Jamie Gossard Visits Georgia.

Hello Daylily Friends,

This past Saturday Diana and I got up early and drove from our home in Marietta to the campus of Macon State College in Macon, Georgia.  We went to the College to attend the meeting of Georgia's Region 5 where the speaker was Jamie Gossard from Ohio.  Jamie's program was excellent.  He is doing great work producing daylilies with "teeth."  After his presentation, one of the daylilies that Jamie auctioned was KING COBRA.  As I recall, it is a bi-tone, unusual form, with lots of teeth and clean color.  There were three hybridizers who tried to purchase KING COBRA, but the ultimate purchaser was Scott Elliott from Savannah, Georgia.  Congratulations to Scott, and thanks to Jamie for coming to visit.

This morning there were more new blooms in my big Greenhouse.  One of the new blooms was on my CHILLED ORANGE SORBET.  It is a daylily that I introduced several years ago, it is dormant, and it really doesn't like the Greenhouse.  Nevertheless, I put it in the Greenhouse so that I could collect pollen and put the pollen on one of my very tall TET. ORANGE VELVET seedlings.  I have not been able to set pods on CHILLED ORANGE SORBET, so it has to be a pollen parent.  CHILLED ORANGE SORBET is beautiful when it blooms outside, and is usually one of my first daylilies to bloom.

RED SAPPHIRE also bloomed, and it has begun showing its teeth and protruburances.  I gathered its pollen, and pollenated the three blooms with pollen from RED EYED RADIANCE.  RED SAPPHIRE is such a great daylily.  It is tall, it is well branched, and it is dependable with brilliant blooms.  The colors are just so bold and stark.  I'm pleased that I'm increasing the number of plants that I have.


Another of this morning's blooms comes from Stamile's WILD AND FREE.  It looks like a spider, but it is actually an unusual form.  It is pod fertile, and I intend to use it with Sandy Holmes' WALT LOWRY.  I plan to take the pollen from WALT LOWRY to WILD AND FREE.  I'm really hoping that my plan works.  Of all of the spiders and unusual forms that Stamile has produced, in my humble opinion, his WILD AND FREE is his best.

Well Little Lily Rae has begun eating new foods besides her milk.  She has begun to eat pears and sweet potatoes.  Diana fed her pears, but when she gets the spoon in her mouth she tries to take it as she would her milk from her bottle.  She really loves the pears.  It is such a joy seeing our wonderful granddaughter grow.

Well that is the news for today from our Daylily garden.

Bill