Big Red Tet Future

Good evening to all, my good friend Josh Jacques from down in Louisiana has done it again. Here is a Future Introduction of his. If you dont like this big red flower you better check your pulse. If you want to contact him about this flower email him or call him on the phone. His number is in my post a couple back. By the way he is getting low on his H, Youve Got Soul so if you were even thinking about that plant you better get to calling cause your neighbor probably has already bought it and didnt tell you. As for the Red it is a Talladega kid and i think Josh said it had 3 laterals plus the top Y. That adds up to lots of buds.

Here is a good example of a Fused Scape, this is where 2 scapes are welded together. The scape will be flat and no branching and have very few leaf nodes. All the buds ar wadded at the top of the scape. As for the plant itself it is usually a bunch of small plants growing out of a couple crowns. I lined out a seedling last fall and every plant is this way.I wont be setting any pods or using this pollen until we see if it happens again, if so it will go in the trash.

All the scapes i am showing tonight are Diploid, but the red future is a tet. This is the kind of scape we like to breed for. 3 or 4 laterals plus the terminal Y at the top is what we look for when scapes are growing. I have no problem marking a seedling before it ever blooms just for the scape alone.

Here is another diploid seedling that has the scape we breed for. These bottom 2 pictures are first time bloom seedlings. We planted these seedlings in October 2010. We had about 7 of the group bloom last August and it was 100 degrees outside. Now we have scapes all over these 2 seedling beds. The pollen parents were a couple of patterned eyed plants like Texas Kalidescope and Super Fancy Face. The pod parents were our own seedlings that had big heavy scapes with flowers of lots of substance. I am seeing buds swelling up and next week we will get to see if we did a good job. Some reds also and if i could get one plant that had a red flower like Joshs i would be Very Happy this year. Have a Great Weekend and drink lots of water. Jim Elliott

Big Mosaic Coleas

We have different hanging baskets in the greenhouse and i like the big stuff. You know big leaves, big flowers, big scapes and big plants. We bought 2 diferent kind of Coleas in the Kong line. The one pictured here is the Mosaic Kong. Seems it grows about a half inch each day, i may have to take it out of the hanging basket and put it in the yard so it can grow straight up. The leaves are so colorful and about 6 inches acro

ss. Here is a Petunia of a new variety. Wouldnt it be great to have eye patterns like this Petunia. Just having a white daylily this clear in color would be fantastic. I like this pot because not all the blooms are alike. Some have more blue and some more white. Its hard to determine which color is the base color and which is the eye color. As the daylilies inside are growing larger scapes each day we should be close to hybridizing in another week. So for now i just water hanging pots and daylilies waiting on that first daylily bloom. As i try to figure out this new format on our Blog. Each time will be a trial and error. Like Lee Pickles told me "very carefully" when i asked about keeping text and picture in line. But i get longer winded than Lee does. Speaking of Lee Pickles he has has some really nice reds and purple seedlings to bloom this spring in his greenhouse. I have to get this blog text figured out before our seedling bloom or else. Have a great week and enjoy the spring like weather if you have it. Jim Elliott

Big Boy Scapes

It isnt good to change formats on old people. Google decided to update blogspot and now i am confused about what goes where. Not sure if pictures go first or last or somewhere in between.

  We were in the garden this morning looking at what stage the seedlings were in and we found this Huge scape on D2310 a lined out plant for future watching. All the plants had huge scapes that they didnt have that large last year. They measured at one inch across. They were huge all the way up the scape and it will be interesting to see how many laterals the scapes have. Im telling you they look like mop handles.  I checked inside the green house and didnt have any there so we dug up a double fan, leaving the dirt on and planted it inside. I dont think it will ever know it was moved. Anyone have any advice on this new format please email me with some good advice cause i am lost. Jim Elliott

H.Youve Got Soul

WOW, yep i said that. This is a plant that my good friend Josh Jacques down in south Louisiana has bred and registered. Can you imagine have this beauty bloom in your seedling bed someday. The color is perfect combo and if you enlarge(click on picture) the picture you will see tiny dots from the eye pattern. Josh sold me a double fan last fall and i am very proud he did. He gets $100 for a double fan. Joshs phone number is 318-613-2618. He also has a web site that you can get by google his name. I very seldom push another persons plants but Josh is up and there, not comming. The seedling pictures he has been sending me are just beautiful. Didnt Dizzy Dean say"it aint bragging if you can do it". he has proven to me he can do it and we should support him.

Lee Pickles has posted on his blog today a beautiful red seedling that bloomed today, If you havent seen it go look. Lots of ruffles and very red. I think it is the same cross Bill W. had on his blog a few days ago and it was a beautiful red also.

To me looking at beautiful new, never seen before seedlings are like eating ice cream. The more you look the hungrier you get for more. This time of year i feed off seeing other peoples seedling pictures with an unsatiable appetite. I get to see the cross it came from and in my little mind i can vision similar crosses in my own hybridizing. For some like me it is a Passion to be able to raise and grow this fantastic flower. The Ohs and Ahs that people let out when they are looking at your plants makes for a great day. The best compliment i will never forget was when a club came to buy some seedlings and i think every flower in the garden was open that day. When she was looking at the seedling field and she said" I didnt bring enough film". That was a special day. Our blog lets me help others find there way thru the daylilies wether they are curious or have that passion to grow this plant and we can show flowers that just maybe you havent seen before. Like the plants flower shown here I hope someone will appreciate the effort people like Josh put into hybridizing a great flower. He dont have a bigtime name yet but he has the passion to get there. Thanks for looking and come back soon. Jim Elliott

We Got Scapes

Good Day to everyone. Its feeling like Spring around here. I have had the plastic on the green house since March 9th and now we have scapes. Wow!! From cold to scapes in 30 days. That is what you call Speed Hybridizing. Temps on the outside are highs of 70s each day and it seems there is a race inside compared to outside. But the green house is winning. Larry Grace told me once that if i could hold temps at nite at 60 degrees for 60 days i would be in bloom in the green house, He was right for sure. I have been checking temps inside and they have been steady at around 55 degrees each morning before the sun hits the plastic. Now in the afternoons the sun will bring it up to 100 for most of the day. I still have sides pulled up tight and have both doors open during the day with exhaust fan running all day. I water every third day. I have the plants in raised beds and mulched with pine needles. With the heat and humidity the plants are loving it.

My wife was kind enough to let me buy a lot of plants last fall on the Lily Auction and they are in the green house. Plus over half the plants in the green house are our seedlings we have been lining out last year. Next year three fourths of the plants we will use in hybridizing will be our own seedlings, thats when it starts getting good. Lots of blue eye things, patterned eyes, and big edges some with color some with lots of chicken fat.

We have added some annuals like Petunias and Geraniums plus 2 large leaf Coleas. One of the Coleas is a Mosaic that has 4 colors on each huge leaf that i really like.Each morning the fragrance smells so good in there from the Petunias. Maybe in 30 days we can start to show our seedlings starting to bloom so please stay in touch. Drink lots of water while working outside. Jim Elliott

MAMA KNOWS BEST

Good morning, what wonderful weather we are having here in central Arkansas. The daylilies are growing so fast. Yesterday i was out front where the future seedlings will be planted and had a moment that i thought was funny and wanted to share with you.

Last year when i turned under this area with a tractor almost imediately a Kildee built her nest and laid her eggs there. Kildees are those birds that run along water fronts and have long legs. So yesterday i had the afternoon off and decided to fertilize and mulch the seedling beds we planted there last fall. The seedlings are looking so good that i should get some to bloom this spring. Click on pictures to enlarge.

When i started getting close to her nest she started making sounds and flopping on the ground trying to draw me away, the longer i ignored her the more dramatic she became. I called to Kathy to get the camera to record her antics. I hope you enjoy this blog.

The daylilies in the green house are scaping up and in a day or two i will show results that are happening just after 30 days of pulling up the plastic on the top. Now is the perfect time of year to add lime, fertilizer or weed granules which have all been discussed on this blog. You can go to the bottom of this blog page and go to Older Posts. Lee Pickles is having some fantastic seedling blooms that he is sharing on his blog so please go for a look. Remember to drink lots of water while you are working outside this spring. Jim Elliott