SEEDLING PAGE TWO
This page is dedicated to our 2002 introduction, MARY LIGHTFINE and her progeny, as well as others in our white-edged purple lines. MARY has proven to be a very good breeder for us and feel that she will be for others. There is no way to convey the extreme quality of the blue purple coloring in this cultivar, except to see the flower in person. From the first year that MARY bloomed, we have said that if there were no white edge on this flower, it would still be a prime candidate for introduction, due to the beautiful color. It is very hard to remove the influence of red from purple daylilies, but this one is a definite and strong step in that direction.
2005 note: Last November we learned that MARY LIGHTFINE won an HM with the AMERICAN HEMEROCALLIS SOCIETY. As this was her first season of eligibility we are especially pleased to see the flower honored. There were votes from the garden judges in 10 of the 15 AHS regions. This is an assurance of wide adaptability of this fine cultivar.
MARY LIGHTFINE
T01-71 2003 INTRODUCTION Mary's Baby
The second image was taken in the Kansas garden of Gene Stormann. We are pleased to see how well Gene captured the saturation and intensity of the plant. Tanks, Gene, for sending the image.
MARY LIGHTFINE is a good breeder. Yet we had to raise some 3,000 seedlings to come up with one with the qualities of a MARY'S BABY. MB is, on the other other hand an even better parent than is MARY LIGHTFINE. Many of its babies are its equal, with beautiful color and wonderful bud counts and branching. The first few hundred babies out of MARY'S BABY yielded four or five that look like introductory quality. It is with great anticipation that we look forward to the 05 season when we bloom another 3,000 or so. If you are looking for a breeder for clear saturated purple with lots of buds and good plant habit, MARY'S BABY is as good as it gets right now in my opinion. The babies usually show nice clear white edges which are about 1/8" wide. We are hoping that babies like the one below are going to lead us to really wide (1/4" to 1/2"?) edges in a bright white.
The image above is of ALTERED STATE X MARY'S BABY. In person the clarity of purple is greater and the contrast with the edge is more pronounced. We will be using this one to work on the elusive goal of a clear, saturated purple with a very wide white edge.
In 2003 we made a series of crosses using MARY'S BABY on a variety of kids of ROSES IN SNOW. The idea was to get some of the wide edge that RIS shows in the south in a purple with the clarity and saturation of MB. The above images represent four of the better results from that program. The image on the left may be the best combination of that wonderful purple saturation of MB with the lighter/whiter edge we were seeking. There will be another step or two......or three.....or four before we can hope to see the wide, wide white edge on a clear purple. That goal may be the very center focus of what we would most like to achieve in tet hybridization. The seedling on the left may represent the opening of the door to being able to achieve the combination we seek.
The seedling on the right, T06-17, shows an extremely clear shade of red. Combined with the nicely defined white edge, the red of this seedling demonstrates how clear the coloration is in so many of the seedlings out of MARY'S BABY. These seedlings along with many others in our program highlight our contention that the path to color clarity in most (all?) color lines is the presence of a white base in the structure of the tissues of the petals. The white base contrasts with the normal yellow or orange base that is the norm in most daylilies. We believe we have received the benefits of this white base in the breeding results from the MARY LIGHTFINE line as well as in that of CLARIFICATION. We would contend that the presence of yellow, orange or any other coloration in the base tissues of the flowers leads to a muddied appearance in the overall color of the flowers.
This image is of a child of a cross between BELLE OF ASHWOOD and MARY'S BABY, two of the best breeders here for plant quality, color clarity, bud counts, etc. Elsewhere on this site we have touted BELLE OF ASHWOOD as a breeder which is capable of giving good results when bred to a variety of colors.
This is seedling T04-39, a cross of MARY'S BABY and ASHWOOD SMOKEY JOE. It one of the relatively few in that cross that was not affected by the ASJ pattern. There were only about 20 in the cross but 4 are numbered and several are likely introductions, including T04-39. That is an indication of the quality of breeding coming out of both parents. One of the more foolish things (among the many) I have done is to only cross ASJ with MARY'S BABY when ASJ first bloomed. The 05 bloom season will go a very long way too correct that with several thousand seedlings to be seen out of ASHWOOD SMOKEY JOE. The several people who bought seedlings on the Lilly Auction out of ASJ this last spring should have some pleasant surprises in store for them.
The images below are of sibs to T04-39 above. These are the ones that show the smokiness and variations on the pattern.
T-03-35 T04-24 T04-25
In such a tiny number of crosses one would not expect to find improvements on the parent, especially in the case of an extreme cultivar like ASHWOOD SMOKEY JOE. Yet, several of these seem to be even better at showing the smoky pattern than ASJ, displaying the look every day. ASJ may not always show the pattern on the first bloom or two, but temperatures seem to have minimal effect on that display.
Click on the image to see a seedling that taught us something about the genetics of MARY'S BABY. This is a cross of MB with Pat Stamile's large purple. KILLER, which is well known to show the smoky pattern after very cool nights. This variation on the KILLER face was startling. It occurred at higher temps than are required for the pattern to appear in KILLER and is more dramatic than that pattern. We do not see a smoky pattern appearing in MB but we have seen a couple of the babies which have shown it. But we dismissed those flowers as mistakes in seed handling, presuming that the pattern was coming from ASJ. We can only conclude that the genes for the smoky expression are just under the surface in MARY'S BABY.
T04-33
DEVIL'S KALEIDOSCOPE is the garden name we have given this unusual flower it is a baby of MARY LIGHTFINE crossed to ASHWOOD HEARTH SIDE. It has the good plant habit we look for here but we have no seen rebloom yet. The bi-colors intrigue us, There is not yet enough work being done on them. The contrast between the color of the sepals and that of the petals adds so much garden impact. Click on (any of) the images to see the detail that caught our eyes.
T04-32
Growing at the end of a row it stopped almost any visitor in their tracks. The color is very bright and the contrasts are so very vivid. With the plant habit to match we are likely to introduce this one. It is another of those that have to be seen in person to realize the full impact of the color of T04-32. The breeding is MARY LIGHTFINE X MARY'S BABY. It looks like neither. We made a few seeds crossed with 4-33 (above) to see what would come of that.
Here is another seedling from crossing MARY LIGHTFINE AND MARY'S BABY. I have rarely crossed plants that are so closely related. However, the results from this particular cross are so distinctive and vigorous. I will again repeat the cross.
T01-59 ( MALMAISON PLUM X T97-26)
click on the image to enlarge
We are seeking to create new cultivars with the most sharply defined color separation possible between the petals and the edges. This seedling gives us some of the best we have seen. We hope it will be a bridge plant that will lead to the wide, pure white edge with no color bleeding between the edge and the petal. We are not pleased with the form but the edge is so special you can expect that the edge will show up in our breeding.
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