Oh, your set up looks great and how exciting to see the plants growing. I have my seeds soaking in the peroxide/water mix and I'm hoping to see them sprouting soon so I can plant them. Do you put a bunch of the same cross in the same container? (It's a bit hard to tell from the photo).

Here are some I'm excited about:

Wild Irish x velvet onyx
wild Irish x eye Wide shut
Ida's magic x spiny sea urchin
Wild Irish x Jane Mahon
Jerry Nettles x Larry Allen Miller
Pure indulgence x Larry Allen Miller
Linda Sierra x Blue Jean Baby
Lori Goldston x Figi
Violet becomes you x Eyes right jones
Roses in snow x overdrive
Violet becomes you x God save the queen
Artic Lace x Alpine Ruffles
MARY LIGHTFINE X BLUE LAKE
Johnny Cash x Green Revolution
BLUE LAKE x GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
Ed Brown x Tree of Gascone
Spacecoast Dragon Prince X Judy Farquhar

irish_rose_grower- I usually plant between 5 to 7 seeds in each cup. I can put 52 cups on each rack, and there are 3 racks on this fixture. I will usually run out of space on this setup by the end of January and have to start using another older grow light fixture. You have some very interesting crosses. I really love Wild Irish, Linda Sierra, and Johnny Cash....all have produced some wonderful seedlings for me. Blue Lake was exceptional in the garden this year, and I can't wait to see what I get from my crosses with it as a parent.

opnjmprs - thanks for the info on how many per cup. I'm not really sure how I'm going to set mine up. On my grow light stand I can fit the 72 cell seed starter from Burpee and I have 3 racks. But then I'm not sure what to do because once they get big and have to be put into red cups like the ones you have I won't be able to fit them all. And I don't have money for another grow light stand.... Maybe I will not start any more seeds till the spring.

I'm wondering if the soil pellet thing that comes in the seed starter greenhouse is ok to grow daylilys. Do you think it will be ok?

I have to say, Wild Irish is one of my faves and I've heard it makes great kids. I'm wondering how the stamile's (blue lake) do in colder zones, how many stamiles do you have?
thanks
Maureen

Mine are getting their soaking started this weekend. I have so many crosses that I am excited about, but they have been hiding in the fridge for so long that I can't remember them off the top of my head. Will have a list after the weekend though!

Opnjmprs--I am right with you on the ready for more blooms train. It is one of the reasons that I love starting the seeds this time of year. You can tend something that is growing and progressing rather than hiding for the winter. I get so excited about mine that I have to drag DH into the greenhouse when they are just up, and about every week after that to see how they are coming along. He acts excited for me, but I really do think I feel him rolling his eyes behind me when I am not looking. At least he humors me!

Maureen---It may be just me and my technique, but I have had very poor luck starting DL's in the soil pellets. Maybe they just stayed too wet, but I lost most of the ones that I have started that way. Like I said though, could be just me.

Happy Growing!

Julie

irish_rose_grower- I can only comment on what has worked for me. The first comment I have is that DL seedlings seem to need soil depth over width. So while you might be able to get your seeds started in the seed pellets, they couldn't remain in there very long. I have seen people grow way more than 5-7 seedlings in the larger plastic beer cups,and I have done it too, but the nutrient and micro nutrient management becomes much more tricky when you are trying to grow a lot of seedlings in a single cup over a 4 to 5 month period (at least in my experience). Also I think seeds started in the peat pellets are much more prone to damping off when you use the small plastic greenhouse . I have never started daylilies this way, but did start some tomato plants using this method and I had to lift the dome and increase the air circulation when I noticed that several seedlings were showing signs of damping off. Everyone here has there own way of growing out seedlings, so maybe someone else can add to this regarding the use of grow pellets and the smaller tray type greenhouse.

Linda

Julie, thank you very much for the info. In the back of my head I remember someone saying it was not good for starting daylily seeds.

Linda, thank you too. I really appreciate it. I was undecided about using the grow pellets, then I decided it was ok, now I'm definitely not using them.

I will use the big plastic cups with holes in the bottom.
What kind of growing medium do you use?

I was wondering if something like, miracle grow seed starting mix is ok?

Thanks again, I spend way too much money on these seeds to take a chance with the grow pellets.

I can't wait, I'm already starting to get depressed a bit with this cold weather.....these sprouting seeds will definitely make me cheery!

This is the first year I have used the bio sponge to grow my seedlings. I use the 40 count block, it is larger and i'm able to let the seedlings grow longer and is better for transplanting. I grow seedlings year round since i can put tbem outside any time of the year.

started some last September as a test run. they're big now, but will wait till April to be planted outside.

was waiting till January. too excited to wait so will now start soaking this weekend for the next batch.

got most of my seeds from the LA, and am excited about the following:

The Terminator x The Hulk
Forrestlake Ragamuffin x Venue Fly Trap
Carol Todd x Highway Blues
God Save the Queen x Highway Blues
Violet Becomes You x Green Revolution
also, some Wild Irish, Duke of Gascone, Featuring the Gold, Priscilla's Smile and Wonder of it All seeds

using potting mix, which seems to work real well

Bj

Your seedlings look great. I have a few seedlings growing to try and replace those that the rabbits have eaten. I'm just moving mine in and out to the porch, depending on the night temperatures. I bring them in when the weather drops to freezing, like tonight. Our winter weather is so unpredictable -- hot one day, cold the next. I'm not sure if freezing weather would affect them, but don't want to chance it.

Your crosses sound exciting.

I'll start soaking mine on Feb. 1.

Nancy

Lyle....I'm just curious about your seedling set up. :) I checked out the bio sponge growing system at Parks Seeds after reading your post. My question is how long can you leave your seedlings in the bio sponge blocks before having to transplant them?
TIA,
Jan

Your seedlings look nice.Winter is a great!time to start seedlings indoors and seeing some green.
Here is the seedlings I have started indoors:

Spacecoast blood diamond x Forever redeemed
Steve Trimmer x Hippie crash pad
Linda Beck x Meet Joe Black
Wrens song X Jamaican me happy
Venetian Boroque X ?
Angelwalker X ?
Kisses like wine X Spacecoast gatoreye
God save the queen X Meet Joe black
Idas magic X Destined to see
Dancing with Julie X spacecoast bullgator
New day dawning X Dancing with Julie
American Revolution X Grey witch
Spacecoast cranberry kid X Alexa Kathryn
Forever redeemed X orbital Odyssey
Without warning X spacecoast picotee prince
Pumkin flame X Jackie Onassis
Red volunteer X Forever redeemed
Tigerland X Hillbilly heart
Century house X Open my eyes
Radiation Biohazzard X American Revolution
Never been kissed X King James
Maltese falcon X ?
Spacecoast dragon prince X spacecoast bullgator
Knights in white satin X Century house
Alexa Kathryn X Electric marmalade magic
Hidden Riches X Spacecoast fantastic fringe.
Moonlight masquerade X Spacecoast cranberry breeze
Rock solid X ?
Spacecoast fancy dancer X ?
Cimarron Knight X Highland lord
Mariska X Idas magic
Braided Edgings X ?
Tuscawilla snowdrift X purple many faces

Jan - I have only left seedlings in the sponge for about 6 weeks they get quit large, but since the roots are in water they may grow longer,

This seedling is MORT MORSS X HIGHWAY BLUES as you can see very well developed root system.

Lyle

Lyle- Your're biosponge method looks very cool. I might give that a try in early March (when I'm about 8 weeks out from planting)just to compare to the plants I grow in the beer cups. I've been getting a lot of first year bloom from my seedlings, so I'm reluctant to make any dramatic changes in what I do. However I do like to experiment a little.

Maureen, I have at least 25 Stamile DL's listed in my database, but it is somewhat out of date. I probably have 10 or more Stamiles to add to my current list. Updating my info is something I usually get around to doing in January after the holidays are over. All of the Stamile CVs have done very well for me here in my Western PA. garden. I do mulch all my beds in mid to late November. I prefer to mulch in early winter than to cry in late spring.

Hope everyone will update this thread as their seeds progress. Post some pics too. Can't wait to see pics of everyones seedlings when they bloom.

Linda

I'm not starting mine till after the holidays. My son and daughter both come home during the holidays so will wait patiently so I can use their bedroom spaces for my seedlings.With all the great pics, I too, am anxious to start the process. My last seed starting project failed so hoping I've learned a few lessons.

I am going to try an experiment of using peat pellets on 10 seeds to see what happens. Once they start growing and are big enough, I'll transplant into individual cups with potting mix to keep them going till spring comes. The peat pellets are only a couple of inches in depth and I think the root system of the dl seedling needs more depth to succeed.

Lyle - I could be mistaken but I think the Bio Sponge uses a similar product as the peat pellet for the plugs. Do you know if it is? Also are you planting the seeds directly into the Bio Sponge plugs or are you first germinating them in a solution and then placing in the Bio Sponge?

Julia

I'm soaking my seeds in the fridge for 6 wks before trying to germinate after Jan 1, however, a few sprouted in the fridge so I've planted those. It is sure nice to see some daylily green this time of year.

Here is a slideshow of the crosses I made this year. I added notes about what I "think" might result from each cross. A lot of what I did this year were random crosses either to figure out ploidy on unknowns, to find something that would set seed with difficult parents, or validating that my pollen freezing method produced viable pollen, etc.

I welcome comments, especially if you have experience blooming seedling from similar color combinations. My suppositions were from trying to apply Dr. Carr's color charts. What do you think might result from these crosses?

Here is a link that might be useful: Debra's 2008 Daylily Crosses

Linda - If you are getting bloom in 1 year on your seedlings in your zone i wouldn't change.

Julie - I don't know about the peat pellet, I have never used them.

Debra - Here is a seedling bed of a semi - long cross of ROSES IN SNOW X LESLIE RENEE.

I had about 25 seedlings of this cross.

opnjmprs - pls tell me how you get blooms the first year. I'm in zone 6/7 and want blooms 1st year!!

This is turning out to be a GREAT thread!

berrytea4me - I really enjoyed your slideshow. You must have been really busy in garden making those pretty crosses. Can you tell me more about Dr. Carr's color charts?

Lyle, your seedlings of ROSES IN SNOW X LESLIE RENEE are beautiful. I have a cross of roses in snow, have to see who the other parent is. Can you tell me anything about what Roses in Snow may pass on to the kids?

Maureen, Really do wish I knew why I get a lot of first year bloom from my seedlings. This was tossed around on another thread a while back. I use to think it had to do with how long my seedlings grew out under lights and then getting them planted before the end of May. However someone who posts on here pretty regularly said that she lives in the south and has her seedlings in the ground in early April and never gets first year bloom. We joked about the farm here having "magic dirt". It use to be a hog, cattle, and chicken farm before we bought it. I was told that manure was liberally spread over all the acreage for many years. So maybe that has something to do with it. On a side note another poster here who doesn't live very far from me (lilynut) also gets a lot of first year bloom and they don't live on a farm....so go figure. Below is a pic I took of one of my 2008 seedling beds. You can see the scapes up on a number of the plants. Also a couple close up pics of 2008 seedlings in bloom. Pictures were taken in mid August through September of this year

Linda

Has anyone tried using Bokashi juice on seedlings? Just wondering if it helps at all....of course in conjunction with ventilation and adequate spacing of plants.

OMG--Where did I get all of these seeds? I just made my list to label my seed pots, and was stunned to find that I am starting 64 crosses when I wasn't going to start many this year!

Lyle and Linda, your seedling bed pictures are both wonderful! This years seedlings are going in a main vegetable garden area that is on my family's adjacent property to mine, that may get more sun. I would love to have first year bloom, but not holding my breath. My first seedlings were put in the ground in the spring of 2006, and I had my first real seedling bloom this summer.

Crosses that I am realy excited about:

GAIL FOX X LARRY GRACE
UNENDING MELODY X CAROL TODD
SUMMER BLUSH X ROCK SOLID
ISLE OF ZANZIBAR X CAROL TODD
WISEST OF WIZARDS X HALOWEEN HOCUS POCUS
ROCK SOLID X ENTWINED IN THE VINE
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN X BLUE LAKE
BITTERSWEET DESTINY X SPICE HUNTER
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN X ANTIQUE LINNEN

OK--so I will stop there, but I am excited about all of my crosses.

Happily waiting to see little green kids!

Julie

Irish rose grower - You will find in most cases RIS kids will have a white edge,some of my seedlings had a white ruffled edge which i was looking for.

Linda; It sound like you have some great soil for daylilies!

Julie - You have some very good parents in your crosses.

Wow, love all the seedling & bed photos. Looks like some lists of really fun crosses folks have made too. I will look forward to the photos when these start blooming.

irish_rose_grower,
Yes, I had a lot of fun. Not the most up to date parents blooming this season but still some that I'm looking forward to seeing the results. I'm hoping mostly for some rounder browns, a few interesting eyes, metalic edges, and for some nice uf's. A few like PLUM SURPRISE had horrible splotchy color but such good form, scape structure, & bud count that I used it anyway and tried to pair it with better color parents.

The late Dr. Bob Carr gave a presentation some years ago at a Regional (think it was Reg 10). He presented a set of charts on color inheritance in daylilies. He caveated that they were from fairly small sample size but still are interesting to study. Someone on the e:mail robin gave me a copy and through some effort Lee Pickles and others were able to get permission from Dr. Carr's family to post these on the net. You can find copies at Lee Pickle's new website and also at Charlotte's Daylily Diary (I think she put them with the hybridizer's page she maintains).

This is some of my seed starting. I have another florlight unit in the basement with 2 shelves devoted to daylilies.

I used color-coded spoons for labels. Each color represents a breeding direction. The seedlings will be planted together according to the color code.

Uroboros that is a lot of daylilys. How many crosses do you have going and how old are these seedlings. They look healthy and really happy with those fun colored spoons. What a great idea.

I have a little over 100 crosses.

Some are two months old, and some I planted 2 days ago.

The colored spoons cheer me up! And the pots will be easier to sort to the appropriate beds when spring comes.

I have some fungus gnats (no surprise) and some teeny spider mites, so I have to spray, unfortunately.

Linda (opnjmprs,

You got the bug before we did! We've been so busy for so long that reading/posting on any boards has been minimal. Yes ours are started and growing...around 800 again this year.

My belief on getting 1st year bloom in our zone 6a area involves the plant being atleast 8 months old (preferably 9 months old) in August. That means they need to be growing in first couple of weeks of December. Seems they also don't like pulling apart and basically making a bare root transplant (we tried that last year with a few crosses), so we have 1 plant per 16oz plastic cold cup/stryofoam hot cup. They have an awesome root system in these and using a bulb planter they plop rather quickly from cup to the bed. We find it best to get them into the seedling bed before May.

I know some like plain soil beds and that's their way of doing things, but we are all different. We have a pretty heavy clay type soil here, so we add Mushroom Compost, some coase sand (concrete sand) and fallen leaves and till it early Fall to around 8" deep. Give them the nutrients they need and they will bloom beginning the last of August for us. The combination the age and husbandry seems the ticket. Maybe the quanity/quality of the lighting helps also..we don't know. We now get over 50% 1st year bloom now; atleast the past 2 years have been this way.

Here's a few shots of our grow room last year. It's actually so bright it bothers your eyes to look at them.

Seedlings at 4 weeks

Our low tech grow room

Cheers,
Bruce and Tanya

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Website updated with a link to the grow room

Lilynut,If I had a grow room setup like yours I'd probably only plant one per cup also. I still got a lot of first year bloom even though I had to separate seedlings at planting time. I used a bucket of water and softened the plugs before separating and that worked out pretty well for me. I'd say that out of all the seedlings I got planted before the end of May, a little over 1/3 had first year bloom. That's why I decided to get started a little earlier this year and I'm going to make every effort to have them all planted by the end of May. Daylilies arriving in early May from hybridizers and LA sellers will be getting potted up until I have time to get them situated in the beds AFTER the seedlings are all planted.

The soil here is pretty loamy, but we run the manure spreader across all the new seedling beds (several passes) then top dress with some lime, then disc or till, and then get the planting under way. Hoping to see a lot more first year bloom this year, but every year we've been seeing a little more (I think because we're always tweaking our methods a bit).

Linda

What wattage are you all using for the grow lights?

lilynut: Are you using the plastic (or is it foil) to create a greenhouse effect around your seedlings?

Julia

Those are just T12 6500K Alto bulbs (Home Depot in contractor packs) 40 watt or the equivilent. We buy the space/emergency blankets (mylar) at Wally World in the Sports Department.

uroboros, If you've got gnats get some mosquito dunks (or other bt larvae control) to put in your water ASAP. I lost 2/3 of my crop last year before someone tipped me off to that. I watched the adults crawl down the stem of the seedlings to lay their eggs at the base of the hard seed casing. From inside the casing the larvae are tough to reach with topical stuff & they eat away all the seedling's nutrients & roots. It took a few weeks for the bt to really knock them out. I didn't try this but a systemic might work too since it would get the the little buggers who ate any of the root.

Bruce, your cups are different this year than I remember. They look narrower which means you can pack more in..nice. I bought a few space blankets for a roadtrip we are taking over the holidays and then afterwards plan to start the bulk of my seedlings and use them around the shelves.

My few little early fridge sprouters are doing well. Some seemed to stall once in the cups so after a couple weeks I took them out of the soil & found they still look fine, just no growth past germination. So then I figured out they might be getting too cool at night and added my heat mat. Most of them jumped right up. I have just a couple of stragglers yet.

"If you've got gnats get some mosquito dunks (or other bt larvae control) to put in your water ASAP."

I have read that one can place a thin layer of grit on top of the soil in each pot. Supposedly prevents the gnats from laying eggs or something.

Anything fine like sand will do the trick if your so inclined. Fungus Gnats look for moist decomposing organic matter to lay their eggs on. Hence they don't like sand as they can't get to the organic matter and the sand tends to keep the top of the cup/pot dry.