SEEDLING PAGE 12
A seedling caught our eyes in the summer of '03. But due to its late planting as a seedling straight from the greenhouse in June of the previous summer, followed by heat and drought, the plant was too poor to show its true self. Well, the plant in '04 blew us away. It was big and vigorous with lots and lots of buds on excellent scapes. It even rebloomed! It was very fertile both ways and is the finest gold edged red we have. One of the most used parents of '04, this new one T03-17 went all over gold edged reds, the STARTLING LEGACY X MOMENTUM babies and the beauties below such as T02-31. T03-17 is out of a seedling we have been evaluating here for a few years, T01-58. We have been impressed with everything about it except for the fact that is very similar to its parent, CLOTHED IN GLORY. One of our visitors here this past summer was rather upset with me when I said that I was not going to introduce T01-58. The answer still is no. There are too many look-alikes out there. If we introduce something that looks much like an existing cultivar we want the plant habit to be so clearly superior that introduction is truly warranted. From what I have seen T03-17 may stand out sufficiently to deserve introduction.
DON'T FORGET TO CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES TO SEE THEM ENLARGED.
T03-17
A real shocker in the summer of 2002 came out a seedling we selected in 2000,T00-40. It is a full sib to our introduction, STURM UND DRANG. It was nice enough but the plant habit drew our attention. I was fortunate to cross it to Dan Trimmer's fine MAXFIELD PARRISH. There was a synergism in this cross that expanded the gold edge beyond anything we could have foreseen.
T00-40 (RUFFLED ROYALTY X THUNDER AND LIGHTNING)
As you can see, the seedling was nothing that special but take a look at the babies below.
T02-31 T02-33 T03-24
These are just three from a very exciting cross. So many of the babies showed distinct edges in yellow gold. Of course there is always a big problem getting such edges to show this far north. This past summer was one of the coldest on record and these babies do not get any sun (and heat) until after 11:00am. That is usually the kiss of death for a flower to show any gold edge. These were not affected buy those conditions. The pictures above show the flowers pretty much the way they were day in day out.
The ruffled gold edge on T02-31 is wider than 1/2'' The full edge is ALWAYS there without regard to weather. Weather does not not have any effect on the expression of the edge. The icing on the cake is the way 31 opens. It is a grand early morning opener, an EMO. Our experience with the wide gold edges from the south is "now you see it, now you don't" when they are grown in the north. This one renews our hope to introduce a truly red cultivar with a gold edge. We are not close to satisfied with any of the gold edged reds introduced so far. Last summer I crossed T02-31 to every really good red that stood still long enough to be pollinated. Needless to say. the first bloom of these in 2004 will be greatly anticipated here.
Here is a seedling which we use in our program for edged reds. Click on either image and it will be clear why. This is one of the most floriferous daylilies you have seen. It would be a clear choice for introduction if the flower itself were more distinctive. The plant is a paragon of good habit. with phenomenal fertility.