Daylily Nut -- Seedling #03-PB
Future registration (click on any picture for a larger view)
EM Ext. fr. Dor. dip. 25", 4", 5 branches, 26 buds. Baby ribbon pink with red halo, ivory white midrib, and yellow-green throat. {[H. 'Siloam Virginia Henson' x H. 'Wendy Glawson'] x [(H. 'Joan Senior' x H. 'Peppermint Stripe') x (H. 'Siloam Virginia Henson' x H. 'Janice Brown')]} Seedling #03-PB. Very fertile both ways.
#03-PB gets my attention because it is so reminiscent of the best of Pauline Henry's Siloams. It has unswerving bloom consistency and tremendous bud count. Every bloom is a perfect little picture, with balanced rounded form and pretty ruffling. A clump makes an excellent bouquet because bloom is at a consistent height and the scapes have wide branching. And as a bonus #03-PB is the closest thing I have to a 24 hour extended bloomer. Under intense sun and lower humidity the blooms may begin to melt by 6PM, but most evenings at around 8PM, you can find today's flowers looking crisp and tomorrow's flowers nearly wide open (and several shades darker).
Its complex parentage brings in a double dose of H. 'Siloam Virginia Henson', which is surely where it got its "Siloam-ness". Below are pictures of the seedling ancestors. I still grow all four of these and am still using three of them in my hybridizing for improved white base color in a variety of flower patterns.
Top row left is a grandparent (H. 'Joan Senior' x H. 'Peppermint Stripe'). The only thing true to expectations about this seedling is it's very white base color. H. 'Peppermint Stripe' is (H. 'Joan Senior' x H. 'Aspen'). Where its bright red-pink surface color comes from is a mystery. Then when I backcrossed PS with one of its parents and got a purple-eyed bicolor with a purple wash on the petals, I could only suspect that there must be some genetic oddities (mutations?) involved, probably coming from H. 'Peppermint Stripe'. This seedling has better than average bud count and has consistently had scapes of two distinctly different heights, some tall, some just above the foliage. I bloomed this seedling in 1994 and am still using it because it consistently passes its genetic whiteness to the base color of its offspring.
On the right in the top row is another grandparent. A cross of two classics, both with excellent branching and bud count, H. 'Siloam Virginia Henson' and H. 'Janice Brown'. This seedling was kept because it was whiter than both parents and had fantastic branching, vigor and very healthy foliage.
The child of the two on the top row is shown at lower right. This is the pollen parent of #03-PB. [(JS x PS) x (SVH x JB)] is a really white flower with somewhat pale or diffuse red eye. It retains the great bud count of its pollen parent and acquired the clear white color from its pod parent. I'm sure it is responsible for doing all the color clarifying of #03-PB.
Finally the pod parent of #03-PB is seedling #96-07-09, shown at lower left. This seedling may also be worthy of registering. We'll see. It has adorable, wide ruffled petals of a nice clear salmon-pink over a creamy light beige base color. the sepals are unusually well ruffled. The flowers are consistent, of rich waxy substance. The plant is a very vigorous and hardy dormant. Bud count is very good, although the scapes are a bit tall. And best of all, this seedling always reblooms -- sending up a full second set of scapes (not just a few scattered ones) while the first set is still blooming. Thus it usually is in bloom for 5 or 6 weeks, beginning in the latter part of the Early season.
But back to the star of this show -- At left is an image showing the branching and bud count to be found on #03-PB. And finally, below, are three color comparisons, because the primary distinction of the flower is its color clarity. Comparisons are with three very popular "clear" pinks: At left is H. 'Barbara Mitchell' (with a pink petunia thrown in for fun -- note that the petunia color comes out a bit more red than it should because it is under-exposed -- the daylilies have much more total reflectivity). H. 'Elegant Candy' is compared in the center, and at right is a Great Grandparent, H. 'Janice Brown'.
The DaylilyNut Farm has never had rust. It is state inspected, and is located about 25 miles west of Baltimore, MD. In 2006 the garden was moved to a cold-pocket valley, on the boundary between USDA climate zones 5 and 6 (coldest winter night is about -10F).
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Pete Wetzel
P.O. Box 21
Eldersburg, MD 21784
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