The season begins:-)

After giving the greenhouse a month of chill time in December (min temps at 35 and max at 50 - would love to take it 10 degrees colder, but below freezing temps inside impact the structural integrity of the greenhouse and freeze the pipes), it is now time to take up the temps and begin the new season:-) A couple of hours ago I increased the minimum temp to 50 degrees and will be setting it higher in coming weeks.

This year the greenhouse includes a little more than 5000 sdlgs (see earlier blog posts for what I planted), past intros plus those for 2012 and 2013 (including the gift plants for the 2013 national convention) and some for 2014. I brought in only a handful of other "mama" plants, as I wanted to leave all my sdlgs outside for testing and thought it would be a great test to use one of my proven intros in each cross to improve hardiness. But I did bring in a lot of pollen from special seedlings:-)

You will notice a lot of green flags - I use those to tell me where my white marker tags are, indicating each cross. There are lots of flags, as I like to do short crosses (usually 3-5 seeds of each). Many of the seedlings are already blooming size - it really helped to plant them June 1 - a couple of months earlier than usual. I'm hoping to see a much larger percentage of bloom.

The next picture shows the different types of foliage of my introductions. It is hard in Minnesota in the spring to figure that out sometimes since it is so cold and the snow leaves so late. And there are lots of sdlgs to keep track of. But the differences are obvious in the GH - the yellow in the foreground is a dormant, and the one next to it is an Ev or Sev - it is very hard to tell the difference.

The picture below shows sdlgs where there is a lot of dormancy - the pollen parent is the same in this whole bed (while I don't do long crosses, I do make big bets on pollen parents, using them on many pod parents)

Some genetics produce mostly Ev and Sev seedlings, as in the picture below. I have found many of them to be just as tough as the dormants.

2012 Introductions

The new introductions for 2012 are now on-line at springwoodgardens.com/daylilies.html. There are multiple pictures of each one, plus pictures of their offspring.I'm really excited to be back in the swing of things and love this collection. Large, colorful flowers. Lots of teeth. Lots of great genetics for hybridizers. Everything is on-line, but feel free to e-mail me at springwoodgarden@aol.com if you'd like a pdf of the catalogue.

Back to normal:-)

What a difference a year can make. I finally feel like I have my life back:-) Take a look at the September 14, 2010 post (just type in empty in the search box and it will come up) when the greenhouse was completely empty and the one from June 2011, after I had just finished planting my seeds. The greenhouse is now basically full again - I had vowed never to do that again, but just couldn't resist. After all, it costs the same to heat and fertilize no matter how many plants are in there. I'll probably regret it in the spring, when I pull out all of the seedlings for outside testing. Note the size of the seedlings! A number have already sent up baby scapes (in just 3-1/2 months), so hopefully I will get terrific bloom next spring. I normally plant the seeds in early August and am lucky if I see 35-50% bloom. The rest of the plants are the 2012 intros and most of the ones for 2013, including almost all of the gift plants for national. Will soon be posting pics of the new intros, and then over the winter, the best things I saw this past summer.

New seeds planted

Finished planting 5100 seeds on June 13. Hoping by planting this early that I will see a bigger percentage of bloom next spring. But that will depend on sun, genetics, etc.

Christmas in April

Woke up to find the ground covered with snow - again! Sure am glad I told everyone not to expect plants from me until the end of May - many are not even out of the ground yet - those are the smart ones:-)

Although this has been a long, cold, cloudy, snowy, dreary winter, dreaming about the crosses I made has made the winter go faster. 6410 was one of the very special ones I saw last year. It goes back to Desire of Nations, Kingdom Without End, Gnashing of Teeth, Entwined in the Vine, 40807 and 29504. These are all wonderful parents, so I'm hoping 6410 will be as well.

I'm planning to plant more than 100 seeds from it - and wishing I had made more. The longest crosses I'll be planting with are out of 22305, 13107, 47607, 12708, 6109, 9009, 15209, 17809, and 21709. I chose some of them because of their "echo" eyes and others because of related genetics.

Going for size

I first saw this beauty (seedling #14210) exactly one year ago - see blog post of April 15, 2010 which describes it and its parents in more detail (out of 9608 x 47607). Very fancy, very tall and 8"! (keep scrolling below for rest of the post - big space that I can't figure out how to get rid of)

I'm planning to plant about 170 seeds from it, primarily with fancy parents with similar color and flowers in the 6-1/2 to 7" range - in the hopes that I can get more 8" flowers into my program. As usual, I'll be doing a lot of line-breeding. I'll be planting the most seeds from it with these pod parents: 22305, 16809##, 19309#, 34709##, 34909#, 38409#, 43509#, 11810* and 13310*###. Those with a * are out of 47607 and those with a # go back to A285 or 5006, which are the parents of 9608. 13310 goes back to both, and has several doses of those genetics as marked by multiple symbols.

Not sure I can wait a year to see the results

Pictured above are two pics of 13810. It makes my heart race, with it's beautiful ruffles, echoing lavender eye and edge, green throat and a hint of twinkles. It will be my 4th most planted pollen parent, with 250 seeds. It's out of 28709 (below) and 47607.

The longer crosses I'll plant from it are with 1809, 9009, 17809, 21709, 2310, 3910, 10310, 14210, 14510 (14510 is the longest with 20 seeds) - all shown elsewhere on the blog, and mostly related genetics out of 47607. I will also plant a number with Reach for the Sky, as well as 28909 pictured below. I want to see if the white swords from 28709 will combine with the white swords on 28909.

All of this is way too much info for most folks reading this, but I'm hoping the blog will be a useful tool for me over the years as I make visual notes on what I'm thinking.