Telmarc Gardens
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Telmarc Gardens
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The Daily Daylily
Fall At the Shore November 2, 2008: 12:00 Each Fall we go to the nearby New Jersey Shore and enjoy the change of colors. As we did a month ago in New Hampshire, we can this month as well see the changing colors of the plants as they ready for winter.
Fall Arrives October 15, 2008: 10:00 Fall has arrived, it is cool, dry, and the green is disappearing. In its place are the anthocyanins which we cherish so much in the daylily.
In addition we just had the last bud of H fulva sempervirens bloom yesterday! Elfin is still going on and that amazes me. The remnants of H minor's re-bloom are still there and perhaps a seed pod. All the plants have been replaced for the spring and we now have hundreds of potted plants ready for next year. Also we have placed all seedlings in larger pots.
Final Flower of the Summer September 14, 2008: 14:00 When we see H minor re-bloom we
see the final flower of the summer. It comes again, at the end of all others to
remind us that it is still here and that it will come again early next spring.
GSDG Meeting and List of 2008 Additions September 8, 2008: 16:00 Yesterday we had the annual
GSDG auction for plants.
We have also set to pot hundreds of labeled plants for next season, people always like to see plants in bloom when they come to visit and then to take something back home.
Roots and Flowers September 3, 2008: 12:00 We repotted the plants from Olallie that we picked up yesterday. The species roots are shown below. Note the H citrina roots are all long cylindrical roots and that H fulva has a long runner. It does not have the bulbous roots we see in H fulva Europa but we will see how it does next year. H multiflora has cylindrical roots with sum bulbous portions. We also have shown H fulva sempervirens which Olallie has in bloom as well.
Olallie Daylily Farm September 2, 2008: 18:00 Today we visited Olallie in Vermont about ten miles outside of Brattleboro.
This is VT Nova Lavender and it appears to be in mid bloom. Olallie is in the southern tier of Vermont just up from the Connecticut River.
This is Olallie Keith. It is a highly branched bicolor which we obtained to work into our bicolor plants.
This is Olallie Farm just
a bit outside of Brattleboro. It is about three acres and well kept. They were
quite friendly and accommodating. We wrapped and wetted all the dug plants and
they were kept wetted overnight. We have had a transport shock on all previous
Olallie species but we expect that this will not occur this year.
New Hampshire Blooms August 31, 2008: 12:00 The plants are still blooming in New Hampshire. We show a few of them below. We have selected some that have done well here and brought them south, approximately sixteen new hybrids. With the Species and the other added hybrids we guess that we may have added almost 100 new hybrids this year. This means we are taking out the old Wild hybrids from the 60s and 70s.
Elfin Blooms August 28, 2008: 12:00 Today we saw Elfin, a Stout
hybrid bloom for the first time. What is amazing is that we have an Elfin F1
In addition the bloom is quite sessile. There is a clump of buds on a drooping scape. A gentle chrome yellow with re-curved petals and sepals.
Blooms in 2008 August 27, 2008: 14:00 This year we had approximately 260 blooming plants which were hybrids and another 84 which did not bloom for some reason, quite a few being lost to the deer. We have attached a copy of the plant blooms for this year. Blooms 2008. These may be adjusted as we look at them again, perhaps we may have missed a dozen of the recent purchases and well will add them as we check. We have 344 hybrids and species plus more than two thousand recent hybrid crosses. We also have a few still to be recorded. We have been removing the Wild hybrids and will keep a few but move most of them to New Hampshire. What is this? A fulva, possibly but what type? August 23, 2008: 19:00 Each year we learn more and more of what works and what does not. Here are a few observations
This appeared under the name of H dumortieri esculenta. It is certainly NOT that, It is a fulva I suspect just by the coloring. It has just bloomed and seems to be a late bloomer. I also have an H fulva sempervirens at the verge of blooming and will check that as well.
Look at the branching in this plant. It is extensive. There are three to four strong branches, much more than the typical Fulva. I have moved it to observe it better. Unlike the typical Fulva which blooms mid season this is a very late bloomer and has come out after Sandra Elizabeth. It is highly branched and I seem to have another. If anyone has any thoughts I am open to investigating. I will record the roots and see if they appear as one would suspect with a Fulva.
Some Observations and Insights August 22, 2008: 20:00 Each year we learn more and more of what works and what does not. Here are a few observations and insights from this year. 1. You will always be moving plants around. There is no stability in a hybridizing garden. I have seen people who plant their hybrids and then just leave them. They are setting up a garden for display not for hybridizing. The problem is root compaction if not broken apart and also if you are hybridizing then you must have the best possible parents available. I had several dozen Wild hybrids from the 60s and 70s growing. I have removed them almost en masse. They are good but they are not parent stock. Thus you must remove them and make room for better stock. What to do with them, well we just move them to New Hampshire on the 10 acres. Any hybridizer must work with the best parentage, and that means even good old plants likes the Stevens hybrids and avoid the new one which do not work, like Krakatoa Lava which will not set seed. 2. Collecting data is critical but you must collect the correct data. Data must be actionable. It must tell you something and that means that you must look at it and then be able to improve your technique. Data is critical but it must be actionable. You learn what plants will set seed, which plants will carry genes forward, which plants will produce good growers. 3. Species demonstrate ability of some to push out others or to produce more seeds than others. One gets to understand the species when observing how they compete with one another. We have learned more about the species as we started to grow them in a competitive environment. H coreana, H aurantiaca, H fulva H hakuunensis are great growers and push out the others. H multiflora, H thunbergerii H altissima are tender growers and need their own space. 4. Water is essential, and one must continually apply it. Weeds can be controlled but deer are a continuing threat. We have always noticed that water is critical. We have drip hoses and we water every other day. This is essential. 5. No matter how small the land, one can produce many extra plants which can be sold or given away. Get rid of the over growers, some just multiply too much and they must be moved out. Keep enough to use as parentage but get rid of the rest. 6. Small pots are good for the first part of the initial growth cycle for the new hybrids but the plants need larger pots so as to provide both root growing room and water holding capacity. Small pots, even if watered, fail to provide adequate nutrient transfer. We saw that the 4" pots were great for the period of April through July, but then we move to 1 gal and a year latter we move to 2 gal pots. We cull out the crosses that we do not like and focus again. 7. Focus, focus, focus, and avoid the mistake of crossing anything with anything else. Mahieu has brilliantly use H citrina. We have been working with them as well but we have not had the success he has had. But we will keep at it. We continually set a plan for hybridizing and then we follow it, we measure it and then we do it again. Many of our selections do not yield seed, they may be potentially settable but we learn that they just do not work. Again the data is essential. 8. Select your providers of hybrids with some considerable care. Not all providers are the same. Also understand which providers are best. I found that Apps was the best I have ever purchased from. Seawright is also at the top of the list. Their plants bloom the first year and then continue with great growth. Ollalie is fine for species but you must wait a year for them to grow. After the first year they do well. We made a big mistake and bought a few from Roots and Rhizomes and none even prospered, so much for a glossy catalog! We will continue to grow our list as we make observations. As usual, comments are welcome. Breaking Apart the Plants August 20, 2008: 12:00 We have been taking up plants and separating them so that they may have better growth next year. I am amazed how tightly compacted some of them have become. There also is a very noticeable reduction in flowering on the compacted plants. The rule of thumb is once every five years. I let one batch of Bess Ross and H citrina go almost ten years and the net result was flowering on about 10% of the plants. The rest were just too crowded out. Also when planting with the broken apart plants we find that separating them by about 6" in a large circle gives a great display effect the following few years, if there are no deer. Some Interesting Slides August 19, 2008: 10:00 We have continued to study the
color issues in the genus Hemerocallis. Specifically we have looked at the
hybrid Halloween Cat, an interesting specimen. The flower is as follows:
Now we did a cut around the eye region and we obtained an interesting observation.
We see on the left the center of the cut along the rib of the petal. The rib is colorless, namely a yellow, the top is red and the bottom yellow. The band of color goes down about 10-15 cells and then abruptly terminates. There does appear to be some leakage of color on the distal side as seen in the right slide. Our new young colleague is shown below analyzing the cells.
"Sandra Elizabeth" Marks the Beginning of the End August 17, 2008: 14:00 The Stevens hybrid Sandra
Elizabeth bloomed today.
Pots and Expansion August 14, 2008: 18:00 In the past year we have tried to use pots to grow seedlings. We started out with 4" pots and this year we obtained a 10% flowering. After examining the roots system it was clear that they were highly compacted. We have moved to 2 gal pots for next year and we will see if that improves. The 2006 seedlings are shown below:
The 2007 seedlings are shown below:
Like the 2006 this plant is
only set
More Help Arrived August 10, 2008: 14:00 We have received additional
help in our crosses. The
Here we have the actual cross being made.
As we look about, since we are so close to the coast, the edge of the Atlantic is but twenty miles away as the crow, or should I say gull flies, we saw this gull yesterday as it presented itself in the sky heading east ward. A majestic sight. His cousin gulls hang around the local McDonald's but this guy was majestically sea ward bound.
H thunbergerii has been blooming in the open front species garden as well as in the rear naturalized species garden. In the front, the bright clear yellow flower stands above all the others now at the end of the season. It seems to be lasting through and apparently is so far deer proof. I have found that the deer will not attack the species until about Labor Day and then they descend. We have put plastic open netting on all the beds as an added prevention, so we shall see.
Attack at Dawn! August 9, 2008: 04:30
Then we added additional road blocks, not the proverbial Jersey Barriers named for our home state but trash cans, wheel barrows, tables, it appears like the barricades in Budapest of the Hungarian Revolution, trying to repel the Soviet forces. We are now a camp under attack. The State defines the Rules of Engagement, they prohibit any form of active defense, it is believed to be in-human, yet we are the humans, and they, the monsters whose attack we await, are not in the least human. So far we have lost over two hundred to the attackers, tags of their remains laying like snow on the ground. Each morning I do a body count, tens and tens each day, they attack, we repel, and they attack again and again, waves of hairy long snouted monsters. No this is not Iraq, not Viet Nam, not Okinawa, it is our garden, and the daily 5 AM attacks, just before a true light of day appears, just with the sky having that slight glint of the coming light, kills more of our troops every day. The State keeps up unarmed, they do nothing, these disease carrying murderers attack endlessly leaving behind the aborted remembrances of thousands of hours of effort and the diseases they carry! About a dozen flowers left, and tags from the dead laying everywhere, eaten, devoured, and lost forever! The challenge will be met, it must be met! The Deer Are Taking a Toll! August 7, 2008: 14:00 They have now eaten 40% of the seed pods! I have never seen this before. The plants are surrounded by a fence and sprayed twice a day with rotating spray. Outside the fence there is no damage. Inside the fence, they seem to squeeze through, they are running havoc. We will be putting up a new fence this fall, and can then add above it during the season. Really do not understand why they seem to be so vicious. The Deer Are Still at IT! August 5, 2008: 06:00 They keep coming. Each day when I go out I inspect the buds. They have eaten a third of my crosses this summer. I continue to spray every day, rotating the sprays. They seem not to eat the ones out side of the fence, they relish the ones inside the fence! Each morning when I cycle I see dozens, and even dozens more of fawns. They are roaming across the homesteads devouring all new vegetation. These monsters destroy more of the new growth of all local vegetation than any disease or a million times more than anything that man can do! They spread disease, and alas, they have their political keepers! These destroyers of the environment have the "Bambi Lovers" who refuse to seek any relief. IN New Jersey it is illegal to hunt them. You can hunt bear but not deer. As the locals say, "Go Figguah"
Seeds Are Coming In July 30, 2008: 20:00 We got our first seeds today, two pods and they yielded a few good seeds. This was a short period for the seed development but it is a harbinger for what we will be seeing in a few weeks. We are still fighting the deer, the spray seems to work and we are beginning the annual movement of plants. We must separate the plants every few years so they do not become root bound. The roots, if allowed to grow too tight, will reduce the flowering. One of the things we will look at after this summer will be the failure of a reasonable percentage of the plants to flower, despite the location, all good, all sunny, all well fed. I am becoming more sensitive to the micro-environment issue. The classic one this year is Ed Brown, doing tremendously in New Hampshire and terribly here in New Jersey. I suspect it is soil and the deep snow cover. Visits and Visitors July 24, 2008: 14:00 It is always interesting to get feedback on what one has done. Frequently it gives insight more to the mindset of the commentator than to my mindset, but alas one always seeks additional input. This summer we have had many guests, hopefully many satisfied guests. Yet from comments and looks I suspect that there is an ambiguity of expectations regarding what they will and did see. We simply are a display garden which does hybridizing. We also use the garden for our research purposes as is evidenced by our publications. We are NOT a commercial garden with lots a pretty daylilies in pots for sale. We do from time to time sell bare root plants but we do not do so as a commercial or retail nursery. As an AHS Display Garden we present the full spectrum of the genus Hemerocallis, from species, we have twelve, through the Stout introductions, thanks to Manatawny, to the decades of hybridizers we have in the garden. We do have many of the recent introductions but we are not a garden selling the most recent and glitzy plants. In fact we eschew many of these plants and we try to keep the strength of the species and the older hybrids around. As we have stated on our entry page to this web site, we look to have good horticultural plants in our crosses, not one-of-a-kinds with limited northern survival. We are interested in what we have and what we do not have, in the eyes of the beholders. Thanks to the Internet and Google we can track each comment as they are made. So far so good, but we did see that we were considered a "backyard garden" in the eyes of some. With over 600 hybrids, 2000 seedlings from 2007 alone, and more going back in years, I think that the Garden is a bit more, but perhaps I doth protest too much. We are always open to comments and even criticism, but the one thing I have learned in my almost seventy years in over 25 countries, is that there will always be "ambiguity of expectations". In my experience true daylily growers are a small clan of friendly and open individuals sharing ideas and interests. Trip to Manatawny July 22, 2008: 14:00 Manatawny Creek Farms is
settled in the farmland of eastern Pennsylvania. On a hot day in July the fields
in Pennsylvania remind me of the rice paddies of Thailand, just 100 km north of
Bangkok. There is the searing heat, the incessant sun, the humidity, but no
water, just the dry farm land which is spouting forth millions of acres of corn.
In a small corner of this land is Manatawny farms, a small but quite good, even
exceptional, daylily farm run by the Glick family, a friendly group of local
people who extended themselves in the heat of mid day to take us around.
And their best part in my opinion is the Stout collection. We purchased several Stouts a year ago and they are strong and hardy. We purchased several new plants today and are quite pleased. We wish them well and strongly recommend them to any who want good quality. The farm is shown to the right. About an acre and a half of daylilies. Worth the trip to the back roads of Pennsylvania! http://www.manatawnycreekfarm.com/
The flower is Intricate Eyes.
A Conjecture About Deer July 18, 2008: 21:00 Every morning when I go for my seven mile bike ride, about 5:30 AM, I get the chance to meet a dozen or so deer. As much as I try to engage them in conversation, often much to the confusion of the humans passing by, I have not yet been able to ascertain their interest in my daylilies. However, studying my twenty years of records I have noted the following: 1. From the bloom of my H middendorfii in late April, through dumortierii, flava and minor, there is no deer attack. The deer almost disregard the buds. The flowers are fragrant and I thus suspect sweet. The deer are hungry since winter is just over and they are eating whatever they can find. But no daylilies. 2. H fulva blooms mid June, and reaches their peak in the first week of July. That is when the deer attack. They do not attack my hybrids in front out of the fenced area since hey are sprayed and there are no fulvas there. 3. They attack after they have been stimulated by something from the fulvas! They come in and eat first all the fulvas and then any hybrids not sprayed, and anything else as well. 4. I have a conjecture that fulva has something in it which acts like a pheromone to deer in starting their eating frenzy. 5. Once they are gone they then pull back from attacks, to be safe it may be a result of all the spraying but they seem to pull back. 6. Question, if I were to eliminate all fulvas then would I reduce the deer attack risk? Detail Color Analysis Validates Turing Tessellation July 16, 2008: 17:00 We have continued our analysis of pattern formation in Hemerocallis. The three examples shown below are typical of what we have consistently found. Although these examples are all Stout examples we have found identical examples in both species and other hybrids. Tessellation in the Turing sense means the following: 1. Color changes from cell to cell based upon the presence of certain gene activator-repressor pairs. 2. Color activation or repression is an on or off process, namely the color is on or it is off, there are no shades of color shifting. In one cell it is yellow and in the other it is red. There is a well defined border. The process switches on and off. 3. By observing the cells we can estimate the diffusion coefficients and in turn validate the models. The three examples below show the flower and the corresponding cell by cell color at various ranges of size.
Species are Beginning Summer Bloom July 15, 2008: 15:00 The species are now starting to come out. We have had citrina and now we have altissima, aurantiaca and hakuunensis. The branching of these three is shown below
Open House Sees Guest All Three Days July 13, 2008: 16:00 The deer still linger.
Today and yesterday we had an open house and a few showed up and we have several tours. Next year we will make it a week latter.
The Deer Still Linger Even on Daylily Weekend July 12, 2008: 06:00 The deer still linger. This guy on the left followed me this AM on my morning bike ride. They just hang around and wait and see if I have anything for them, well I would if I could, but this is New Jersey and they are a protected species. Only in New Jersey! It must be a Garden State thing. Humans are not protected but deer are, go figure.
Help Arrives! July 11, 2008: 09:00 The advantage of grandchildren is that they at times actually like work, not too often however. My grand daughter Isabella worked the fields this AM helping on the hybridizing. She also assisted on the weeding and will be part of Daylily Weekend/
Deer Again! July 11, 2008: 06:00 Again the rotten monsters got
over the fence and into the garden and munched a small bit. The spray works.
They seem to be able to get into the display and hybridizing areas no matter how high a fence and no matter how much one tries to block them. I use Hinder, Deer Away, Deer Off, Liquid Fence and Plantskydd. I rotate a different one every day. The early species seem not to attract them, no problems with minor, middendorfii, dumortierii, and flava. However, when fulva Europa comes out they go wild. I will try to remove the last vestige of them and see what happens next year.
Color, Patterns and The Cell Level July 9, 2008: 06:00 We have been analyzing the
patterning problem in detail. Look at the cell colors as shown in this slide
from a petal cross section of Mikado. There is another step we are also taking and that is measuring the colors. Using Adobe Photoshop CS3 we can use that products "spectrophotometer" like function to map cell by cell color spectrum and then using the method we had detailed earlier in our paper on color find the concentrations of each of the anthocyanins. This allows us to come up with a detailed data set to verify our model. We were pleased to see this bifurcation at the boundaries. It was in all sample we have tested thus far.
Some Interesting Crosses July 7, 2008: 20:00 The following table shows a cross between Try It and Juniper Chase. The two parents are 4N and are great growers. They match what we typically look for in good horticultural plants; strong scapes, good branching and buds, and large attractive but not overpowering blooms. The F1 are totally unlike the parents. We continually see this effect.
Observations on Observations July 5, 2008: 20:00 As an engineer by training, one of the things I have learned is that there are two things you have to do to really know something to the level that you can be creative with what you have learned. First you have to work with details, measurements, manipulate them until they make sense, make a model of what you observe and create from it a paradigm, an example in the abstract, of which you speak. Second, keep looking at the details, get down to the bits and bytes, to the volts and amps, and to the detail, observe, observe and observe again. The Hemerocallis species have variability as one looks at them in the large, but I suggest that you also look at them in the small, plant by plant, branch by branch, pod by pod. That is how I am now understanding the multiflora issues and the thunbergerii and altissima issues as well. The details count, an observant eye can help. Instead of looking at fields of survivors. look at the small plots and the ones struggling. We all know flava is invasive and will wipe out most others. But I see hakuunensis is just as aggressive as also is aurantiaca, In the early season minor, dumortieri, flava and middendorfii seem to get along quite well, although they are not really competitors. I have also set aside a naturalizing are and I look forward to seeing how well that does. I have added pages on seven parts of the plants for the twelve species we are growing. Hopefully this will help you understand the differences. We are using this in the writing of the book on the genus. Again we seek any comments and feedback you care to make. tmcgarty@telmarcgardens.com More Observations on Species July 5, 2008: 14:00 I have noticed several things
about the species which you would only observe if you spent hours looking at the
roots and labels at ground level. The most important is the information on H
multiflora, H altissima, and H thunbergerii. All three need to be set out alone.
Look at my
Thus my suggestion is to keep these plants out front on their own. Also this tells us something about their genetic heritage. It is clear that some of the species will just drive out others. Unless the survivors can find a niche say as on a brook edge. It is clear to me that the systematics of the species must take this ecological aspect into account as well.
Observations on Species July 4, 2008: 10:00 Today I photographed species buds and leaves and in the process saw that certain species cannot survive well amongst others. We all know the fulvas take over, as do the hakuunensis and even aurantiaca and citrina. Howevere dumortieri, altissima and multiflora really need space to themselves. They were in the rear of the garden and they got lost there as the others just grew around them. I moved them to the front, perhaps they may recover this season. The dumortieri do well along the driveway, they love to be left alone and out in the open as do the middendorfii. However stuck in the back the wither. I was surprised about altissima but Autumn Minaret the altissima hybrid behaves the same way. It needs to be alone and out front. The multiflora was in two years ago and it is doing poorly, it was from Apps, I got another last year which seems well but it was up front. I am also collecting photos on the species I have and will list buds, pods, flowers, branching, leaves, roots, and seeds. We seem to have an animal hotel! July 3, 2008: 08:00 Yesterday I saw a coyote out front looking at me wistfully. It was clear I was not breakfast but he did not look starved, in fact he looked quite contented. It was 5 AM which is when we start so I asked if he could help with the 300 pound rodents. He said no but his cousin the wolf could. Perhaps I will wait. I no sooner get clear of the garden and the crows come down, we have almost a dozen and they start their racket and one can hardly hear ones-self think! So between the deer, coyote, turkeys, crows, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, and countless others I fell from time to time I am running a toll free boarding house for animals! The Deer Attacked! July 1, 2008: 06:00 Well somehow the 200 pound rodents made it through, lost about 10% inside fenced areas even after spraying. The front areas had mild loss even being un exposed. They were sprayed one to two times every day on a rotating basis. I used Deer Off, Deer Away, Liquid Fence, Hinder, Plantskydd, and a few others. Looks like they made it through and edge on the gate. They also ate the tomato plants, the rudbeckia, missed the hostas, and pretty well got a nibble of everything. I went out and sprayed all again. Will do a daily redo every day! They went across then entire back. The demolished all my Rita Sunrise, ate all the buds! Never heard them! H citrina blooms at night July 1, 2008
The H citrina from Olallie blooms only at night as compared to my other H citrina which do overlap in the evening and in the morning. This citrina is a purely dark bloomer, it does not open until dark and closes at sunrise. The pictures we include are taken this past night. The color is a bright yellow and it is trumpet shaped as are all other H citrina. It is quite fragrant as we would expect. One can see the branching and budding of the flower and we would expect that it will flower for several more days. Class Lecture Notes on Bioinformatics Lectures at MIT Using Hemerocallis July 1, 2008 I have been working with my graduate and post docs at MIT in developing a bioinformatics efforts using classic systems analysis tools. This set of lectures is attached in the Publications section of this site. There will be a total of twelve lectures and we have posted seven as of now and we will add the others soon. Each has an accompanying paper. A Paper on Hybridizing and Hybridizers July 1, 2008 I have attached the DRAFT of the hybridizing paper to this site. This paper looks first at classic Mendellian techniques and analysis and then using that structure follows with classic breeding methods and applies them to Hemerocallis. We then look at several dozen hybridizers from Stout through Mahieu. Deer Gone Wild July 1, 2008 Today we had one of the deer go wild inside our fenced area. It was sprayed but not 2 or 3 times a day as I do the unprotected areas. They munched out 10-15% of the hybrid buds! I got out there and went after the buck, perhaps close to 300 pounds, neighbors wondered what was going on, all I could do was run it to ground. He hit the fence many times until he had a spot he jumped over. I raised the fence at that spot and sprayed three times. Deer Away, Hinder, and Liquid Fence! The following is an example of what was done:
Note how they munch off just the buds, and they go down the row after hundreds of hybrids! They also ate the tomato plants and Rudbeckia. The left all the hostas untouched. Perhaps since they had been sprayed! The buds are new growth and thus spraying is needed every day, and most logically at night. The plants in the unfenced area manage to keep out of harms way so far. The following are the blooms of today. It has been in upper 80s and low humidity. Very sunny and we have had a very dry spring and summer thus far. I have done not crossing, this will be latest year ever! Spring was war, even hot, but everything is delayed. Perhaps the low rainfall. A Paper on Hemerocallis and Genetic Classification June 30, 2008 I have just added a paper entitles Phylogentics, DNA, Classification and the Genus Hemerocallis to the list of papers. I am also finishing the handouts on a lecture series on the Genus in broad scope. I have been working on these issue for over the past two years. The most recent paper referenced above deals with the genetic tools which allow one to look at the DNA directly and indirectly of Hemerocallis and to achieve two things. First is the issue of how doe we separate the species and how are they related phylogentically to one another. The second issue is to attempt to set forth the tools which allow us to look at the hybrids and understand the color and other issues which we seek to modify and improve. Views on Hybridizing Techniques June 30, 2008 I have been having discussions with others starting out in hybridizing and comparing techniques. There seems to be several schools of thought. My school of thought is as follows: 1. Look for characteristics that will fit well in a horticultural environment, whether it be a large garden or a small display area. This means the plant must blend and complement, not too showy but memorable. I have hybridized one plant, Florham Peaches and Cream which is a strong pastel peach with lots of buds, a good height, and it splays itself out well. 2. Look for plants which stand out without overpowering. I have one which is Rita's Sunrise which is a strong yellow, almost 8" across, stands well over 36-44" tall and have many buds and branches. It also fills out quickly making itself into an attractive clump of flowers. It is like Krakatoa Lava in its ability to create a "space" for itself. 3. Have plants which are hardy and grow into a rich collection of health groups. Many of the hybrids we have gotten recently have been attractive when they bloom but never seem to go anywhere. The hybrids of Stevens are ones which seemed to take off while retaining their quality. I suspect as the hybrids become more bizarre they loose vitality. Additions This Year June 30, 2008 The following is a list of the additions we have put in this spring. We have been adding some classics and bi-colors. The classics are there to give the display garden a flow from species, through the Stout hybrids we have obtained from Manatawny Creek http://www.manatawnycreekfarm.com/ which has a superb collection of the early Stout hybrids. We will be showing the collection we have in our notes. We have had great experience with them. The list below gives the name, ploidy, date of introduction, hybridizer, and source. Bob Seawright has consistently provided great plants and we went to see him a month or so and got a batch of classics. http://www.daylilies-hostas.com/ We got a few from Poplar Creek and so far they have under performed. We also obtained a few Windhams, they are now all in bud, and we look forward to seeing them. We obtained them from Harmon Hill Farm, http://www.harmonhillfarm.com/ Finally we made a mistake of getting a few from Roots and Rhizomes. I should have been warned when they had a great catalog but their web site was a disaster. The plants are all barely surviving, arrive bared root but desiccated, and the plants were miniscule. I ordered Eleonore and on the web forum, http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/daylily/msg011058216203.html , and Francois Verhaert of Belgium the hybridizer stated, "CNB of Lisse/Holland are the only ones that officially tissue culture ELEONORE for us. However CNB informed us some time ago that their lab somehow or other mixed up things and ELEONORE did not come out true from the lab. So ... normally there are no true ELEONORE for sale ... YET Mr Heemskerk never got a piece of ELEONORE from us to work with. If they offer ELEONORE the conclusion is obvious ... " Thus if one reads this statement at face value what we received is at best questionable! So much for that vendor!
Species Are Back Again June 29, 2008 The species H citrina has bloomed for the first time. This is a very fragrant daylily and the one we are seeing here if from Olallie in Vermont. http://www.daylilygarden.com/index.html We have now planted quite a few from them and they are now doing quite well. We did have some issues when first obtained but they need a year or two to settle down. In late 2006 we create a separate species garden and we thought that it would be small enough to contain one of each of the fourteen species we had and it would become an educational part of the display garden. T he net result however is that this year they are growing with a true vengeance and the nice small garden has become a jungle! We also have set aside a large area where we have mixed the species in a naturalizing manner and they also seem to have taken over there as well. We intend this fall to move all of the species up to New Hampshire and see how well they do there in a larger space and one which seems more normal to their natural growth. Today we are seeing a build up of blooms. First the H citrina. This we had gotten from Ollalie. We find their species takes a year or two to adapt and then does quite well. This H citrina blooms at night but it also blooms a few weeks earlier than the ones we have had for years. The following shows H citrina buds. This picture shows the branching. It is quite extensive and the bloom is only at night. The first bloom was last night. It collapsed at dawn. The bloom is also quite fragrant.
Potted Seedlings seem to be doing well June 28, 2008 Last summer we put our seedlings out in pots rather than in the ground. We did this for three reasons: 1. We frankly were running out of space since we keep three to four years of seedlings and they can exceed 5,000 plants! 2. We found that keeping track of the same cross but different plants was difficult. We planted all seed from the same pod in a single spot. One of the seedlings may be good but we often had one of the lesser seedlings end up in the batch. This way we can manage things better. 3. We manage to control weeds better as well as managing to keep them watered and fertilized. There are some concerns we have however. They are: 1. We want to see what our yield rate is to flowering. We have been told by some that potted plants do not flower as well as free field plants. This is the typical problem of pot grown plants. We will try this for several years and then compare our results. 2. The potted plants may be more disease or rot prone. We have seen a small amount of this thus far but it is not clear if we would have seen the same had we used field planting. We always loose field plants but since they were in the field we did not pay attention to the reason for loss.
Recording Data in Detail on Crosses and Seedlings June 27, 2008 We have been asked by several people why we record so much data on our crosses and specifically what good the data is to us in our program. The data we record is extensive. Specifically we record: 1. All parentage on all crosses 2. Photos of all parents and all source material every year. Photos of all seedlings when in bloom. 3. Yield rates on seeds per cross, seedlings per seed, survival in spring, summer, winter and we keep these going for three years on average and in some cases as much as five. 4. We plot all data to seek trends. Then what does this wealth of data do for us. We believe it provides the following: 1. Evaluation of techniques. Namely what works and what does not and perhaps why it made it or it failed. 2. Yields so that we may seek maximizing yields. This is true especially for our efforts in the process of species crosses. If you may have some questions please feel free to email us at tmcgarty@telmarcgardens.com H dumortierii Blooms! 22 May, 2008 Today we have the bloom of H dumortieri. They are shown below. They are sessile, fragrant, with bracts but unlike the H middendorfii they have brownish sepals.
Note the pollen on the end of the pistils. The pistil has a dark rear side and the stigma extends significantly from the pistil. The pollen is rich and easily can be applied to other plants. We are trying various species crosses and selfs this year, The middendorfii are mush stronger growers than the dumortieri but the dumorts stand well enough on their own. In the picture to the left we can see some of the reddish tint on the sepal.
The picture to the left shows the sessile nature of the H dumortieri and it also shows the reddish pigment on the sepals. The buds show a strong reddish tint as well. The flower is quite fragrant.
The picture to the left depicts the collection of H dumortieri and they can be seen in multiple flowering on the same scape.
Pollen Samples 21 May, 2008 We have also started to collect pollen samples from the species. Below if H flava. This is the Olallie flava. We are also watching the Apps flava which seems to be two weeks behind the Olallie plant.
The pollen below is the H middendorfii pollen. Note the difference. Whereas the flava has a rich and round pollen coverage the dumortieri shows a black like backing.
Below is the H minor plant which was the first to bloom. Note how well branched it appears. There are three major branches on this plant and they appear to branch even further. The plant flowers at night is highly fragrant and has a flower which is 3" long and 2.5" across from petal tip to sepal tip. The leaves are 21-25" long and 0.250 to 0.325" in maximum width.
H minor Flowers 13 May, 2008 H minor has bloomed and is growing quite well in the back species garden. It is quite a fragrant flower and it blooms at night. The bloom lasts two or more days. It seems to thrive well along the edge of a small stream and it is in full sun. The area which I set to species naturalizing has gone wild with growth. The buds of H middendorfii and H dumortieri are quite prolific, hundreds of scapes, and this was from a small set of plants moved there just a little over a year ago. The soils was rich clay-loam and had many years of leaf decay. The tree roots were not too invasive despite the many silver maples in the proximity.
The H minor branching is quite extensive as shown below. The flower is almost trumpet like and the branching is quite obvious. Also the scapes are thin and tend to droop. The scapes are almost perpendicular to the vertical, a horizontal bend.
The flower starts to bloom in the latter part of the day, stays open all the next day, and the next evening, and may easily last another day and even two.
5 Species in Bud 29 April, 2008 Today we have five species in bud. We present them as follows: H dumortieri This is again an early bud. These plants we have naturalized and they are growing very aggressively and have set hundreds of scapes. I am surprised as to how aggressive they can be. The buds are compact and sessile and they have bracts that approach the mid point of the bud, The scapes are erect and seem to be quite strong.
H dumortieri esculenta This is a variant of H dumortieri and the bud seems to reflect the same characteristic as of this stage. In the three new buds we see that they can be of similar form early on.
H flava This is H lilioasphedelus, the lemon daylily. It has the excessively long bracts along the side of the buds. The rate of growth in the past three days has been modest and there has been extensive rain, 1.5" or more during this period,
H middendorfii The bracts on this are similar to that of H flava, they are long and exceed the bud length. We plan on measuring the length of the leaves and scapes.
H minor H minor seems to be the most aggressive grower at this point. This plant is aside a small culvert and is fully exposed to the sun but somewhat protected from the cold west winds. The bracts appear almost as leaves and are in a cupping formation. The branching is apparent in the buds whereas the others are most likely sessile.
More Species Buds 26 ِِApril, 2008
H flava is the second early blooming plant. We show here the buds and the bracts are about half the bud length and the scapes are erect as compared to H minor, The leave are 2X to 3X the width of H minor.
Here is the bud in its initial form with the bracts formed but clearly showing a horned like form.
We show the bracts again. The discoloration on the leaves and scapes are from recent application of deer repellent. These plants are in an unfenced area and we maintain them with applications of different repellents every other day on a rotating basis.
Buds Are Appearing 23 April 2008 The first bud has appeared on H minor. These were transplanted to a naturalizing area along with many of the other species. This is the earliest I can remember that a minor bud has appeared. We record the H minor flowering as a sentinel event.
Note the bud structure. It has very long bracts on both sides and a darkening of the exterior of the bud itself. The bracts are almost twice the length of the bud at this stage.
This is another view of the bud and bract. We show these two additional views to obtain an better perspective. The H minor plants in other locations have not yet gone to bud.
The following shows the leaves. They are very grass like. In addition the scapes flop over and do not stand erect.
Winter Pot Protection Removed-Now Hardening 31 March, 2008 We moved our seedlings to pots this weekend. We have been doing this the first weekend of April with success.
Note that we have them on planks and they are protected from west wind and clumped together. There are 100 crosses and there are 10-20 seedlings per pot. There are about 1,500 seedlings on these planks. They are fertilized with Osmocote, albeit it does not work until the weather is warmer, but for some reasons it deters squirrels. Also we spray it with a repellant just to be certain. The area is about 18 square feet and we use 6" pots.
The use of the pots makes for better control and reduces the infestation of grasses. It also allows for higher density of plant growth. As we noted before it also appears to improve plant growth. We shall see this summer with our pots from 2004, 2005 and 2006. The above shows how high density a growing area we can achieve with this method. Also one can see the number of seedlings per pot is quite high.
The pots from 2005 as shown here are demonstrating very strong growth. We will examine how well they do when exposed to the full summer growing conditions. Hopefully they can obtain adequate nutrition for growth and flowering for selection.
The 2006 crosses are also showing good growth. At this point they have been out for a full year. We are still seeing some freezing AM temps, albeit not killing frosts and all daylilies are growing. Here we can see the 2006 seedlings and the density of seedlings per pot is much lower. Generally we see a reduction and we will measure this effect starting this year.
Over-wintering in Pots 21 February, 2008 Spring may be here soon. Let me show you a few tips as to what we are doing this year. Also we suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed, see the Home page. We use them a great deal now. First: I have had a few questions on my over-wintering in pots. In the picture below I show the pots covered by leaves.
I have placed the plants in 6" pots and then the pots sit on planks on top of cinder blocks. Then I wrap them with plastic fencing and then fill it with leaves. I find pin oak laves last the best and provide maximum insulation. The purpose is not to keep them warm but to avoid the high temperature cycling that occurs if the pots were exposed. The high temperature cycling does the damage, not the freezing. Thus the leaf insulation provides adequate covering.
Second, how are the seedlings doing. I use a wooden work bench, temperature controlled heat pad, and grow lights to do the growing under. I also now use netting to keep my animal friends off. I have had squirrels and mice come in, the squirrels sleep on the seedlings and the mice eat them. This seems to work.
I keep the whole set on timer lights at 12 hours per day. In about two to three weeks I will take these outside in a green house and harden off in the sun for a month. Then in early April we place them on pots and begin the cycle.
Well we now know Spring is not too far away, our first snow drops are coming up.
H. coreana is an evergreen plant. Here we have even new growth after a fairly cold winter. This seems to be the first species to start leaf growth.
One of the things I have noticed is a few albino, no chlorophyll, plants.
Here we show the albino slowly dying off. I get about 0.5 to 1% albino seedlings every year. None survive.
New Hybrids for 2008 20 February, 2008 We have just sent in our list of introductions for 2008. They appear here.
Brenda and Doug
Julia and Jerry
Maja's Tinkerbell
Nancy's Smile
Peter's Journey
Princess Martina
Sara's Dreams
Bishop Gabriel
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The
clear yellow with the moderate branching flopped over a large stone on the now
dry bed which is a small brook in the spring sends out the final song of the
daylilies. Sandra Elizabeth put forth her last flower today and we have H fulva
sempervirens winding down as well, Elfin is near its end but H minor has just
begun, it should be around for a while, deer permitting.
The
attendance was very good and the auction yielded many new hybrids. We have
summarized our hybrid additions for this year in the Table below. These are 72
new hybrids plus two dozen various species additions. The annual rate of
additions has been about this for the past four to five years. We now have an
interesting mix of plants from species, through Stout intros, and then by decade
through the current time. We have again rearranged the layout to allow the
visitor to see the plants in a better mode of comparison and not just clumped
together. We have also removed many of the less attractive plants, the bulk
garden center sellers, and will most likely sell them off to beginners next
year. As for most one must start somewhere, not necessarily with $250 current
patterned intros.
from
the NYBG and it is the earliest bloomer! Parent late, offspring early, this we
must study. Perhaps this is a re-bloom, although we never got the first bloom
this spring. We will follow this.
The
left picture is the top portion and the right is the bottom or underside
portion. Note that one has the red pigment and the other has none. Thus we did a
cross section of this portion of the flower and looked at it under the
microscope.
This hybrid is the latest bloomer and it generally marks the end of the season.
It will bloom through Labor Day. We have now begun the moving of the plants
about. This means de-bulking of the roots and top dressing. One of the things
you must do each year is to de-bulk the plants which have managed to clump
together. We saw that with some Bess Ross which we had put on a walk way and
after ten years they just stopped producing and the plants had clumped together
so tightly they would not produce. Thus we strongly recommend that every five
years one de-bilk the root systems.
You
can see the root congestion in the pot.
This
greatly reduces the ability of the plant to flower and also the plant has little
water holding capacity. We had watered every other day and had applied Osmocote
14-14-14 seasonally.
out
in April and is also already root bound. The plant shows significant growth but
it most likely would not prosper next year and especially it would not flower.
Thus repotting a larger pot allows for it to grow again during the end of
season growth spurt which is when the setting of the flowering is established.
advantage
of grandchildren, especially when still young and open to new ideas, is
their interest in trying out all that the garden presents. Here we have the
adventurous one selecting a cross, in this case Krakatoa Lava, and going ahead
and doing it. One after the other she applied her talents top the waning plants.
We now have added protection of what I call Budapest Barriers, just lacking
burning tires, and no Soviet Tanks, they seem to be occupied this week in
Georgia. Perhaps I can convince my Russian friends to see the deer as
anti-Putin!
There is a uneasy sense just
before the first hint of dawn, that slight lighting that one sees from the east,
the sign that soon it will be ablaze in sun again. That is the time they seem to
attack. We have erected multiple defenses. There are the chemical defense,
multiple types all with alleged proven track records of repelling the attackers,
but we know that they have developed defense against them. The we have the
multiple walls, tall, steel barricades, capable of keeping any human from
getting in, but these creatures have super human capabilities, they seem to just
pass through the barriers, then the spikes, and most recently we have added two
additional barriers, a dark impenetrable wall, to inhibit their radar like
vision, to raise the risk of their penetrations, not knowing what could be on
the other side. 
Each morning, despite getting up at 4:40, the monsters attack! The jump over,
under, or perhaps make it through the fences, past the sprays and munch, munch,
munch! 
We
have a Robin in a nest next to rear entrance of the house and she has eight offspring this
year. They are all acclimated to me and I even think imprinted. "Grandfather
Robin" now can come and go with no problem. We also saw two young raccoons at
end of driveway and they were out helping each other around at twilight. This AM
I ran into seven deer, two of which were very young fawns. Stopped to talk to
one at 5:40 in front of the local church, and parish priest cam out
mid-conversation and asked if I were Saint Francis? I replied that I was Irish
and most like more Druid than Catholic and I was bewitching the deer! Somehow he
did not have a sense of humor!
They seem to just hang around and see if they can get another munch of the
daylilies. I have used some dark cloth at one possible entry point. I have
tracked their hoof prints down and it appears as if the jumped over the fence at
the end of the driveway. I had been blocking it with cars. Now I have used dark
cloth to break their line of sight and I am told that this will make it less
likely that they will try to jump, they must see on the other side.
YOU
MUST SPRAY AT LEAST ONCE A DAY WHEN BUDS ARE FORMING AND YOU MUST ROTATE
AMONGST DIFFERENT TYPE AND ONE OR MORE MUST BE EGG YOLKS AND ROTTEN!
We see the red and the yellow colors and the change seems to be quite abrupt. We
did these slides last night. It appears as if there is a switch at the boundary.
We will analyzes this data on many more patterned flowers in the next few weeks.
H
thunbergerii as shown to the left This one is at the edge of a small stream and
stands out at a corner amongst some large stones. It is in front of an H minor
which did well in the Spring. Now it is growing aggressively. There are many
buds and the leaves stand almost erect. The plant is healthy and looks to be an
aggressive grower. In contrast the one I had in the species garden was in the
rear and was being starved out but H hakuunensis and by H aurantiaca, much more
aggressive growers. I have the same with altissima and with multiflora. In fact
multiflora looked as if it was on its way out, this was a plant gotten from
Henley this spring.
