Wet,Wet,Wet

Good Morning to All, a rainy nite here in central Arkansas. I checked rain gauge this morning and we had 5 inches in it. Thats a lot of water, glad i live on a hill. Springlike temps are making me start to look for scapes even though we are a month early for that plant habit. Daylilies in the beds outside are looking so good.

Inside the green house the plants really look great and seem to grow half an inch each day. I have added more coated fertilizer to the beds and been watering twice a week. Plants are dark green and the dormants are jumping. I am seeing increase so i know the plants are happy.

When i was outside weeding some seedling beds last week a seedling of mine d1510 stayed for several days on my mind. My concern was wether i had put it in the green house or not. Finally i went inside and started looking for it and found it, not one double fan but two double fans, i was a happy man. The cross for d1510 is Tijuana Treasure x Cosmic Kaleidoscope, it has so many buds as you can see in the picture. The pollen parent will be d1810 a yellow with a huge dark burgandy eye. d1810 is also a Cosmic Kal. kid. This will be an F-1 cross. So you say what are my intentions?

I like making long crosses, that means i will make the same cross between these 2 plants several time to get lots of seed in the hopes of getting patterned eyes with lots of buds. Both flowers are in the 7 inch range and i expect the kids eyes to get bigger also. Have a Great Day. Jim Elliott

Try Again

I have no idea how the post i started got posted so lets try again. We have been working on setting up a green house for our breed plants.Daylilies that is. It is 24 ft long and 22 ft wide. We planted the plants last fall so they were outside all winter. Rust has not been a problem here the past 4 years but i didnt want to get it in the green house either.

We have a lot of our selected seedlings in there in hopes of getting early seed. I realize we are getting a late start this year so we are getting our feet wet for next year. I am learning at a fast pace about green houses. This morning it was 26 degrees inside at 630 am and at 9 am temperatures had risen to 80 degrees. At 12 it was a little over 90 degrees. I have a glass storm door for the entrance with a screen window so i raised the window halfway to let in some fresh air. I do want to keep the heat in so as to raise the soil temps and get plants growing. Tonight is our last nite of cold temps for a week anyway so i wont turn on any heater for the nite.

Here are a few pictures to show our progress of building our green house. In a few days i will show the plants growing and soon we are gonna see scapes sometime later this spring. We had 4 inches of rain yesterday and the day before that i had our first Purple Martin sitting on the bird house. Spring is comming and i cant wait to turn her loose. Thanks for looking. Jim Elliott

New Ground

Well here we go with our first green house. It is 24 ft long and 22 ft wide. I have 4 raised beds inside with the plants i

Bridge Plants

Good Morning, it is snowing here in central Arkansas this morning. The high today will be 35 degrees. So i guess i will stay in where its warm.

The picture showing is a diploid seedling that i really like. It is 6 inches and perfectly round. Some call this a Bagel Look. 4 inch petals and 3 inch sepals. So whats not to like? Low bud count is my problem. I think it has 14 buds and top branched. For some that is good but the plants i want to intro i would like to have in the high 20s bud count with branching.

I have some near whites with the plant habit i like that i will be breeding to this seedling d4409. I am hoping to keep the lavender color with the big blunt sepals. Lavender color is pleasing to the eye and i think i should try to keep a line going with this color.

Last nite i woke up thinking about this plant, i was thinking about the lavender base color and it had a blue eye on it. Was an Angel telling me what is comming in the future? I cant answer that cause i dont know but i will try this color combo of lavender with a blue eye. The breeding of this flower has Linda Agin and Carribean Whipped Cream in it.

I guess my biggest fault is i love self flowers, no eyes or bicolor just rich solid color. Even though i have been a study of Jack Carpenters for years i never got into eyes like Jack has. When i went to the Lily Farm with thousands of eyed flowers blooming seems like i always came home with the selfs. But the recent pattern eyes that have came out now i am starting to like those but my first love is Selfs. Have a Great Day and let no one steal your thunder!!Jim Elliott

Using Fungicides

Well here i go again, thinking out loud. I have been seeing posts on the Daylily Robin about starting seeds and damping off. So i thought i would give my 2 cents. Is there a difference of Mildew and Fungus? My being a house painter i am use to seeing Mildew on houses and carports also Mildew will live on clothing as long as temp and ph factor makes for happy Mildew. To get rid of mildew we need to change the ph factor by using bleach or vinegar. These 2 liquids will help get rid of the Mildew. Mildew lives on nonliving materials and takes in its moisture and such right out of the air and usually in damp places with not so much air movement.

Fungus makes it living from being a host on living plant tissue. Whether it is on the leaves of Crepe Myrtles in what we call Powder Mildew or in the form of Rust on our Daylilies. There is a Blight that kills your Tomato plants when the summer heat gets going. The Tomato leaves will start to curl just like when you have worms on your Tomato plants but these leaves that curl will turn brown and fall off and before long that plant is dead. After spraying a good safe fungicide on your Tomato plants the plants leaves will return to normal and look healthy again. Find you a fungicide that can be sprayed on Fruits and Vegetables.

Damping off is what we as Daylily People need to be aware of. This is when your seedlings start germinating and get leaves about 2 inches tall then just fall over for no reason. This is Damping Off. Doesnt matter if you use cups or plug trays it will get you one day. The planting medium need moisture mixed in before planting your seeds. What i do is take two 5 gallon buckets and put a gallon of water plus one tablespoon of fungicide in a bucket then fill the other bucket with potting mix. Add the mixed water to the planting mix and mix with your hands until it has a wet consistancy, you dont want any dry pockets in your mix. You must have holes for drainage in your cups or your seeds may rot. Wether you water from the top or place your cups in a water trough add fungicide to the water at least once a month. But by all means start off with fungicide in the planting mix before starting seeds. Once they start damping off water with a fungicide before you loose them all. But if you start with a good Fungicide and a good planting medium you will have fewer problems as your babies grow.

We woke up to 18 degrees this morning in Central Arkansas after spring like temps for the past 3 weeks. My plants are in the greenhouse in the ground waiting for the plastic to warm them up. In the comming weeks i hope to show what is going on in the greenhouse as we set things up for bloom season. I cant wait to see scapes and blooms.

Your ideas and comments are always welcome. May you have a Blessed New Year. Jim Elliott

More Shade House

Sharon Price wrote that she would like to see the shade house that i have been talking about. In another month i will have the green house poles up and after we get a good frost i will put on the plastic but for now we have blessed shade for our daylilies.The interior of the greenhouse is 20 wide and 24 long. The shade cloth is 22 x 20 i think. i used the metal T posts to tie the ringlets on the shade cloth to the T posts. After stretching it as best i could there was a big sag in the middle of the cloth. I took some 1 1/2inch pvc pipe about 10ft long and put a T on the end of the pipe and propped up the cloth in 2 places. Looks like a big tent. I then hammered in 2 more T posts in the walkways so i could wire the pvc poles to them so the wind would not make the pvc fall down and break scapes.

Here are 4 pictures i took this morning and in the last 2 pictures you can see Peppermint Delight blooming and Aramis reblooming in the other picture. You can also see the seed pods that are growing under the cloth. It was definitely worth the effort. Also if you will click on the pictures they will enlarge so you can see them better. Jim Elliott

Shade House

Well i made it back. Back from poor pitiful me idea. Just seemed i was pouring my soul into this blog trying to help someone start out right with daylilies with good info and there was never (very little) response. Maybe it was the heat from summer. I may not blog everyday but i will try to blog once a week.

Well you remember we put some shade cloth over an area we had planned on using for a greenhouse. I wasnt getting any pods before that. Well we have well over 150 pods tet and dip. We have been collecting seeds for about a week. I have collected about 40 pods so far.

Now we are getting rebloom under the shade cloth from dips and tets that had not rebloomed in the past in the open garden. Now we have had temps above 100 for the past 3 weeks and no rain. But i do water every other day in this area and it still gets hot. So yesterday Jack Carpenters Peppermint Delight had a bloom open on a rebloom scape and here it is taken thursday at 630 pm. thats right late in the afternoon and still looks good. The petal was broken because my dog thought it was something to eat and knocked it out of my hand. The petals were still firm and colors not faded. I am a firm believer in using shade cloth for hybridizing now.

Jim Elliott