What are some of the most Radical daylily crosses you have made and how did they turn out?

I crossed these today and it will probably turn out hideous,



Something just possessed me and I couldn't help my self. It was the vivid purple and orange and those big huge blooms! Let me hear your stories....Please!

Catherine,

You may be surprised. In tetraploids, for some strange reason, orange and purple can work out fine in a cross. Look in the daylily database for Ashwood Inferno (Norris)...a screaming orange, the result of a cross between an orange line and a purple line. We're making some of these purple/orange crosses this year, but will have to wait on the results. Interestingly enough, we have a lot of orange-to-orange seedlings or red-to-yellow seedlings in the yard with some muddiness. You'd think all of those would be various gorgeous, clear peaches, creams, and oranges. Not so.

It will be interesting to see what you get! Keep us posted.

Wow, I would never have imagined that color from those crosses! Just goes to show you I guess...

This was talked about last week in the Front Porch thread. I posted some of my experiences with crossing purple and orange. I have gotten some nice results. Got a fushia pink from a cross of purple and peach.

Cindy do you have any pics of any of those crosses? I can check that thread also.

Can you give us a hint which page of the Front Porch thread? I worked back through several pages, and still did not find it.

Yes, I looked also but was unable to find it.

I used wild ditch lily on an unknown little red in1987-I didn't know any better. But I got eight seeds----I was looking at that part of my garden today and unfortunately the black berries are over eight feet high and it is simply impenetrable. There is sumac, wild grape vines, and poison ivy too so I guess they will remain lost. If I remember correctly I -grew a couple of yellows and some bicolored red and yellow ones---Weedy

The seedlings one gets from crosses with oranges depends very much on how the orange is formed in the parents.
There are three ways known to produce orange flower colours. 1) Have high concentrations of the yellow carotenoid pigments - in high concentrations these are orange. 2) Have the more orange carotenoid pigments. 3) Have the appropriate combination and concentrations of yellow carotenoid pigments with reddish anthocyanin pigments.

If a type 1 or type 2 orange daylily is crossed with a purple flowered plant I would expect that the seedlings would be mostly muddy coloured. If a type 3 orange is used in the cross then I would expect that there is a better chance that some of the seedlings will not be muddy coloured.

Mauna Loa is a type 3 orange.

Daylilies have basically two types of anthocyanin pigments, the reddish-purple cyanidins and the bluish-purple delphinidins. If the purple-flowered parent is reddish-purple rather than bluish-purple I would expect there to be a better chance that some of the offspring would not be muddy coloured.

When examined, clear purple flowered daylilies have very little carotenoid pigment; red flowered daylilies can have noticeable amounts of carotenoid pigments. I suspect that to be clear coloured and have delphindin pigments in the flower there cannot be a noticeable concentration of carotenoid pigment.

Ashwood Inferno (orange) is from two seedlings so we cannot know for certain from the pedigree what colour the parents were. One parent was from Burning Inheritance × Apache War Dance. Burning Inheritance was registered as red-orange and Apache War Dance was registered as scarlet red. I would guess that seedling parent was reddish. The other parent was from Ruffled Royalty × Thunder and Lightning. Both are registered as purples. It would be reasonable to assume that the other seedling parent was purple. Thunder and Lightning was from Study in Scarlet × Special Effects - a blood red x pink mauve. Special Effects involved Wedding Band. Thunder and Lightning may be a purple but it also carries the genetics for red from Study in Scarlet and probably cream-white (low carotenoid concentrations) from Special Effects.

It is possible that the Burning Inheritance x Apache War Dance seedling was used in a cross with Tupac Amaru to produce the purple Ashwood Smoky Joe. It is possible that the Ruffled Royalty x Thunder and Lightning seedling was used with Maxfield Parrish to produce the red Cory Tipple and is the rosy purple Sturm Und Drang.

Maybe it wasn't Porch thread. I will look and see if I can find it.

Couldn't find it either. I don't remember what thread it was posted in. I will repost my crosses.

GOLLIWOG X BLACK PLUSH = REBEKAH'S GOTHIC SPIDER





RESULT

REBEKAH'S GOTHIC SPIDER




NEXT CROSS WAS A LAVENDER WILSON SPIDER SEEDLING X LIGHTHOUSE NEON GALAXY(a peach color)

SEEDLING


LIGHTHOUSE NEON GALAXY


RESULT

MILKY WAY EYES

Another radical cross I did, just for the heck of it, to see what I would get.

FRANS HAL X NORTH WIND DANCER

In 2011 I made a cross of a 16" spider with one of Liz Salters little flowers and got the best branched daylily I have seen. In 2013 I had 4 clumps of this seedling, the Salters were amazed at the branching and bud count when they were here for our Regional Meeting last year. Later in the summer last year all 4 clumps died from crown rot. I do have seedlings from this, it was very pod fertile.
DARK AVENGER X ALDERSGATE 3" BLOOM 6+ BRANCHS 50+ BUDS

Same flower.

Cindy I really like REBEKAH'S GOTHIC SPIDER

Wow, Fred that's a shame. Great stats on that! Glad you have some seedlings left at least.

@admmad That's a lot of great information there. I have also read some of the information you have online. Very Interesting, always interested in color. Years ago I used to breed some birds. When I first started the way color was passed on was a bit confusing. Now I wish that is was even half that easy to understand color genetics in these daylilies, lol.

Thanks for re-posting the images, Cindy.

Here is one seedling, which had maiden bloom this summer, from a "radical" cross of mine. It is the offspring of a lavender/orchid seedling of mine of uncertain heritage (long story there) with a nasty tendency to "tongue", and in which the petals tend to be slightly chalice shaped. (I keep it though because of the color and fragrance, and because it once had an instant rebloom.)

This seedling was pollinated by 'Osterized', which I was hoping would help it to open flatter, and would fix the tonguing. I knew that the resulting color would be muddy, and two other seedlings from the cross were hideously muddy orange things (the other seedlings did not bloom), but this one seedling (though also muddy) wasn't too bad.

Lavender/orchid seedling (image was on a "good hair" day, though there is a hint of tonguing on the 2 o'clock petal) by 'Osterized'

x

The "good" offspring

Fred, that must have been a heartbreaker!

@Polymerous the "Good" Offspring is Nice!

Forbidden Desires x Startling Creation


offspring

Kim those are nice! I like them all!

I'm working with the middle 2, I would like to see more teeth and more saturated color. We will see how it goes.