Category: Daylily hybridizing

“Making Me Think” Monday – Hit My Threshold

Direct sow daylily seedlings like this are popping up when they refused to germinate in pots – Go figure

Well … I now have all of the daylily seedlings out of the seedling boxes, and most of the daylily seedlings planted. There are some seedlings that are still kind of small, so they are still in pots, under cloches, and awaiting a future planting day. But most of the seedlings are in the ground now. I cannot tell you how glad I am. And how much I got really tired of planting. I learned my threshold. One or two seedling boxes full were fun, even cute. 4 boxes taking up a corner of my relaxation place – reminding me of all the work I still needed to do – no. Just no. Too much.

And simultaneously, my most stubborn seeds this year, the ones that didn’t germinate in pots, the ones I tossed into open spots in the garden – seeds and soil and loosely put rocks over the top, not even covering them with cloches – are germinating. Even, it seems, one I would have given very minor odds – a cross with Hello Yellow. That got my attention big time, because Hello Yellow seed has been hard to make, and has never germinated.

So, everything smooshed all together. I started seeing direct sow seedlings popping up, I saw my Hello Yellow seed germinate, I was wrist deep in mucky mud, seedlings flopping over in holes, and I was running out of my 20 cloches to cover up my newly planted batches of new varieties of seedlings.

I seriously, seriously love to garden. I seriously, seriously love daylilies. I seriously, seriously love propagating dayliles, And I am seriously, seriously, seriously thinking about downsizing the whole practice of germinating daylily seedlings in pots. It might be time. 2027 might be the perfect time.

  • The townhome gardens are full, full, full now. Like really, really full. So full that I am removing the Autumn Reds in back this fall to make room for new crosses that succeed next spring.
  • I am doing very few new crosses this year – only four new ones, and two of those are a reverse of a success, just for giggles.
  • I am doing one replication, in case I ever want to register it, and
  • I am retrying four failures, just in case they would finally work.
  • Any other daylily seed harvest will be self-seed.

My previous fails at direct sow germination of daylily seeds did not include stratification or planting them with good soil. This year’s successes included those practices. By accident, admittedly, but worth considering. And the new and replication crosses would hit my enjoyment threshold for germinating in pots (5). Anything after that could be direct sow.

So, I am thinking, seriously thinking. Life in daylily planting-ville was a lot this year. My threshold is now very known. Using wisdom 😉

And what of the extra planters? Well, someone I know and love is trying his hand at growing hot peppers again, and enjoying it, so far. He really likes to cook, and he likes hot sauces. We have some canning jars from when I thought they were adorable and could be made into little candle holders lol (never did). Homemade hot sauce? It could be a project. For him. I don’t eat that stuff. No siree. And maybe just one planter full of peppers to start 😉

Fantastic Find Friday

The forecast today was for rain on and off throughout the day, so I planned a stay-at-home day. On days like that I can get some planting and weeding done and if it starts to rain, I can take a break in the house.

As I was scoping out optional planting space, I was thinking about planting over a space where I had put daylily seeds that hadn’t germinated in seedling pots. Well, above is what I found. A very nice surprise!

Later, hands full of slushy mud, moving rock carefully back in place so I didn’t crush the baby daylily seedlings, I thought to myself that perhaps the way to go is direct seed after all. It hasn’t been successful here in the past, but maybe I should consider it again for next year.

Thankful Thursday – Asian Lily Blooms in the Gardens – Rain and Rest

Inside, Looking Out

Today I am especially thankful for the very nice, and very gentle, provision of rain we are getting. I do love to be out in the gardens, enjoying them, pampering them, tending to them, but balance is also important, and gentle rain days are always a two-fold gift for me. They bless the garden, and they bless me with an indoor day.

So today the newly planted hostas at the historic cemetery will get a good gentle rain soak, and, as I have been reminded yesterday, with that “still, small voice”, that the inside of our home needs pampering 12 months of the year, I have been provided an indoor day to encourage me to do that. I could fill up my day with other busyness, but those would be opportunities I would be seeking out, and not what has already been provided for me.

But, before the rain started, I saw even more of the peach Asian lilies are opening. Thank you, Lord, for the lilies!

And in my morning walk about the gardens, I also noticed that Equal Opportunity (one of my daylilies from seed) has its first scape of the season, and Pink Tirzah also has a scape. Thank you, Lord, for those! I have been checking for those. I have done my part, and I was waiting patiently on Him for the next provision (for blooms) and confirmation (for the select crosses I want to do).

I am constantly reminded we are all here for a reason, and in order to fulfill that reason we need to have a deep abiding relationship with our Lord, so we can hear His will. I can do my will all I want. He lets me do that. But my most peaceful outcomes are when I am in His will.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Be Blessed!

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What’s Up Wednesday – Asian Lily Blooms Starting – Daylily Seedling Box Countdown – Seedling Germination Successful – Garden Fun and Surprises

Happy Wednesday!

We are now coming into the latter part of the daylily seed germination watch and moving into the bloom season for the Asian lilies.

Two seedling planters remain.

As I sat on the patio this weekend, relaxing in my rocker after reducing seed plantings, I looked over at the two seedling planters and realized that is what I want next year. Enough capacity to be creative, but also a nice limit. 32 of the silicone base medium seedling pots I love to work with fit perfectly in the grey box, and 4-5 medium plant pots fit in the cedar box.

I am thankful for the expanded daylily propagation experience last year. Doing all the crosses in 2025 was a boatload of fun, something I had to try. And I am grateful for the result of that harvest as well. I still have a few stragglers so there may be additions, but I currently have 15 new daylily seedling varieties from last year’s work. Lots of potential to work with in my future daylily crosses – when/if they bloom in the years ahead. That’s good.

My garden thoughts and my garden words and my garden pictures are now shifting into well-worn territory – with a few surprises, but nothing too crazy.

This week the Asian lily bloom season started. The peach ones are consistently first, but this year, the pink ones under the Linden have returned right along with the peach ones. I thought they were in decline in our gardens, but I got a happy surprise this year. They were just rebuilding.

A couple years back, on a very hot September day, I sat with a plethora of Blue Mouse Ears hostas I had divided and needed to transplant. I had an idea. The pink Asian lilies under the Linden had been fading to almost nothing over the previous years. The Linden provided some nice afternoon shade. The Blue Mouse Ears hostas might look nice along the path at that corner! But I was whooped. Like getting dizzy whooped. My husband agreed to help. As we dug the holes for the Blue Mouse Ears divisions, we removed the few pink Asian lily bulbs we found and that was that. It was time to stop. I later transplanted the pink Asian lily bulbs to the historic cemetery, along with some fans from Purple D’Oro daylilies I had also divided at the townhouse. I made a quick little note, went to water them every other day or so, and then pretty much stopped thinking about those plantings.

Last year, 2025, I did notice some Asian lily greens were returning at the historic cemetery and at the townhome some pink Asian lilies did bloom. That was nice. But when I saw the pink Asian lilies at the historic cemetery this week, I was delighted. Even more, I was surprised to see greens from daylily “seedlings” planted with the Asian lilies. Maybe there was hope for seedlings, I thought. But today as I was planting some donated hostas, I found the marker for the Purple D’Oro self-seed seedlings. Those seedlings did not make it. The Purple D’Oro divisions did. It’s all good. I am hoping to see Purple D’Oro daylily blooms at the historic cemetery this summer. Or next 😉

Additional fun in the townhome gardens:

The Malva Zebrina Hollyhocks are growing very nicely, as is the sole seedling of my experiment planting one daylily seed at a time in tiny little pots in 6 pk trays. I am equally happy to report that the wave 2 plantings of seeds from that same cross yielded much better results – see pot next to the cloche on the ground. I am not a professional propagator by any means, but, for me, multiple, same cross seeds, planted in one pot – Golden.

And we continue to get Currant seedlings. This one may not stay. I think I need that space for daylily seedlings.

But this one probably has found a home.

And at the historic cemetery:

The historic cemetery has quite a few Stella De Oros. Last year they hit their stride and then had a lot of self-seed pods. I harvested the seeds on a whim but doubted those seeds would do anything. This spring I dumped those 80 seeds in soil in one big pot, put dirt over them, put a cloche over the top, and made sure they got water. Well … they must be meant to be! They are coming up! More every day! We’ll see what the count looks like in a few weeks. Where I will put them is very much TBD. The fence garden, both sides, are getting nice and full.

And that brings me to another fun thing – we had a nice donation of a variety of hostas for the historic cemetery. Some are already allocated for a new project, but there were a few spaces on the left side of the fence garden where I have repeatedly tried to plant seeds and seedlings, and for whatever reason, they just don’t make it. So today I officially threw in the towel on that idea and used those spaces for some of the donated hostas. Amazingly, even though that garden is in full sun for almost the full day, hostas do well there. I hope the new ones follow that pattern. They look very nice in their new location!

Relaxing Morning in the Garden

It was a relaxing morning in the garden. Time to sit in the sun a bit, and then the shade when it started to get warmer. Just taking it all in and then doing a little putzing.

The shamrocks needed to get out to their summer spot under the Linden. Then they got a good watering and some pruning. The sprinklers will water them now until they come back inside in October.

And although we are still in a sea of green for the daylilies, we have our first daylily scape of the year.

First scape of the year – Hello Yellow claims the honor

True to schedule, it is on Hello Yellow. Hello Yellow is one of my seedlings, so that is always extra special. This will be the third year of bloom, but we still have a few weeks to go for that. Here’s a pic from last year.

Unfortunately Hello Yellow does not seem to want to produce viable seed. (Last year’s seed looked ok, but it did not go to seedling this spring.) It is however, very pretty, and a keeper. I will post pictures again this year when it blooms.

And the list for fall moves has begun. This Asian lily (in the middle left) blooms peach. It should begin to bloom in a couple weeks. I noticed, however, that it is tall enough this year to be directly in the sprinkler line. Time to find it a new home, this fall. I think I know the place. It would probably look nice filling out the corner, right by a certain frog on a swing.

And I noticed this morning that we have another new daylily cross that went to seedling. That makes 13 new varieties this year. I’m guessing that is small potatoes for many propagators, but that is the most I have ever had in a spring. It was a lot of work, and I am still in the middle, but I am definitely thankful and very happy.

Rain is coming, starting tomorrow. Between the rain and the June heat things will start to pop color very soon.

A Very Satisfying Accomplishment, Time Now to Enjoy

Today I finished planting the 2025 harvested daylily seeds. It was so incredibly satisfying to refresh my pivot table after entering today’s accomplishments and see … no lines left. Hooray!!! It was an experience. A shall not be repeated experience. Way, way, way too much “fun”. But everything is accounted for and reconciled. Now we wait to see what nature does.

First fun story – After planting all the daylily seeds, I realized I have four labels/tags left. They were from a very welcome discovery today. I thought I was out of labels. And I was not going to buy anything more for the 2025 harvested seeds. I was cutting up the flat side of the plastic trays from the 4 pks of cream cheese danish, cutting strips, and using that for labels! So today, after finding the forgotten stack of labels, and using them, there were four left. A confirmation to stick with the “only four” crosses I have planned this year? I think so 😉

Second fun story – About 1/2 hour after I finished planting the rest of the daylily seeds and had put away all the supplies, we were sitting outside relaxing. In hummed … the first hummingbird to visit this year! It looked big and healthy. It hummed in, looked around, and hummed back out. It is May! The hummingbirds are back! You can bet the first of the feeders has food cooling down right now and will go out shortly.

And for beauty – The gardens look awesome. They are filling out so nicely. It should be a few more weeks and the Asian lilies will start to bud out. And the clematis out back are starting to vine so they should have blooms to share in a few weeks.

Time now for patio time – for long morning coffees, or a beverage of choice in the afternoon. Just sitting, chatting with neighbors, and relaxing as much as a gardener can. We can. With some occasional “let me check one thing” moments 😉

I leave you with another picture of one of the white squirrels, from this morning.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Can’t Win ‘Em All

These trays were planted indoors on March 23rd and went outdoors on April 12th. On April 24 I saw the one seedling (in the shadow of the cross bar) and since then nothing else has come up.

Here’s reasons I can think of for the failure:

  • The seeds need more time out in warmer weather. (Maybe. I will give them a couple more weeks.)
  • The trays are horrible (I’m going with this one. These trays are not staying. Way too putzy for me, and so far, the results stink.)
  • The one seed that did germinate was the only viable seed. (They all looked good when I planted them.)

Here’s some positives:

  • Even though these may be a 98% bust, there is one seedling, so far. It only takes one.
  • This batch was a test of a reverse cross of a wildly successful cross from last year. The pod parent is one of my favorite daylilies, Pink Tirzah, but the data available is a bit scant. Most of what I know about Pink Tirzah is what I have proven out myself, including even ploidy. Now I am working on fertility. The pollen from Pink Tirzah has been awesome, but as a pod parent, not so much. I have only had one other cross that went to seedling with Pink Tirzah as the pod parent. I am hoping for bloom on that one this year. I do love Pink Tirzah, so the work continues. This year, besides seeing how this cross goes, I am hoping to get Pink Tirzah self-seed, as I will not be doing intentional crosses with Pink Tirzah this year.
  • And there is still hope. I have a medium pot of seeds of this same (reverse) cross I planted and put out a few days ago, using my usual very successful, albeit quite lazy, method 😉

We shall see how things proceed.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Just one – tulip

I have planted lots of tulips over the years. They bloom a variety of successive years and then fizzle out. This year only one bloomed. That is down from two last year.

Part of me says I could dig out the old greens to tidy up. Currently unproductive tulip bulbs only get removed when I want the space, and nowadays that is exclusively for daylily seedlings. Unfortunately, I have tried daylily seedlings in this area, and they get stepped on:( But, wheels turning … Maybe a certain Pink Tirza and Autumn Red cross will bloom this year and be the first seedlings turned daylilies to move to this area. To join their parents? It’s a thought.

In the meantime, we will enjoy our one tulip bloom 🙂

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

What a difference a week makes!

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We are at the end of April now, and what a difference the last week has made!

Sandy’s Corner is really filling out.

  • The daylilies look great.
  • Last year’s seedlings are much farther along than in previous years when I was still working at finding out what they liked best.
  • The hostas are even looking much fuller this year.
  • And our volunteer shrub does indeed look like a currant. It can stay, at least for now. The birds will probably love it.

On the flip side, I could kick myself for buying those tiny little 6 cell seed planting setups. They definitely fit perfectly into the grey seedling boxes, but the seeds are not germinating like they do when I plant medium pots of up to 20 “same” seeds together. I think I know someone who might appreciate them for starting veggie seeds next year 😉

Overall, I am finding that I really like what I have going on in the townhome gardens this year. It has been fun to see the new look and focus come up, and I am more convinced than ever that scaling way back on the crosses this year is the right plan. I can always scope up if I want to, but I am definitely not enjoying that I have so much work yet to go on getting last year’s seeds going. A lighter scope next year continues to sound fabulous.

The historic cemetery gardens are really filling out as well.

This past weekend my husband and I went over and did some spring cleanup at the historic cemetery gardens. They are really looking good! I do suspect our phantom weeders have been helping as well, because I kind of remember it being a little messier a week or so ago. So, thanks to them!

There is one sad thing. Over the past couple years, I have added purchased bare root daylilies to the historic cemetery gardens, as well as added seedlings from crosses I did at the townhome gardens. When I walked though a week or so ago, it looked like they were not there. This past weekend that was confirmed. There are moles or gophers over there, but the markers are almost all missing too, so that is odd. At any rate, I do have the seeds I harvested from there last fall, and I will direct sow those to do one final try with seeds and seedlings, but I think I have my answer. Bare root planting is a no go there. And probably seed and seedling planting as well.

On the upside, the daylily from South Seas self-seed that I planted at the historic cemetery last fall is thriving, so additions like that may be an option, go forward.

That’s the gardens updates for the week.

I hope you have a great week ahead!