Finding an Edge | Daylily Blog

<posted October 16, 2014>  This is H. 'Brookwood Apricot Nectar' from Leo Sharp.  This is a northern-born daylily that has some interesting structure in the center of the flower.  Seems the petals crimp and fold like a newborn Sharpei pup.  

Earlier this year, an editor asked me to help recommend only one registered daylily for someone interested in dabbing pollen for the first time.  My expertise here isn't because I've dabbed a ton of pollen, its because I've seen a ton of daylilies and study their simple intricacies. 

I told her I would first ask this new hybridizer: What daylily dreams are they trying to fulfill with their own line of seedlings?  What form or color sings to them? 

If one of their passions happened to be miniature daylilies I would be quick to recommend H. ‘Just for Breakfast.’  (Threewitts, 1994) height 22in, bloom 3in, season EM, Rebloom, Semi-Evergreen, Diploid, Fragrant,  Lemon yellow self with green throat. (Elva White Grow × Super Doll)  Havent heard of it?  

That’s the point of picking it as a plant to use in a new program.  

Seedlings from something practically unknown (nationally) will help get your program an edge.  After all, how many people can use the beautiful H. ‘Lavender Blue Baby’ or H. ‘Skinwalker’ or H. 'Rose F Kennedy' or H. ‘Northwind Dancer?’ 

This particular cultivar has proportionate scapes and branching, with consistently high bud count and clean foliage.  It has thick substance and glowing color.  Growers in Florida have enjoyed it for years and those of us who visited Orlando in 2009 were let in on many regional cultivar secrets.  H. ‘Just for Breakfast’ is a show winner, a garden-value convention award winner and one that so enamored a successful and very widely-known hybridizer he recently placed an order for 30 double fans of this plant for his own home’s landscaping.  He remarked if he had a mini-diploid program, this would be his stud.  I would recommend other of the Threewitts’ introductions, too.  I’ve noticed a few since Orlando, and they have all been distinct.

In my opinion, a successful daylily hybridizing program boils down to finding an edge – not a literal edge, but a difference – a distinction that would help your program contribute something new to the daylily universe.  In the white-collar world, the most successful businesses are those who identify a common problem or question and work tirelessly to provide a solution to it.  

A new daylily hybridizer should study what’s out there and find the hole.  

What’s missing?  

And then ask themselves, what can I do to fill it?