly ornate "chicken fat" edges etc. Yes, my taste runs more to Art Nouveau rather than Victorian or Rococo. I feel many of the super-ornate ones that people are absolutely gaga over are amazing in photos and on a show bench, but I don't feel they blend especially well in a garden setting with other perennials. Again, this is my opinion, and my taste. It is a wide, wide world and lots of room for all of us. Still, my focus has been to create plants for mixed borders, in a garden setting with other perennials and woody ornamentals. So, the open, sculptural forms seem to lend themselves to this. I participate in a Swedish gardening forum, and their gardening aesthetic is much more in line with mine than much of the prevailing American taste. Over there, I'm told the daylily must be content to be in a border with other perennials. This is also closer to the early attitudes in the AHS when it was founded. I'm not saying this is right or correct, mind you but it is just a different view of the genus Hemerocallis.

And the great thing about our genus is that it is very malleable, and it can be sculpted to fit most anybody's idea of what a beautiful daylily is! Go Team! :-)

Brian

Wow, Brian, thanks for all the information - I'll have to bookmark this and come back to digest it all. Thank you especially for the tip about pollinating 'Autumn Minaret' at night. I'll try that this year. I've tried pollinating it during the day for the past two years, with no success. It did set a few empty, small pods that withered without producing seeds. I would love to breed a tall, graceful, mini-flowerd creamy-white daylily.

I like the taller daylilies more the longer I grow them. I have about 3/4 dips and 1/4 tets in my yard (maybe even more skewed to dips than that), and I'm definitely interested in working with them as I try to hybridize. I am an ultra-novice hybridizer, so I'll be happy to learn from you and the others here who have been crossing daylilies for a while. My first seedling (oddly enough, a tet) bloomed this year, and I'm hooked. I love using my daylilies in mixed borders, and I like the look of the taller, more willowy ones at the back of the garden. Oh, the gardens I can imagine with tall waves of daylilies in many colors, mixed with other wonderful plants. . . .

Laurel

What a wonderful conversation. I have learned so much by reading it. Although I'm not (yet anyway) a hybridizer and am pretty new to DL, I've fallen in love with them rather quickly and can only imagine how rewarding it might be to actually make that first cross. I do work in R&D for a large corp so I guess I can relate and find facination in developing any new "product".

Brian, thank you for dropping in to share your wealth of information and your passion. You know, the rest of us don't "own" your site so perhaps you could e:mail a link to your articles to one of us and we could post it for you? I believe that's well within the rules of the board since we often share commercial sites (that we don't own) with one another.

I don't have much time tonight, but I can make a few comments.

Most people don't like Tall and Small, they want a plant that is tailored.

The main reason I was so interested in working with altissima was, the height, and the late bloom season. I am also working with some Really early opening species, and I can laugh now but duplicated the cross that produce APRICOT, and that is like using a time machine.

I really do like the plant habit of hakuuensis, it has good branching and bud count (not as good as multiflora, but what does) fairly tall scapes, is as fertile as any
other daylily I have. The foliage is nice as well. I am hoping for something really special out of the seed with INDIAN SKY as the pollen parent.

I have not done much with multiflora yet, it blooms late. I saved as much pollen as possible this past year so I will have plenty to scatter next summer. I have yet to remember to take a photo of it!

Brian,
I wanted to ask you about your use of Persian Pattern in your program. I was pleased to see that you were using it because I recently ordered this plant. I purchased it just because I like oldies and thought it is a beautiful flower. What attributes were you looking for it to bring into your program and did it bring what you hoped for?

All:
Links to a couple of Brian's very informative articles on breeding for talls:
viking
citrina

Bluegrass is currently holding a special on some of Brian's intros that have increased well. Brian says PACK HUNTER and ROYAL FLYCATCHER have both been key to height, producing offspring in the 7' range.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bluegrass Gardens

If you're interested in seeking out tall daylilies, try a database search. The American Hemerocallis Society has one; here's a link to a search on characteristics, one choice of which is height:

http://www.daylilydatabase.org/searches/description.asp

Speaking of which, give some thought to joining the AHS. Good journal, great meetings, you get to meet wonderful people who won't be bored to tears while you yammer on about daylilies (like all your family and friends are LOL), participate in robins, etc.

Another database is here: http://db.tinkersgardens.com/
To do a search for daylilies of particular heights, you'll need to do a custom search, from here:

http://db.tinkersgardens.com/?script=4

"Most people don't like Tall and Small, they want a plant that is tailored."

I'm not most people. :)

Seriously, they have role in the garden IMO, holding up their part of the backs of borders. To my eyes, the small flowers on their tall scapes are charming and graceful. They are not dramatic, and you won't go running across a lawn yelling, "Wow! What's THAT blooming over there!" If you're a hybridizer looking to produce 10" spiders or something like that, they won't be your cup of tea. But they are pretty, and they can add a different look to a daylily collection.

I hope I haven't given the impression that these are the only types of daylilies I like: tall, short, singles, doubles, old-fashioned (er....make that "tailored"), new-fangled ruffles ribbons and bows....I like 'em all....

which partly explains why we're moving from this charming borough out into the country. I've been out of room in the garden for over a year now, but I'm still buyiing daylilies!

Bambi_too,
Indian Sky has fascinated me. It is in my lines via Couturier's "Quirky", thus behind"William Mahieu" and some of my new ones like "Phantom Energy" and 'Death Adder'. Do you have a pic of 'Indian Sky"? I'd love to see it.

H hakuunensis (I use "clone #2 from Coburg Planting Fields, 6x branching 60 buds) is a great parent. It will give large fans and foliage of up to 2 inches wide! When I registered 'Volcan Fuego' in 2003 it was one of only two daylilies with H hakuunensis listed in the parentage. I think Hak. is one of those species that definitely needs exploring. It gives up it's orange color very readily which surprised me. H yezoensis (a small pale lemon yellow EE) does not give up it's yellow readily, and that also surprised me. Out of H hakuunensis I have almost all daylily colors from clear pale pinks, purples, lavenders and screaming oranges. And the plant habit and vigor is great. A grower in Sweden said of 'Volcan Fuego' it is "dangerously close to a weed". Another thing that H hak. gives is foliage that is a nice lime-chartreuse color. Not the deep blue-green that citrina gives (and that I love) but a healthy chartreuse green that makes me think of some hosta foliage. This foliage color is a nice foil for purples, lavenders and fuchsia pinks especially (being more yellow and thus more complimentary to the purple hues) I also love it with the screaming orange color of 'Volcan Fuego', it really pops.

Regarding H. multiflora, in my article in the Journal I talk about this species. The clones I have grown have very thin scapes that lean out from the clump, especially if not grown in full sun. Seedlings out of multiflora I grew had the same issue, and thus I abandoned those lines of breeding. Please don't let this discourage you, your crosses will be totally different than mine. I only offer it as a cautionary tale. I would only cross H multiflora with plants with very upright, thick and well branched scapes. I think some of the wonderful branching in the Siloam daylilies comes from multiflora, though I bet she felt the scapes were too tall. (I'm thinking of 'Siloam Virginia Henson', unless I'm mis-remembering, have not had it in my garden for years).

gotta run, brian

INDIAN SKY is short, has rather thin scapes but they do stand up by themselves, small fans. I treat its pollen like gold.

Please forgive me, I am very busy today. I will try and post again later.

* Posted by berrytea4me Z5 CO (My Page) on
Wed, Dec 12, 07 at 9:23

Brian,
I wanted to ask you about your use of Persian Pattern in your program. I was pleased to see that you were using it because I recently ordered this plant. I purchased it just because I like oldies and thought it is a beautiful flower. What attributes were you looking for it to bring into your program and did it bring what you hoped for?
+++

Thanks for looking at my site and glad you liked the articles. Regarding 'Persian Pattern', it has been a great parent. When I saw it blooming for the first time in the Whitacres' garden I was blown away by its statuesque habit, great branching and flowers. But what really struck me was the scale of the plant. I can tell you that based on my experience with H citrina (I have made over 1,300 crosses involving citrina) 'Persian Pattern' is definitely out of citrina. The hybridizer did not list the parentage, but it was registered as 'ext" this means it has noc heritage behind it. There is no doubt in my mind that citrina is in there. In scanning my database for the progeny of 'Persian Pattern' and looking at the photos and stats, it is clear that 'Persian Pattern' seems to be dominant for a chevron eye pattern, and height. Mostly what I was looking for from it was the plant stature, and I definitely got that. And I have seedlings in every color from it, but these are complex crosses of several generations, so other parents contributed too. Rognvaldur's (70 inches tall) parentage is: [H citrina X ROSY LIGHTS]X[PERSIAN PATTERN].

Bambi_too, thanks for the awesome pic of 'Indian Sky', I love it! I have seen that very eye pattern, with the dark eye bleeding out onto the petal edges in a 'W' shape in my lines, and now I know it came from 'Indian Sky'. Great!

cheers, Brian

* Posted by lynxe z6B/PA (My Page) on
Wed, Dec 12, 07 at 11:21

"Most people don't like Tall and Small, they want a plant that is tailored."

Seriously, they have role in the garden IMO, holding up their part of the backs of borders. To my eyes, the small flowers on their tall scapes are charming and graceful. They are not dramatic, and you won't go running across a lawn yelling, "Wow! What's THAT blooming over there!" If you're a hybridizer looking to produce 10" spiders or something like that, they won't be your cup of tea. But they are pretty, and they can add a different look to a daylily collection.

+++
Dear Lynxe,
Great comments you made above! I meant to comment when you posted, but the last 2 days have been horridly hectic. I am one of those hybridizers breeding for the 10 inch spider/UFs, but I do love and appreciate the tall and small daylilies. Afterall, tall and small is how natural selection designed tall daylilies! H. altissima and H vespertina (a form of altissima) are the two tallest daylily species, and they have small (maybe 3 to 3.5 inch) "tailored"? blossoms on well branched scapes. They look perfectly natural and in balance to me. Although some people freak out if a small flower is on a tall scape, it looks natural to me, untold eons of natural selection can't be "wrong". :-)

One very interesting thing about H. altissima's scapes and one reason why have not used it directly in my tall lines (though it is behind some of Stout's plants that I used, like 'Challenger')is this: if you follow the scape of H altissima down into the clump and pull it out (after it has dried in the fall) you will see that it narrows down to a flat segment like a piece of strapping tape. And, after the seedpods mature that scape will rotate on this natural hinge and the seeds will scatter 60 inches from the parent clump. This is a perfectly adapted reproductive strategy to scatter the seeds far from the parent clump. However, that hinged scape will give those of us fits who are trying to put huge flowers on it (not the 3 inch ones it was "designed" for). The base of an H. citrina scape has a triangular shape. This is a stable, upright form. Also, H citrina's flowers are quite a bit larger than H altissima. In my breeding program citrina has given larger flowers, and sturdier scapes than H altissima, and that is why I have used citrina so extensively.

As I mentioned above, H altissima is behind some of the Stout cultivars I used as foundation stock: 'Challenger', 'Autumn Minaret', 'Statuesque'etc. Stout had already selected against the willowy and hinged scape traits, so they did not bother me.

Can you explain the adjective "tailored" to me? I have always read that, and it never really made sense to me. Does it mean without a lot of extraneous ruffles etc.? Clean lines?

For those of you who like the tall and small look, and like fragrant, nocturnals please look into H. citrina vespertina. This is a lovely, lovely plant blooms very similar to H altissima, but the height is maybe 30-36 inches, however it is amazingly branched and budded, the scapes are beautifully upright and delicate and have a very "twiggy" look. This plant is radically fertile (pollinate at dusk), fragrant and has given good seedlings.

best to all, Brian

OK, I fell off the "no more until next season" wagon. I ordered the following from Bluegrass' sale on Brian's intro's:

Royal Flycatcher 48'
Bagana 45'
Baitoushan 42'
Jungle Fowl 44'
Volcan Fuego 48'

Several sound like they may increase like weeds and I am all for that given I'm filling in a pretty large new landscape....you may just have me looking into hybridizing sooner than later :)

Lord knows I'm going to be planting like a mad woman come spring- 16 new DL ordered, 12 new Old Garden Roses ordered, 8 new Hardy Chrysanthemum's ordered, 30 or so packets of seed from trades & collecting....and that's before I hit the spring sales at the LGC.

The garden's must be crazy (or maybe it's me- LOL)!

Well, at least my boss just informed me that I'm expecting a decent bonus this year.

The Journal came today, and Brians article is there. I looked it over real quick, I'll settle in later tonight and give it a good reading, IT LOOKS GOOD!!!

Hey bambi-too,

Glad you got the Journal. It was a month in the mail, I had advance copies, but just got the mailed one yesterday. Going to keep that one in the plastic as a memento. I know the article is a long read, (4,000 words plus) but I tried to make it interesting to everyone whether they are hybridizing or not. Some non-daylily people get to the latin names of the species and just quit reading :-( (I have heard this several times...) It really is the story of how I became a hybridizer, as well as a good overview of my program and using species plants as a foundation.

lately I have been busy setting up a blog so I have not had any extra time to post here. Please let me know how you like the article once you finish it.

best to all, Brian

Brian,
We just received our issue of the Journal yesterday and I just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed your article.

Thanks for sharing!

Brian,
I really enjoyed the article. I skimmed it like I usually do, then read it well, then I read it again while taking notes. That had to have been quite a bit of work, and realy gives insight on the work you have done. Like I said in an earlier post you are the one along with Joe Halinar, and Gil Skelter that encouraged and inspired me to try and reinvent the wheel using species in my breeding program. I would say you were very sucessful. I still think that many of the older cultivars still have a lot to offer when used with some of the newer ones.

Cheers,
John