This mor
ning, just before lunch time, Diana and I drove to Thomson, Georgia, and gave a program for the "Thomson Iris and Daylily Society." Our good friend Vernon Johnson is the President of the club, and we had a wonderful visit in the town's library. The members of the Thomson Club love daylilies and I did my best to show them my best.
Well, when I got up this morning, around 6:00 a.m., I went immediately to the Greenhouse. After I had been there only a few minutes I noticed a single bloom on Shooter's ESP. I have been trying for several years to get ESP converted, but I kept missing the
mark. Then, as many of you know from my blogs in January and February of this year, I treated five fans of what was already a partially converted ESP. This time I have it converted. I am showing a picture of the partially converted ESP, and then I am showing three pictures of pollen that I looked at in my microscope.You can click on the pictures of the pollen and see that the pollen on my mea
suring scale measures about a "15." Diploid pollen usually measures about an "8 to a 10." It is certainly good to have this accomplished. Well, I should use the word "acccomplished" only after I have set seeds that then mature. I have only two anthers to use, and I cannot use them until Wednesday. They should be fine where I have them stored in a match box in my large refrigerator.You might ask why I would go to so much effort to try to convert ESP. Well, I thought the color was strong and concentrated. I have seen it bloom. I knew it was a good white. Shooter has it registered with AHS as a dormant, and from my own experience I know that in fact it is a dormant. I also know that it has 3 to 5 way branching with many buds. The buds are about 4 1/2" in diameter. Of course ESP has a lime green throat. I am hopeful that I can take it to many evergreens and capture more height and branching and also the dormancy of ESP.
I will let you know if I set pods with my new Tet. ESP.
Bill
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