A few years ago my younger daughter Emily decided she wanted to hybridize some daylilies. Typical of a child, she looked at the process in a whole different light. First she came up with the name she liked and then she looked for the flowers that she though would give her a seedling with the right qualities.Her name of choice was "Mac & Cheese" so you can guess what color daylilies she decided to work with. This first photo is 'Nutmeg Elf' and it gave Emily the color she wanted. She used this daylily as the pod parent.
The daylily Emily chose to use as a pollen parent was 'Itsy Bitsy Spider', shown in this photo.
All together I think we have 5 seedlings still from that cross. This is the first one to bloom this year. It has clumped up nicely and has excellent budcount and branching. I can't say the flower form is too different from either parent though.
Here you can see it in a clump. It stands quite tall for a small blooming daylily, both parents have that trait. While it will never formally be introduced, it's an excellent plant to have in the border.I hope the other seedlings bloom before I leave for Germany so I can photograph them and show them here. One of them has an excellent form but unfortunately doesn't have the bud count or branching that this seedling has. Then again, maybe this year it will be better.
6 comments:
How Cool! How old was Emily when she decided to tackle this?
Could you explain how hybridizing daylilies work? Sounds like a fun experiment!
Looks good!
It makes it a special plant with a background like that - no matter what it looks like!
It's great that your daughter wanted to try something so cool! Even if nothing really different was produced I bet she was excited to watch for the results.
Oh my, they are so beautiful....Germany? I really need to catch up! :)
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