It’s A Puzzle

The other morning as our dog woke me to go outside at 4 am, and I realized the birds were not starting to sing yet, I was reminded we are into mid July. We are on the waning side of the summer solstice. Even though the days are hotter, the amount of sunshine each day is decreasing now. Kind of bummer-ish. And truth be told, were it not for daylily time, I would be tempted to be indoors way more in July. I do not naturally love the heat and humidity we get in July. But I love the gardens, and the daylilies make July sing, so outside I am.

There is so much “garden” going on that I didn’t get my blog from Friday finished, and didn’t do anything blog related on Saturday.
Here is a download:

A few of the Molly Cowles crosses that were so easy and successful last year have failed so far this year. I decided to flip the cross, and see what happens. So far so good. But honestly, if that cross isn’t a go this year, I’m good. I have 38 seedlings going from that cross. I can rest on that one.

Hello Yellow is done blooming for a while. And she has two self seed pods going. I am so excited about that! I am still working on figuring out her parentage. I so regret my sloppy note taking early on. I still think my note that she is a cross with Pink Tirzah as one parent could be accurate, but I need to prove that out. Pink Tirzah is still a puzzle to me. Last year she behaved like a diploid, but this year her diploid crosses are failing, so far.

We have another puzzle, too, but this one is easy, I think.
To set the stage, I have been reading up on daylily propagation, and one consistent recommendation is “FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS”, meaning choose a couple daylilies to cross, and then focus within that parentage to work on the desired characteristics. Sage advice. The reason I needed a third seedling box this year is because of all the “one ups” I did last year. A lot of them produced questionable seed and are not going to seedling yet. Arrggghhhh. So for me, I definitely think South Seas is one of my focus lines. The Mahala Felton daylily seedling cross is in the South Seas line. A lot of my self seed seedlings, and now blooming daylilies, are from South Seas. I even have Coral Majority self seed seedlings cominh up. South Seas is one of Coral Majority’s parents. (Not my cross, I bought Coral Majority.) But with 5 new South Seas self seed seedlings blooming for the first time this year, and successful crosses in that line, am hearing the message that South Seas is my “FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS”. I even have a Lullaby Baby I bought last year, a diploid, that is budding out this year, that is, guess what? In South Seas parentage. A diploid, in a tetraploid’s parentage. Apparently, it can happen.

On to the puzzle – I have had 5 South Seas self seed seedlings go to flower in the past couple weeks, and they all look different. They are from different years. But what I thought was solely the 6 year South Seas seedling has 3 very distinctly different blooms, a different look and even height per scape, and I know that the 6 year seedling was one seed. It should be the same genetics. So …. I am guessing the other two, different fans, are from bunny and squirrel assists. Direct sow, so to speak. Different genetics. South Seas almost always has some seed spillage each year where I find there has been critter activity. I think the seed spilled around the 6 year seedling and made the different versions. Something to be aware of, as I had a similar scenario with Just Plum happy last year, but OK with me. I absolutely love all the self seeds that have bloomed from South Seas. So much that I have decided not to cross any pollen TO South Seas, at least this year, to make any seed that comes from South Seas be noted as self seed. Keep my like easy. But I will use South Seas pollen. I already have a successful cross this season to peach daylily with South Seas pollen (one pod, and it looks like others on the way). That will be fun if the seed is viable. And hopefully others like Lullaby Baby will work as well.

I am thinking Pink Tirza is going to be my other focus line, but first I have to figure out how she is going to behave in the garden. ie. Did she really cross with a tetraploid in my garden, and if so, are there others that would work? Hint: I already tried South Seas. No dice. But she did make the start of a pod from Hello Yellow pollen (until I accidentally pulled it), and I typed Hello Yellow out last year as a tetraploid. Yah. It’s a puzzle.