As many of you know, I am rather new to growing Daylilies and even newer to hybridizing them. I have had a very tough time setting pods, I think this is at least partly due to the extreme heat we have had here, but I know that some of you have success in 100+ temps. I have read enough of your posts on here, to know that not all Daylilies are equal, when it comes to hybridizing with them. So, I would like to know, what some of your best parent Daylilies are. Potent pollen, sets lots of pods, produces good scapes (branching, height, sturdy, instant rebloom), nice foliage, good bud count, and of course, pretty face. I know that its unlikely to get it all, but I assume a good parent would produce several good traits, with some consistents. The number one reason to purchase a Daylily, for me I think, will always be if it's appearance appeals to me, but I do want to start taking it's possible use in hybridizing into account as well.

Thanks,
Gale

Are you hybridizing in the early morning hours?

I'll make a list soon.

So far, my favorite parent is Boundless Beauty. It has produced many poly blooms in one of its seedlings that I have.

Ashton, yes, I start between 6 and 7am. I have so many bees and other pollinators, that I pretty much have to get to the flower when it opens. I look forward to your list.

Jon, I see Boundless Beauty is the parent of 26 Daylilies, it must be a great parent, and it is indeed a beauty.

Gale,

Here's a list of some that set seeds easily.
Tets
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Coyote Moon') sets a pod my on nearly every bloom
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Aztec Headdress') Is fairly easy and makes not a patterned kids.
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Ashton's Giggles') Fairly easy
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Blue Eyed Bandit') Easy pod set, will have kids blooming next year.
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Celtic Butterfly') Easy
I didn't set a lot on Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Buddy's Toothy') but every one I tried I got a pod.
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Buddy's Victoria Jade') Very easy! Can't wait to bloom some seedlings from it!
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'God Save the Queen') Easy. Proven to be a good parent but IMO most of its kids look to much alike GSTQ.
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Lake Champagne') Easy pod setter! One of my favorite daylilies.
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Leslie Renee')
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Orange City')
Of course there are lots more tets that set seed easy.

Dips...
If I listed all the dips that I had that set pods easy it would take me a week!
Let's just say that most of them are super easy!

Here are some daylilies that I think are good parents.
Note: some of them I haven't bloomed any seedlings from.
Sailing At Dawn
Lake Champagne
Lavender Blue Baby
Beautiful Edgings
Heavenly Angel Ice
Victorian Lace
And many others.....

Are you primarily using dips or tets?
Do you like full forms or spiders or etc?

GDJCB

I live in Western WA, and have had the worst year for making crosses. I blamed the heat, even though i as out there doing it around 5:30am most mornings. 90+ % failed. It has been cooler this week, i continued on making crosses. I won't know for another week or two if any are successful.
I've only been hybridizing for 4 years, but this is the worst year so far for making successful crosses.

Gale - This is a GREAT thread! One of much interest to me, personally. Thanks for thinking of it and starting such a good topic thread!

I do not know about the plant habit yet on most of my seedlings (of known parentage), but I can recommend a few parents of seedlings I currently have that I am already impressed with:

Buddy Hudson - I have a few seedlings using this one as a pod or pollen parent. The blooms so far are perfect every time. Even in rain or heat. (Not sure about cold weather since I live in Florida.) This for me is a good one for ruffles! Has shown to be quite fertile, especially pollen. And has shown some rust resistance so far. (Fall will be the real test!!! So the jury is out on that quality!)

I like Victorian Lace for ruffles too, but it is rust susceptible ... all my seedlings from it have had pretty bad rust. But I will keep them anyway because I need to have rusty daylilies in my gardens.

Dragonfly Dawn - If you want patterning on a bloom ... this is my favorite one to use! Very fertile both pod and pollen!

Laughing Clown and/or Zanti's Misfit - This is my favorite seedling cross so far for crispate uf/spider. What I like about it is the sturdy, thick scape which is relatively tall, it produced a lot of blooms on many branches, and it re-bloomed. Definitely a good parent to use here in the south. (Not sure about north as it is evergreen). I think the genetics came from Laughing Clown, but ZM looks like it also produces some good scapes and lots of blooms, too. I have not seen any rust on these seedlings. I don't own either parent of this cross, so not absolutely sure which parent contributed what. But I am using my seedlings in future hybridizing of spiders/ufs.

I probably have more, but those above come to mind immediately because they left an impression on me this year with their first year children's blooms and plant habits.

I appreciate any comments posted with your lists! Thanks so much! Great idea for a thread!!!!

I'm really new to all daylilies world, I chose some two years ago here in italy without exactly knowing what to look for, so I chose them for the colors (wish I knew this forum before ordering).
I started to hybridize just for fun: back in june I took an anther from Awakening spirit and rubbed the pollen on two Lighnting Strike flowers. It was around 10 AM, the pistils looked clean with no other pollens on them, and both took ath the first try. Now in this hot july (for us in northern italy but maybe not for DLs) I did the same with Victorian Day on Spanish Glow, and voila, a seed pod.
The only time it failed was with some pollen I had in the fridge, because the cross I wanted to make needed a flower which din't bloomed at the same time. I don't really know why it failed, I suppose the pollen wasn't good even if when I took it out of the fride it seemed ok.
I don't have access to all the variety of Dls you all are mentioning here but I like this thread!

I wasn't even trying very hard and it did well.

Ashton, Thanks for the list. I am pretty much doing Tets, although, I did try crossing George Jets On with Stolen Treasure this year. Last year I made a few Dip crosses and they not only did well, but the pods were just loaded with seeds, many more than any of the Tet pods. I really prefer round bagel form, UF's are OK too, but I haven't had the spider form hit my fancy yet, I have a couple, and they may grow on me.

Dancinggenes, Sorry to hear that, sounds like Washington State is not being kind to us would be hybridizers this year. It looks like our reprieve from the heat will be short, with temps near 100 coming again this weekend.

Becky, I am glad to hear that others are also interested in this topic, hopefully we get some more input, there is so much knowledge from members here. Great to hear Victorian Lace has been a good parent for you, It is one I need to add.

Sabrina, Great to hear that you are having good luck with your crosses, I hope you share pictures of your seedling blooms with us in the future. I know there was a discussion on here about saving pollen, but I can't remember the name of the thread. You could do a search, the amount of Daylily knowledge on here is amazing.

Peggy, I wish I was seeing scapes like that. Quick question, can you have to many pods on a single scape? I don't think I even have two on a scape this year, but am curious.

Gale

Thanks so much for the great topic! We can never learn too much!

In tets my best seed setters this year were these. Because we've had extended periods of extremely high heat they've really shown what they can do.
Whale Tails
Wishy Washy
Jerry Pate Williams - see pic below


Gale, you asked if you can put too many pods on a plant. Yes. You can set a plant back or even kill it with too many pods. If a plant is proven to be very vigorous, like JPW above I feel safe in doing lots of pods. If it's small or doesn't multiply well I would not.

DancingGenes, you mentioned temps when hybridizing. I was in KY last week and spent the afternoon with David Kirchhoff and Mort Morss. I asked them specifically about temps and they said 90* was about the cut off for setting pods. Personally, I like to do my crosses before temps reach 80* to beat the stomatic fluid coming out but even when I do that if the temps are much above 90 my crosses don't seem to take.
You should be able to tell if your crosses are successful within about 4 days of making them. In the pic below you will see very young pods set on Little Damsel. The green one to the right is about a week old. The one with the pistil still attached and still covered in the old bloom tissue is 3-4 days old and the one on the far left is about a day older than that. The swelling around the ovary tells you that a pod has been started forming. The 2nd pic shows some young pods on Freaky Good. See where a bloom to the right has been dead headed 2-3 days before? It has no swelling at the base. The cross didn't take on it.



Sometimes a pod will abort. This can be caused by heat, not enough water or various other reasons. Sometimes they just do. If you're doing what you can to keep the culture of your plants in good shape don't worry about it.


In case you haven't seen one, here's the pod from a polymerous bloom. Pods have the same number of chambers are there are sets of tepals (petals and sepals) on the bloom. If you have a 5x5 bloom, you will have a 5 chambered pod. The bloom shown with this pic would produce a four chambered pod.



Sabrina, congratulations on your crosses. How long will you have to wait to see them bloom?

Great thread, Gale!

From what I understand, dips are much easier to set seeds on than tets are. Of course, I had to start out the hard way! I only bought tets, so I had to cross tets, and got very few seeds. Not a good way for me to get going, but I got smart the next year and bought some dips. Had fantastic success with those! Well, setting seeds anyway. The blooms were not all that great, but it gave me the confidence that I needed to keep trying. Now I do a little of both, but mostly tets, because that is what I mostly have. Wish I could give you a list, but I've never kept track of which ones worked best.

This year has been a horrible failure for getting seeds. I have a few pods growing, but nowhere near what there should be. It has just been way too hot and dry here. Since I'm moving all of my daylilies when it cools down, I decided to quit trying so that the few pods that I have can make it to maturity, and I won't have to delay moving them because I'm waiting for a pod to get ready.

One thing I really love about the database here is that it lists children of each daylily, if there are any registered ones. I often decide if I'll buy a daylily, based on any registered children. It will give you a good idea of the what you can get, and you can also see if it is a great parent because some of them have many registered kids. It is a good place to start, at least for me!

@Lalambchop1 Leslie, I noticed that you mentioned Jerry Pate Williams. That is the only daylily I have ever lost! I've always heard that it is very vigorous, but it didn't survive last winter. I'll pick up another one the next time I'm in Utah. The nursery there always carries it. I'm glad to hear that it is a good parent, because that is why I bought it! I just never got around to using it. Do you always cross it with other doubles? If not, has it been good at passing along the double? I noticed in the database that most, if not all, of the other daylilies it was crossed with were doubles.

I keep hitting the finished button too quickly!

Check out Forestlake Ragamuffin, with 166 registered kids. It makes really nice children!
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Forestlake Ragamuffin')

I have it, but haven't used it yet. I just got it last year, and while it did bloom, it was a little too late to use, and I forgot to save the pollen. It started blooming this year just as that horrible heat wave hit, so it looks like I won't use it until next year. I need to save the pollen though for next year!

Lalambchop1 said:
Sabrina, congratulations on your crosses. How long will you have to wait to see them bloom?

I'm afraid it will take a loooooong time!
I'm planning to germinate them and grow them inside, winter here it's supposed to be really cold even if in the past two years it didn't freeze and rained a lot. But it's a chance I won't take. So I hope to have something to plant outside when spring comes. And then who knows if they will bloom or not!! Btw the seed pod I have now is so small that I really don't know how many seeds I will get!!!!!

Quoted from Kidfishing's list above :
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Coyote Moon') sets a pod my on nearly every bloom

Coyote Moon is listed as a tet, but I have found that it will set pods with dips just as easily.

If your pollen can't set a pod on "Coyote Moon", I'd give up on using it.

I never miss with Tetraploid pollen on coyote moon, but have never tried a diploid.
Do you have pods or actual seeds from coyote moon X diploid?

Kathy - I am VERY interested to know more about Coyote Moon sets pods on dips! Please do elaborate for us!!!

Some DL do that. Give Me Eight will go either way.

REALLY???!!! How does that happen? Are you sure those aren't tet converted from dips?