Yellow is Hot

This time of year i try not to pay a lot of attention to seedlings in the mornings and when we get in from work they are burnt up. The past couple days i have been pulling out of the yard and i have been seeing yellow bloom in the bed. This morning i saw the yellow seedling flower again and at first i thought it was 2 blooms side by side. Its color just stuck out like a full moon comming up over the trees. I had a small job close by so i left and when i came back in the yard there was this yellow bloom shining thru all those dry scapes. Well my curiousity got the best of me, i just had to know what named lily that was. to my amazment it was a single bloom and it is a seedling on its rebloom scape. It is a tet, yuk.

We havent watered hardly any this summer cause i wanted to see how much rebloom i would get without a lot of water. i am not getting rebloom like i did last year with all the rain but i am getting lots more than expected. The plants that want to rebloom in this 100 degree heat i can learn to appreciate even when they are tets. This seedling got lost among the other seedlings during regular bloom season but she is shining now. I do not know the cross as the tag was lost during the move from the old garden. So what do you think? Stay or go?

Drink lots of water during this hot summer we are having. Jim Elliott

Mini Crete Myrtles

Before we went to work this morning, Kathy asked did i see the Crete Myrtle out front that was in full bloom? No Maam. So i had to look and it was full so i thought i would share this picture on our blog. Kathy has them in several different colors, red, purple, pink and white. They are basicly ground huggers. We have a couple older ones that are about 10 years old and about 3 foot tall and about 5 foot across. If you will go to our website and look under other plants you will see the different colors of Crete Myrtles. You have to click on ENTER at bottom of web page. http://www.woostergarden.com/ . I thought since everyone is past peak bloom with daylilies you may like a little variety. Jim Elliott

White Diploids and Tractors

Good Morning to All, i intended to blog last nite but i was brain dead. Just a long day at work i guess. We are into rebloom in the garden here and lots of bloom and scapes comming up. We have been picking seed at a steady pace and maybe have about 1500 dip seed now. These i hope will go into the new beds in mid September. If germination is normal we should have 3000 seedlings to plant.

I am really looking forward to this batch of seed when they bloom should cause a little stir. I have been putting blue eyed pollen on my whites hoping for a 6 inch white with a sky blue eye. i think it is realistic cause i am only looking for one plant like that. Also my dip seedling d2210 i put its pollen all over the garden. d2210 has about 30 buds 5 way branching and very thick substance and on first blooms is over 7 inches. I have been putting Cosmic Kalidescope on d2210 and its sibs trying for the patterned eye and a lot better substance. Plus we have used Texas Kal. on thicker substance flowers also. Then we have the blue eyed seedlings to bloom and used some of that pollen. So when this seedling crop does bloom their will be some nice flowers to look at.

I have seen all the talk about white daylilies on the Robin and thought i would show mine. I didnt have a closeup shot but in this picture you can see the white. I do have some closeup shots but what folder did i put them in. I have a couple seedlings that the green throat comes way out on the petals and makes the flower look green.

And about tractors, anyone know anything about the small chinese tractors. I have the chance to buy one that is a 23 horse with pto tiller. Are they a good tractor or should i pass? Drink lots of water as summer is still here. Jim

Seed Pods

Great Day to All. Thank the Lord for another beautiful day, we did get up this morning. We have begun to pick seed pods so i thought i would show what mature seed pods look like. It isnt rocket science being able to tell when a pod is ready to pick. If you pick and the pod is too green then the seeds will not germinate.

The picture on our blog show that these pods are a little past ready and could have been picked the day before. As the scape quits feeding the seed pods you will notice brown at the base of the pod like it is drying up the food source, these seed pods will come off and where you picked them the scape is brown where the pod came loose. I have miseed picking pods for several days and they just get more dry, even though the pod is cracked open it usually wont spill the seeds on its own.

Also if one chamber is cracking open and the other 2 chambers are still green i will wait until the other chambers are drying up before i pick the pod. Once i see pods beginning to open i check my scapes every day as the heat will move them to crack open. I use a 3 oz solo bathroom cup to collect my pods and write the cross on the side of the cup as i pick. Please wait to open pods when in the house because if you drop a seed on the ground it is very hard to find.

Here is D-01-08 Dip seedling. It is out of Edna Shaw. Edna Shaw gives lots of substance to its kids. So if you breed dips you will be wise to use this plant in your hybridizing. Edna is short, blooms at the top of the folage but D-01-08 is about 30 inches tall. You will notice the edge on this seedling goes all the way around the petal and it reblooms twice. Right now we have about 14 plants so one day soon we will intro this seedling. Thanks for looking and drink lots of water this summer. Jim Elliott

Feathered Dip Seedling

This is an odd dip seedling that came out of Lavender Blue Baby. I have had others that had this( feathering as Jack Carpenter calls it), but not to this extent. It is 5 inch flower and a dark lavender. Some days it has extra tissue that looks like double arrowheads that are way out on the midribs. This is not extra petaloids as this material is attatched to the petals. It has a scape about 30 inches tall. I have seeds from last year and this and am looking forward to its seedlings. It has been raining here most of the afternoon and Thank You Lord for the rain. We need the rain and cooler temps. Have a great day and Pray for our country. Jim Elliott

Chatter Select

As i look at some of the old pictures i have i wonder where did time go. Did we use our time wisely as it goes by. Your last thought is nothing more than a memory now. It is in the past. I think about the night of some years back we had a chat group on the Lily Auction where we could email a website and everyone who was signed in could chat. People from all around the country was on there and a great time was had and lots of info was there also.

This picture is at Jack Carpenters(now Mark Carpenters) Lily Farm. We have Ronie Johnston (Arbie)from Denver, Co.. Myself from Arkansas, Tony Mangold from Houston, Tx.,Judy Farquar(oleo) and (Peanut)Elrin Fanguy. We all met at Center, Tx, to go see Jacks place for a couple days and get aquainted. Then we met the next year at the Symposium in Louisiana and more people showed up that were on the Chat. It sure is great to put a face on names that you have been only emailing to. Come for the flowers and we Stay for the people. We have been Blessed to meet so many nice people in this business and with Gods Grace we hope to meet a few more. Thanks for looking. Remember this picture is maybe 10 years old. Jim

Pollen Theives and Tet Seedling

I hope all had a Great 4th of July. it was a great family day here. I let the inlaws cook for lunch and my daughter cooked for our supper and a little while later that evening we watched the fireworks display. A great time was had by all especially the kids"grankids and nephews and neices" all ours are grown. Since today was a holiday for most we stayed home and cut grass and repotted some crepe myrtles. About 10 am i thought i would go out and collect some dip pollen for use next summer. Some of the lates never get used much cause when they start blooming we are just about through hybridizing for the year. When i saw all the honey bees stealing our pollen i went in and got the camera. What pollen they didnt eat they had it all over their back legs. That orange in the picture is a pollen covered leg not an anther. They would just wrap their bodies around each anther and eat. I didnt collect any pollen today but tommorrow i will get mine before i go to work.

The tet seedling is out of Darla Anita, i know the color is muddy but it has rebloomed twice and has branching so that will be a good base for the tet line. While all this was going on i had fired up the smoker for supper with some ribs and a whole chicken. Daylilies and BBQ it dont get much better. Thanks for looking. Jim Elliott

Is Fertile Really Fertile?

When is the truth going to come out about fertility? How many times have you bought a plant to use dip or tet and if you use it outside you get no seed pods. When you ask the hybridizer about this plant being fertile and you cant set a seed pod they tell you "I dont know about outside i do my hybridizing in my greenhouse." Not everyone has a greenhouse and then to tell the plant is fertile, that aint right. Why cant we have 2 boxes on the registration about fertile and we can check either greenhouse or outside. Then when plant is listed put a big asterics beside the fertile. When i am getting 2 pods maybe on a plant, those using greenhouses are getting 10 pods per scape. So it must be 10 times easier to set seed in a greenhouse.

The weather turned hot and dry this summer as the tets started to bloom. I dont think i have but one pod set outside out of probably 100 tet scapes. I am in full sun all day. On the other hand i set lots of pods with my dips. These pods were set in full sun, field grown. Pod fertility is a big plus but also so is bud count. When i am hybridizing outside i want all the flowers i can get to set seed pods on. I guess in a greenhouse it dont matter about bud count. I think we"the buyers" need to start being more selective about which plants we buy for hybridizing. We need to find out if this plant will set seed pods outside. Maybe if we start asking these kinds of questions the guys putting out these' fertile introes" will take notice. Am i the only one that is concerned about where our plant is headed? Leave a comment below. Love to hear from you. Thanks for looking and have a Great Fourth of July!!Jim Elliott

The Hulk

I believe with this plant from Pat Stamile this is what tets were suppose to be like. Big flowers, vivid colors and big strong scapes. In my yard, that is where it counts the most, The Hulk makes all other tets look like they come from kindergarden. It has 3 way branching and the terminal y so you may say 5 way branching but in my yard it is 3 way. It has a full 6 inch plus bloom that is flat and ruffled each day. The scape is the biggest in diameter in all my yard. Looks like an oak tree. I have about 8 fans of it and about that many blooms this morning, just beautiful. I am going to keep the tet seedlings i like and use The Hulk pollen on them to start my own MAN SCAPES. There is nothing feminine about this plant, actually i am trying to get a purple seedling like this. If you dont have The Hulk, get it. I hope all of you a great bloom season. Jim Elliott