Walter Kennedy

This is one of those flowers that will stop you in your tracks. Explodes in red color. Base color is between dark pink and red but the eye is a dark fire engine red. As you can see the eye pattern comes way out on the petals. 6 inch flower and big strong scapes. Whats not to like. Pat Stamile took Jack Carpenters Peppermint Delight, converted the dip and introed a lot of big eyed flowers from Peppermint Delight. I cant wait till Pat is back releasing introes again. I have been talking via emails to him and he is looking at his first seedling bloom this summer. I think he is getting excited again. Thats a Good Thing!! Stay cool and drink lots of water this summer. It has rained most of the day here and temperature is at 70 degrees at 5pm.. Do you think i set many pods today? Jim Elliott

New Blues

I have bought some new plants to breed with hoping to get a better blue color in the eyes of our tet seedlings. The chalky lavender eyes are nice but i am ready for some blue jean colored blues. Here are 2 new plants with more blue in the eyes. The double picture is from Guy Pierce of Floyd Cove named Which Way. It is in the 4 1/2 inch range and is really a pretty flower that has an outer band outside the blue eye.

The single bloom picture is a new spring intro from Floyd Cove named Dragonfly Blues. Karen Pierce sent this to me this spring as a gift plant with my order. I really like this plant as the base color of the flower is more white and the blue jean blue eye really stands out. The eye shape is triangular which is different. I have been using this pollen and setting seeds outside in this heat. So the pollen must be pretty hot (active). I even have 2 pods using this pollen on Carpenters Palace Garden Beauty. What shade of blue will these babies take?

I counted seed pods yesterday to see how good the shade cloth is working in this heat spell we are having. Not quite 2 weeks it has been up and i have 85 tet pods and 70 dip pods. I didnt count pollenated blooms of the past 3 days because you cant tell as the seed isnt swelling yet or the bloom hasnt dropped. I do know i would not have set very many pods without the shade cloth. For those of us that cant afford a greenhouse this is the next best thing to use for hybridizing. Jim Elliott

Changing Patterns

Good day to all. It is blistering hot here in central Arkansas. I would not want to walk across the street barefoot like when i was a kid. I think it would peel the hide off the bottom of your feet. Thank God for giving me the correct mind to put up that shade cloth over the hybridizing area. Lots of tet seed pods are showing as each day goes by. Lots of dip seed pods also.

Ok. Today we are talking about how much the eye pattern changes as the bloom cycle goes on and the temps get hotter. Even if 2 blooms are on the same scape and open on the same day they may have a different look. Todays bloom is Screen Pattern by Pat Stamile. The bloom on the top was open this morning. See how much different it is from the first bloom on the bottom. I have been seeing it happen with gold edges in past years, the edge gets bigger as the heat increases. Well the same seems to be true of these pattern eyes. Even my blue eyed tets are that way. They are blue jean blue now but when they first started blooming they were more purple.

Have a Great Day and drink lots of water. If you must be outside work in the shade. Pray for your neighbor and lets not forget the kids in harms way in our military. Jim Elliott

Shade Cloth Working

The flower picture is of Crazy Ivan. The color contrast will just stop all your movement. The black in the eye bleeds red out of the edges and the base color is like buttered popcorn. It is a big 6 inches and a tet.

A couple of blogs ago i was telling you that i was hoping this shade cloth would produce more seed pods because the high temps had started plants aborting seed pods, just made me want to cry. It has been about 4 days since we put the shade cloth over the hybridizing beds and i could see yesterday that several old blooms that hadnt dropped were starting to swell with a pod. This afternoon we had some storms roll thru with some good winds that blew off those old blooms and revealed i had been right. I do have tet seed pods and i feel very good about the rest of the bloom season. Of course i have dips out there also and they are setting pods too.

It has been a busy week here trying to get the yard pretty for some clubs to come visit and buy seedlings if they chose to. I can now take this and buy more compost and fertilizer for the new beds the plug tray seedlings will go into. Its Hot out there so drink lots of water and stop periodically to cool off. Superman has left this yard and left me to handle the chores. Have a great week. Also you can take your mouse and click on any picture to enlarge it and hit your back button to go back to the blog page. This works on my blog or Lee Pickles blog or any blog that you are on, just click it to get a bigger picture. Jim Elliott

High Intake Equals High Performance

Isnt it great that all across this great land we all are either expecting blooms real soon or the bloom season is winding down. Either way i hope you meet your expectations with your Daylilies. This plant we love and baby so much has a very big appetite. Is it already there in the beds or did you forget again to redo that bed. When you planted that bed did you add all kinds of nutrients for the plants diet or did you just add a little fertilizer and sometimes water.

Look at it this way, like you were getting at your table for breakfast eack day and then running a marathon once a week. Which diet will give you the energy to last the whole race. Ham and eggs diet or plain corn flakes and skim milk. If it isnt in your flower beds then dont blame it on the hybridizer when the blooms are small and 4 buds. Daylilies have a big appetite. When the plants dont set seed pods then its my fault because i didnt cool them enough to set pods. You can look at past posts on what we put in our beds and it will last for 2 years.

The flower in this blog is Jamacan Rita and is about $30 double fan according to my Eureka. The first time this spring she bloomed there were 3 flowers open on 2 scapes. Now this is a WOW flower. I had never heard of it before someone sent it to me as a gift plant this spring. Thank You.

The other pictures came from my seedling beds that i planted last October from my plug trays. As you can see these seedlings are very happy. They are 4 and 5 fans to a lot of the seedlings. When they bloom next summer i wont have to wait very long before i can intro these babies. This to me is Performance. Many years ago Jack Carpenter gave me his list of what he puts in his beds. But now in February Mark Carpenter applies Chicken Manure as a top dressing with a spreader right out of the chicken house. Thats why plants from the Lily Farm are so well grown, lots of nutrients in the beds.

The shade cloth i put over my breeding beds a few days ago seem to be working. I have not seen a burnt flower or any wilting blooms. When i water at sun down the blooms look great for such a hot day. The pollenated blooms havent fell off yet so i am hoping i have some pods there. Drink lots of water and have a great weekend. Jim Elliott

Shade Cloth

Well summer is here in central Arkansas with a vengence. The past 3 days it has been in the 100 range. We had a club here last saturday and the humidity was 85% plus 100 degrees at 2 pm and we all melted. The flowers in the feild after lunch looked like they were scorched from the hot sun.

I have a green house area that i had put all my plants i wanted to breed with in this area 20 x 24 ft.. I havent been setting any seed pods the past few days and the plants have been melting. I had some shade cloth in the barn for the past few years and decided to try and put it up over the green house area. My wife and i did this yesterday afternoon. I tied off the corners and put in a couple pvc poles in the middle to hold up the middle. I came out at 630am today and started hybridizing and it felt cooler under the 60% shade cloth. i got home this afternoon at about 6pm and went to see what the plants looked like and i was amazed. Out of about 40 blooms, not one bloom was melted or even burnt. They looked good. I know it will help set me more pods now.

The flower is Stamiles Tri Color and a tet. I have seen it bloom several times this summer and today it was a double. As you can see in the first picture there is that extra petaloid sticking out there. Remember i told not so long ago that you could breed doubles with a flower that does this from time to time. Well today here is Tri Color as a full double. Just Amazing. In the old Stamile website Pat doesnt mention that this plant will double. So for those breeding doubles heres one more for you to breed with. Jim Elliott