Friday, March 13, 2009

Continuing Post on Conversion Work

Hello Daylily Friends,

I have now moved six daylilies to more permanent two-gallon containers and I have applied satisfactory water and fertilizer. The two-gallon pots are necessary to give the daylilies room to grow, and the water causes the daylilies to have also have a good burst of growth. You can see from looking at the pictures of the daylilies that they are firm in appearance and that they are growing very well. To our immediate left is the daylily that I have called "Seedling One," and to our immediate right is the daylily that I have called "Seedling Two." Both daylilies are in strong, active growth, and I do not anticipate any further problems with rot or deterioration. It seems to me that these daylilies are converted. However, I have had several daylilies that were "hard" after going through the treatment process only to find about a year later that there was only a partial conversion with insufficient tetraploid pollen.

The next two daylilies also seem to be fully converted. The first daylily, which is herewith shown on the left, comes from John Shooter in Marietta, North Carolina. The name of this daylily is ESP. It is 32" tall, it has 5-way branching, and it has about 28 buds. Although it is registered as being a semi-evergreen, for me here in north Georgia, it is a dormant. The second daylily, which is herewith shown on the right, is VIRGINIA FRANKLIN MILLER. This second daylily comes from David Kirchhoff. It was registered in 1990, and it is an evergreen. It is 28" tall and has flowers that measure 6 1/2" in diameter. VIRGINIA FRANKLIN MILLER was actually converted many years ago by Pat Stamile for David Kirchhoff. I tried to purchase the converted daylily from David but because of his move to Kentucky he could no longer locate or find VIRGINIA FRANKLIN MILLER.
I would also note that both ESP and VIRGINIA FRANKLIN MILLER are important to me in conversion work that I want to continue. I need TET. ESP to remove some of the heavy ruffles from some of the evergreen whites, and I need TET. VIRGINIA FRANKLIN MILLER to help me with doubles. I want doubles that remain as doubles and do not revert to regular appearing daylilies.
The last daylily that I will show is OUR FRIEND TOM WILSON. There are two pictures of this final daylily. The daylily on the left is surely converted, and hopefully, the one on the right is also converted. This daylily was introduced by Jack Carpenter and it is a lavender evergreen. It is 26" in height and it is so beautiful because of its very wide sepals. I simply must have this conversion to work with my lavenders, and to also increase the size of the sepals on my daylilies. I first saw this daylily in Frank Smith's garden, and I have always wanted to use it as a conversion, but so far my conversion efforts on this daylily have not been successful. I am just "sure" that things have now changed. Lavenders seem to be more difficult to produce and having this conversion should help me create better lavenders. I already have a dormant lavender which will be the pod parent. It is a cross between the following: (Magic Amethyst x Diana's Pink Gown).
Well, that is about all I will have to say about conversions for a while because now I have to turn my attention to the greenhouse and pollenation to create new seeds. I will probably post soon about producing seeds using frozen pollen.
Bill

3 comments:

  1. Do you already have blooms in your green house? Mrs. Waldrop showed me some of the amazing scapes, but they were still young. Do daylilies in the green house really grow all that much faster?
    Luke

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  2. GREAT TO SEE THAT YOUR CONVERSIONS ARE LOOKING GOOD. HOPE TO BE ABLE TO BUY SOME OF THEM IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS. DAVID C

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  3. Hi Luke. I have had one bloom from BEST EDGE, and I pollenated it using pollen frozen from last summer from TET. UNCLE BRYAN. I sure hope the cross takes. Within the next week I should have blooms on Seedling 7-53 and on BEST EDGE. Daylilies grow according to the amount of heat they receive. More heat makes daylilies grow faster, so, anything in the greenhouse grows faster. In my opinion the greenhouse enviroment is equivalent to the enviroment daylilies have growing outside in south Florida.

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