Although I'm too old to start hybridizing, this article has a wealth of information for anyone who wants to start.

Thank you, Dear, but I have to disagree about your being too old!

I have to agree that this is a really great article. It has a ton of information and it is all clearly presented. A lot of this would be appropriate to use when hybridizing flowers other than daylilies (I'm thinking iris or epiphyllums). Organization is key to any hybridizing program.
I thought the information on the stomatic fluid sealing off the pistil was very interesting. I wonder what other flowers do that?

Wow! This was chock full of great info. Well done, Leslie!

Leslie - I REALLY enjoyed your wonderful article!!!! Thank you for sharing all the neat ideas you've learned from other well-known hybridizers! I don't live near any hybridizers ... actually where I live there isn't even a daylily club anywhere within even 50 miles. Nor do any of my local plant nurseries sell daylilies. So in reading your article, I felt like I had just listened to numerous hybridizers! So much excellent information that would take me years to learn by trial and error. Thank you for encouraging the potential hybridizer in all of us!

Jean - YOU are NOT too old to try your hand at hybridizing! Just dab a little pollen around (pick one plant you love for the pollen), watch to see which daylilies set pods from that pollen. Harvest seeds. Mark their parents on envelop or baggie. Chill. Start growing those seeds over the Fall/Winter months. Grow seedlings until Spring or early Summer. Plant them out in the garden. Wait about 1 year (maybe 2 here in FL) to see your first bloom! I get blooms on all of my seedlings in 2 years! Many bloom the first year. You should try it!

Leslie - I want to mention to others reading your article .... To have successful fertilization of blooms, make sure that you are crossing tets with another tet and dips with another dip. I have a number of unknown seedlings, so had to try process of elimination to determine if the pod parents were a tet or a dip.

Becky, very good point about keeping the ploidy consistent. It would be heartbreaking to do a lot of crosses and then find you'd mixed dips with tets.

@beckygardner DH suggested this to me, however, besides age holding me back we are never in FL, (where the daylilies are) long enough for some to set seeds and with my other hobbies and interests, my life is crammed full. I would have to do a lot of educating myself to make sure that my efforts weren't in vain. If I were 20 years younger, I would really go for it.

Jean - Got it! I didn't know you were not year round residents. That does make a difference!