I would love to see what others are using for hybridizing with Scuplted Relief plants. Pictures would be great. What do you love about it?

I love Fringing Coral Reef so far. I am working on Northern Hardy, deep sculpting relief and scape of minimum 32" at the moment. Ultimatly the goal is much more detailed but this is what I am focusing on right now.

This is a seedling (FFO) a friend grew from seeds from me Petticoat Government (Height 42") and Fringing Coral Reef (Excellent Relief) but she is in GA so Ill have to wait until she has more to see if I can test it for northern hardiness but since both plants are grown here in Iowa I would like to assume that it would do ok here. I hope I have a seedling or 10 here of the same cross because I want the ultimate end result to be a pink with orange trim and eye LOL. Pretty close! She got a pretty great seedling!

Good question! A quick look at the AHS/ADS database for recent introductions, I went with 2021 to current, could leave a person wondering what exactly is a Sculpted relief form. While the amount of relief can vary in the expression there appears to be a number of registrations that show no relief in their registration images. Here's a link to the definition of Relief and also to Carved and Embossed.
https://daylilies.org/daylily-...
https://daylilies.org/daylily-...
https://daylilies.org/daylily-...

Cultivars that come from relief parents are more likely to produce relief in the sdlgs. That's not saying you can't get relief from non relief parents, just in my experience using a line of relief parents is much more likely to produce deeper relief in future generations. Sometimes the only way to introduce new or better bloom or plant traits is to use a non relief in a cross. Early on there were not a lot of parents to work with and of those many were tender in the north. I had luck working with Bas Relief, Coquina Key, Carved in Stone.



I later added Keys to the Kingdom, which being evergreen, made a lot of tender sdlgs.

Secret Key, a Proof Positive kid, shows no relief but produced 3 northern hardy kids with Keys to the Kingdom and is also in the line of Poseidon's Horses, a Sculpted cristate form.


Around the same time I added Keys to the Kingdom I added in Dan's Cliff Hanger which is hardy in the north and have been crossing sdlgs from these parents back and forth and adding in non relief plants to get other colors and better plant habit for almost 25 years. Another early line I have comes from Salter's Carved Pumpkin Pie.


A few years ago I added in a newer registered one of Dan's that he sent me, No Fear, which has given a couple of keepers to play with. No Fear has grown here for several years but I don't think it is very happy.

So most of my relief forms involve these base parents. I mostly work with my own introductions and sdlgs now. The past few years I've been using this sdlg from Til the Love Runs Out heavily.


A few favorite sdlgs being evaluated…









So how long have you been working with relief forms Dragonfly and what parents are you using? That's a nice seedling! The play of light colored carving over a darker pink base makes the relief stand out.

Char those are some AMAZING seedlings! WOW!!! I wont see any of my work until next year but people who have purchased seeds and live in the south saw some this year already. So exciting!

I always thought you would have to use SR x SR to get a SR but as the seedling shows in the picture I posted and as you mention in your post (Which is SUPER helpful) it isnt always the case! Thats a good thing because all of my work to date has been a primarily a sculpted and a non sculpted until this year and unfortunalty here in Iowa we were and still are in a terrible terrible drought so I didnt get but a couple of seeds with SR x SR.

I used Fringing Coral Reef and Intaglio Image allot. Both have very very HOT pollen! Both are young plants here so not much for being the pod parents just yet but they put on a great show as pollen parents! Almose every cross I managed to get from my garden of 500 registered has one of the 2 parents LOL.

It sounds like you are getting some of your outcrossing done. If there's certain characteristics you're trying to add I think the sooner the better. Then you have sdlgs to start working with that may show the characteristic and can be crossed back into relief. My main goal when I started was to get away from yellow....they are so easy and have been around for a long time. It's nearly impossible to do and there's still a few yellow sdlgs floating around here.
Fringing Coral Reef, could be some surprises in there...it's one of the parents of Snarky.... Sculpted cristate,

It's been known for a long time by hybridizers of Sculpted forms that the 3 subforms, pleated, relief and cristate, work well together and any of the subforms can show up in another subform cross.

I haven't grown Intaglio Image. The Maryott plants in general are tender here. Looking forward to seeing what all your crosses produce!

@Char Snarky is gorgeous! Great another one to add to me "find list" LOL.

When I did a search on the AHS website for the specefic characteristics I was looking for there were only 6 plants registered and they were ALL yellow! I would love to see more deep pinks. Your purple seedling is gorgeous! That is the first one I have seen!!!!!

Thank you. This is the first purple sdlg of mine I really like. The pink coloring on the ridges makes the relief stand out on the darker background. Some colors/patterns can make it hard to see the relief. Dan Hansen had an early one, River Ripples, that was more purplish than pink.

It did ok here for a number of years before I lost it. I do have one registration from it, Promised You Heaven. I think his Great Rift Valley from RR might have been purple but I can't seem to find an image of it. Should get up and dig through the old catalogs...
I think Spacecoast has one or two purples. Spacecoast Royal Rumble was an early sorta relief purple. I think it died here before it ever bloomed. Spacecoast Pattern Plus has been here for some years and seems happy in the semi shady spot it's in so I will not tempt fate and move it to a better spot.


Snarky has been interesting as a parent working mostly into cristate forms it produced pleating and cristation with the sdlgs/cv's I'm working with. Haven't seen any relief in them even though some of my cristate lines have relief in them.

What specific characteristics besides relief are you looking for?

This was my first year with blooms specifically bred for the sculpted relief trait. It's a side-project, but I couldn't resist dabbling in it once I saw a seedling in my applique program spontaneously display it:

19-177

So I used it, and I also purchased Greywoods Neytiri to use.

I recommend it because it is a pretty tough northern-hardy plant, and seems to readily pass-on the sculpted relief trait...

I got some interesting results for initial crosses... Unfortunately I did not take a lot of photos so these don't show the blooms at their best, or even necessarily their typical look. I don't know why but every year I review photos in the fall and get upset that I didn't take more photos , and promise myself I will do better next year, but don't ...


22-200
This one I'm not exactly sure why but I fell in love with it and immediately promoted it to a keeper bed.


22-203


22-245


22-246


22-248


22-672


22-674


22-675


22-677

I feel like these are a nice start, and I definitely hope to follow-up on these with further crosses, if I can squeeze them in...
I especially want to try and work-in this old one from my applique program that I noticed has some relief sculpting going on...


nicknamed "pewter"

I agree, you are off to a great start! Good thing you noticed the sdlg that showed some relief.
22-200, this is nice. The triangular band complements the triangular shape of the relief.
22-672 and 22-677, really pretty with the relief and the light yellow ruffles.

Appliques seem to work well with relief so you should have fun working it with your sdlgs. I hope you manage plant at least a few crosses, sometimes sdlgs have a way of taking us in directions we hadn't originally planned.
Photos....yesterday I was looking for an image of a particular sdlg and realized I didn't take a single shot of it! As many times as I walked by and with an avg of 300 images a day you'd think there would have been at least 1 image. Not a one. I can picture it in my mind, but that doesn't count when you're updating records.

For anyone looking for daylilies that do well in the North and have sculpted traits, I have several that grow beautifully here in zone 3. (None of my seedlings, however, will be blooming before at least next season...)

Embellished Pink (Hansen, D 2020)


I am listing this one first for several reasons - large, gorgeous blooms with nice sculpting. Bloom season is 'extra-early' with rebloom scapes on mine that go right into September. So, very long time to 'play' ... Another benefit, I harvested (rooted and am growing) three proliferations from 'Embellished Pink' this year, which I will plant back into the gardens spring 2024 (more plants to work with, for free). I almost 'never' get prolifs here, so that was a nice bonus.

Dixie Dazzle (Tanner, G 2021)



Love, love, love this daylily! Early midseason, reblooms till end of summer, also very cold-hardy. Added bonus is the beautiful edge.

Lastly, for another colour in cold-hardy and sculpted...

Wonder of it All (Carr 2005)


Again, blooms early season but reblooms till end of summer. (Pod and pollen fertile.)

Wow, Embellished Pink is stunning.