The Spice Must Flow (Brian Reeder)
Eos at Dawn (Brian Reeder)
I have been fascinated by extremely tall daylilies ever since first seeing Notify Ground Crew and all of Curt Hanson's Tet. Altissima seedlings. I wanted to seek out more hybridizers that bred extremely tall daylilies and my search brought me to Brian Reeder of London, Kentucky. Brian also writes a regular daylily blog and I have enjoyed reading that as well. I thought this would be a great opportunity to get to know Brian better through an interview. With nothing further here is Brian's thoughts on daylilies:
I was born and raised in London, Kentucky, where I still live on the farm that has been in my family for several generations. I have had an interest in genetics as applied to hybridization, breeding and domestication since childhood and I have studied genetics extensively since childhood. I chose to leave college to pursue independent research in the early 90s. I came back to my family farm at that time and began to pursue research with poultry. I also managed my mother’s business until 2005 to facilitate that research work. My research was focused on poultry and looked into a variety of topics, beginning with replicating the findings of previous researchers, then expanding to other questions of feather pigmentation (color) and pigment distribution (patterning) effects. Another important area of my work, which was ongoing throughout the other research on phenotype genetics, was research into immunogenetics (heritable disease resistance). While much of my research work was conducted independently, I also partnered with professional industry and university researchers on a number of projects that were related to, or based on, my independent research. I have published two books on poultry genetics for poultry hobbyists, one on color and patterning genetics and the other on the genetics of form and feathering traits. These are instructional books aimed at giving non-geneticists and average poultry hobbyists a set of guidelines for breeding desired phenotypes and as such are not volumes devoted simply to my research findings, but rather are aimed at helping average people understand how to apply the results of my research to their own programs in a practical and simple way. I see them as an interface between the science of genetics and the hobby of poultry breeding. I wrapped up my research with poultry, due to the intense workload and some health issues, in 2008, which then cleared me to begin to pursue daylily breeding, applying my experience and insight into the life sciences, hybridization, genetics, breeding and domestication to this new project.
I have been exposed to daylilies throughout my entire life. My maternal grandmother had daylilies on the farm long before I was born. My mother and aunt grew daylilies from my early childhood. I loved plants and animals, nature in general, from early childhood and being precocious (perhaps obnoxiously so) I had my own little gardens from the time I was five or six years old. H. fulva forma ‘Europa’ (the common ditch lily) was my first exposure to daylilies and the very first I grew, so ‘Europa’ is my point of reference for what a daylily should be. The first cultivar I had was ‘Winnie The Pooh’ (Wild - 1964) when I was 6 or 7 years old in either 1975 or 76. I also had a lovely cultivar called ‘Melon Balls’ (Wild - 1960) and the classic Frans Hals (Flory - 1955) at about that same time. Other daylilies that we grew from my early childhood included Linda (Stout - 1936), Angel Mine (Wild - 1966), Radiant Greetings (Wild - 1975), Kindly Light (Bechtold - 1950), Autumn Red (Nesmith - 1941) and H. dumortierii. The majority of our daylilies were either ordered from the Gilbert H. Wild catalog, the Wayside Gardens catalog or were plants we had found in ditch-lines and old house sites, or had traded or been gifted from other local gardeners.
I continued to grow daylilies throughout my childhood and teen years and was completely obsessed with them, but really had no awareness of the wider daylily world, AHS or daylily breeders beyond the Wild family and A.B. Stout. When I came back to the farm to start my research work with poultry, I also made gardens and moved the surviving daylilies from my old gardens around my parent’s house into those new gardens around my own house, and I started to buy new daylilies (not necessarily new introductions, but new-to-me daylilies). By this time, I had subscriptions to a couple of garden magazines and would find adds for daylily sellers in those. This began to introduce me to new sellers and new daylilies. I had a strong taste for eyes from early childhood, and so the new developments in eyes, and then eyes with edges, really stood out to me at that time. One daylily that caught my eye, and blew my mind, in the early 90s was Navajo Princess (Hansen - 1992). I bought this cultivar from Roycroft Daylily Nursery in 1997. I also bought my first tetraploids around this time, cultivars such as Bela Lugosi (Hanson - 1995), Nosferatu (Hanson - 1990), Mary Todd (Fay - 1967), Chicago Apache (Marsh-Klehm - 1981), Arctic Snow (Stamile - 1985), Custard Candy (Stamile - 1989), Benchmark (R.W. Munson - 1980), El Desperado (Stamile - 1991), Fuchsia Dream (Kirby - 1978), Nivia Guest (R.W. Munson - 1984), Paper Butterfly (Morss - 1983), Russian Rhapsody (R.W. Munson - 1973), Sovereign Queen (R.W. Munson - 1973), Winter Reverie (R.W. Munson - 1980) and many others. As well, I was constantly adding other diploids, some old and some new, just experimenting with different things.
I built my first gardens around my house in 1995 as my research work was in progress, but had not yet reached the massive, nearly out-of-control proportions it would reach in a few more years. As my poultry research did reach that level, I let the gardens go at times, sometimes for years at a time. I also had planted bamboo, and in time it spread through many of my gardens and ate them. In spring 2000 I bought some potted daylilies at a local box store and saw daylily rust for the first time. I didn’t know what it was then, but with my ongoing work with immunogenetics in poultry, I paid careful attention and took particular note that some of the daylilies were severally impacted, while others were only moderately impacted, while some seemed to not be impacted by the disease at all. I never forgot that and thought at the time that if I bred daylilies, an experiment in breeding and selecting for resistance to this pathogen would be in order. In 2003 my aunt built a house on the old farm and we began to build gardens for her, incorporating daylilies as a major feature. She also began to buy some newer tetraploid daylilies. By 2006 some of my gardens had been overgrown with weeds or bamboo for several years. In that year and the following year (2007) I dug half-clumps of all the remaining daylilies and divided those, taking divisions of each cultivar to my aunt’s garden and giving the rest to friends. I left the other half of the clump in place, just to see how much longer they could survive. At that time, I had lost some daylilies cultivars due to weed or bamboo cover, but many were still there. Many were still there in 2010 when I dug out the last of them and moved them to new gardens. I still grow some of those, while others have been lost or culled for one reason or another. A few have even made it into my breeding program.
Further, we have all been taught that daylilies need to be ‘refreshed’ every three to four years, with clumps dug and divided or flowering decreases, but what I have been able to observe is that this is not true for ALL daylilies. For instance, no one is out in the ditches ‘refreshing’ endless masses of H. fulva ‘Europa’. What I was able to observe through my many years of growing daylilies, and especially through those years of letting the gardens go, is that not all daylily plants are created equally. This makes sense, when you consider that the major focus of hybridizers has been the flower, and you consider that there are several different styles of plant growth and clump formation/behavior amongst the species. As I have an eye for minutia and high pattern recognition, all of this information has combined to allow me to either see something others were overlooking, or to assign meaning and value to traits that others saw as unimportant or were ignoring. By going through periods in my own gardens where nothing got divided or cared for, sometimes for several years in a row, I was able to observe that there are a small number of daylily cultivars that do not decline, and will successfully grow and flower for many years without “crowding-out” the center fans or showing a decline in flowering or scape production, yet will still continue to increase, making large clumps.
The digging and redistribution in 2006 and 2007 made me think more deeply about the daylilies, and made me reevaluate my interests in them based on some of the observations I made then, along with my past experiences. In the late 90s I had considered starting to breed daylilies at that time, and even raised a few seedlings then, but it just didn’t pan out. All through the period of my poultry research I would periodically return to the daylilies, and I enjoyed their flowers every summer, even if they were growing with weeds. They had truly been a lifelong obsession, but had never broken over into a full breeding program, but throughout all that time, I thought about things I would like to breed for, if I did have a breeding program. I think that this long period of observation, experience and consideration gave me a strong grounding to pursue a breeding program, when the time did come. By 2008 my poultry research was winding down and I began to seriously consider that the time was approaching to start a daylily breeding program. I spent the period from 2008 to 2010 developing a game-plan in my mind for the program I would develop and what traits I would focus on, spending a lot of time online reading websites, message boards and looking at pictures. For the first time, I began to learn about breeders and programs other than those of A.B. Stout and the Wild family. In 2010 I began to purchase the cultivars that would become the basis of my breeding program.
In the very beginning, the program of the Wild family was the only program I really knew about. Even though they sold daylilies from many other hybridizers, I somehow never really paid much attention to that. By the time I was in my early teens I learned about A.B. Stout, who really caught my interest because he was at the beginning and laid the foundation for the hybrid daylily. The thing I have always found so impressive about the Wild family program was the sheer scale of it. Over decades they produced hundreds of introductions that were all interesting, usually tough and hardy with good increase so that thousands and thousands of people had access to inexpensive daylilies and were introduced to these great garden plants. I first learned of A.B. Stout through the Wilds catalog, then through an article in a garden magazine, and learned he was “the father of daylilies”.
In the early 90s I found a copy of the A.B. Stout classic ‘Daylilies: The Wild Species and Garden Clones, Both Old and New, of the Genus Hemerocallis’, the rerelease from 1986 that has a forward by Darrel Apps. This was also my first introduction to Darrel Apps. I read that book cover-to-cover many times and was simply blown away by Stout’s insight and his breeding program. I also had A.P. Saunders’ book on peony breeding, and there are many parallels between the hybridization work of both men, both working at the same time, each laying the groundwork for the modern hybrid forms of the genus they worked with. The biggest difference was that Saunders had a large number of domestic cultivars of the species P. lactiflora and P suffruticosa to work with and to cross the many other species forms of Paeonia with when he started. While I took away many important lessons from Stout, especially in regard to the formation of the hybrids from the species materials that were available to him, and the amount of time and effort he put into selecting plants for breeding and release to gardeners, the most important individual piece of data I gleaned from his account was that he had created ‘Theron’ (Stout - 1934) in four generations from species materials, but had spent twenty years in the process. He had taken approximately five years per generation to evaluate the materials he produced and select the plants to move forward with in his breeding efforts. He didn’t take that long because he didn’t know what he was doing or couldn’t move faster. He took that long because he was patient and took his time to make sure he moved forward with the best plants, not just an eye-catching flower. Another important aspect to Stout that I think is often overlooked, is that in fifty years of breeding, he introduced one-hundred cultivars. His selective nature is obvious in the fact that some of his daylilies are still excellent garden plants and breeders, standing the test of time. Finally, I also obtained the Munson book, ‘Hemerocallis: The Daylilies’ ( R. W. Munson Jr. - 1993) in the mid-90s, and it was very influential on my thinking, especially his introduction where he points out that there are problems in the modern daylily and that selection focused only on flowers was accentuating those problems.
Beyond that, up until I began formulating a serious interest in building a program in 2008, I just never paid much attention to the daylily world, with my interest just being to grow daylilies, though I did know who Curt Hanson was and took some interest in what he was doing, probably based upon the cool names he was registering such as Nosferatu and Bela Lugosi (being a big horror genre fan). In 2008 I began researching daylily breeders, programs and individual species and hybrid cultivars in preparation for beginning a program. So early on, I started to reach out to breeders who grew species or had cultivars that intersected with my interests. I did this for a couple of years before I bought any daylilies or joined AHS, as I was just looking for information at that time and wasn’t ready to ‘jump in’ just yet. By this time I had already formulated some ideas about the program I wanted to pursue and the traits, in terms of both flower and plant, that I wanted to work with. With each person I contacted, I would explain my plans and ask for feedback, data or instruction, as well as suggestions of species clones or cultivars that might work for my aims.
Among those who were encouraging and extremely helpful from the first was Dr. Joseph C. Halinar. With his background in commercial plant production, growing and breeding Hemerocallis and Lillium, as well as having a good grasp on genetics, Dr. Halinar immediately understood the potential importance of breeding for rust resistance, and the strong possibility that such genes already existed within the genus and the hybrid population. Dr. Halinar also grew a large collection of Hemerocallis species clones and had hybridized with them, so was able to select for me a group of species clones for my work. He also offered me a great deal of useful data on using those species clones in breeding, and most importantly to my objectives, which clones could potentially produce viable zygotes when crossed to tetraploid hybrid daylilies. The first group of daylilies I purchased in 2010 to begin my program was a group of species clone from Dr. Halinar. Among those were Hemerocallis fulva ex Korea (Seoul National University, NA 54920, which was collected from a botanical garden at the Seoul National University by Darrel Apps and Barry Yinger in 1984), H. fulva ‘Hankow’, H. sempervirens, four clones of H. citrina and H. vespertina. H. fulva ‘Korean’, H. fulva ‘Hankow’. H. sempervirens, and H. vespertina, as well as one of the four clones of H. citrina, proved to be very important to my work.
Brian Mahieu’s program was an early inspiration, based upon the species backcrossing work he had done in his program, though my interest was to create a program at the tetraploid level. I had seen a couple of pictures on Brian Mahieu’s website of two seedlings he felt were a cross of an H. citrina clone with a tetraploid hybrid, which I discussed with Dr. Haliner. I also discussed Gil Stelter’s crossing of tetraploid daylily cultivars to fulva species clones. These two examples planted the idea that a species backcross program at the tetraploid level might work. Dr. Haliner confirmed to me that such breeding was not only possible, but productive and fertile ground for a breeding program, as he had experimented with such breedings and could offer first-hand experience and data. He was also able to make some suggestions on observed resistance to rust in the species clones he grew. The fact that, at nearly a decade later, I am still using some of the plants I obtained from Dr. Haliner in my breeding program means that his contribution to my program may exceed any other individual. Because he contributed the most important species clones I have worked with, along with information on how to use them, his contribution in many ways made my program possible. Dr. Haliner also suggested I look into a plant called ‘Implausibility’ bred by Nick Chase and to look at hybrids made from conversions of old cultivars that were close to species. He specifically recommended finding Tetrina, but I ended up going with one of its descendants instead.
In addition to the species clones from Dr. Halinar, three other plants have completed the base material for species or near-species materials in my program. All three of these were brought in during the second year of my program in 2011, and all three turned out to have high to extremely high rust resistance. The first, as suggested by Dr. Halinar, was Implausibility bred by Nick Chase. The second is Notify Ground Crew from Curt Hanson. Curt’s program has been a big influence on my work and several of his plants are also part of my program. The third is Ancient Elf by Jamie Gossard. So the species/near species base can be contributed to Mother Nature and Halinar-Apps-Yinger, Chase, Hanson and Gossard.
This ended up leading to a detour and expansion of my plans, but with a purpose. I knew in time that Substantial Evidence or some of its descendants would be converted to tetraploidy and could then be added to my tetraploid program, but in the meantime, I could work with Substantial Evidence at the diploid level and learn about its genetics. This could then offer me a better foundation for working with the Substantial Evidence family line at the tetraploid level when the time came. This is why I have any diploid program at all, though later, as I began making a serious attempt at breeding for rust resistance, and found that there were very few strongly resistant tetraploids, but numerous strongly resistant diploids, working with strongly resistant diploids became something of an insurance policy in case there was some reason a strongly resistant tetraploid program couldn’t be developed. In time, I found that I was able to bring together enough rust resistant tetraploids to make a viable breeding program that could produce both strongly rust resistant plants along with fancy, modern flowers. Finally, Substantial Evidence was converted and I am now working with its genetics at the tetraploid level, and with rust resistance genes in the mix to boot. When it comes to flower form, Substantial Evidence, and the vision and breeding work of Richard Norris, is at the base of my entire program and informed my program from the get-go.
One of my favorite color combinations is a near white flower with a bluish lavender eye, and from early on I suspected that such a flower would also be useful in breeding near white, lavender, purple and possibly pink flower colors, as well. In addition, cold hardiness is important to me, being in a temperate zone and wanting to produce daylilies that can flourish throughout cold winter locations. My experience with growing daylilies for several decades before I started my program had shown me that certain plants were not cold hardy, these often being plants bred in the deep south that showed the so-called evergreen foliage phenotype. Not all evergreens, certainly, but enough that I had noticed it on my own before I ever began reading up on the experiences of other daylily growers and breeders. To that end, I wanted to bring in plants from programs in very cold winter areas, and if possible, very clear colored and fancy flowered plants from such programs. I also grow peonies and was familiar with Nate Bremer of Solaris Farms from his work with peonies, and I knew he had a daylily breeding program, so I looked through is introductions to find some that I might want to add, reasoning that his location combined with his cultural methods and focus on strength, vigor and hardiness would mean that his introductions should have the type of hardness that I was looking for. When I saw that he had a near white, bluish lavender eyed cultivar with a lavender edge and a nice green throat, I had to have it. That cultivar is Solaris Symmetry. Nate’s dedication to hardiness and vigor has been an inspiration since the beginning of my program.
Those are the main breeders and cultivars that I started with and have become the major focus of all my work. I have added cultivars from other breeders, of course. One who I think has done some very good work is Robert Selman of Blue Ridge Daylilies. Two of my favorites from his program are Alien DNA and Thumbthing Special. One of the things I really love about Bob’s program is that he has taken southern-bred plants and bred from them to select a very cold hardy line of plants, thanks in large part to his rather cold microclimate.
John and Annette Rice of Thoroughbred Daylilies have a great program and many very fine plants. Like Robert Selman’s program, they have been able to use their environment to select for very hardy and vigorous plants that show lovely flower traits. I have used many of their plants in my program. I am especially smitten with their work in the late and very late season. My late to very late program is based around H. fulva ‘Hankow’, Sandra Elizabeth and Rice introductions, and it is the Rice introductions that have ‘fancied up’ that part of my program.
Curt Hanson is one of my favorite breeders. His program has been a huge influence on me. I love the massive plants, tall and thick scapes and amazing branching seen in so many of his introductions.
Mike Derrow of Adena Daylilies has a great program and is very selective in what he introduces. Mike is working with an incredible number of amazing plants and I expect some great introductions to come from his garden.
I am just beginning to grow a number of Karol Emmerich’s introductions, but I have long admired her Springwood Gardens program. Her work to breed up cold hardy plants from less that cold hardy plants is very sound, in my estimation. Her use of a greenhouse is not problematic because while she produces the initial seedlings from tender plants in the greenhouse, they then go out to survive or die in her extremely cold Minnesota location. This has allowed her to create cold hardy daylilies with fancy faces, and it has required real breeding work on her part, and real nerve and discipline to put those beautiful, tender faces out in the cold to sink or swim. One of the greatest attributes any breeder can have is the nerve and discipline to risk loss and heartbreak to achieve a goal. That matters, because it is just too easy to make that little extra effort to keep gorgeous flowering plants with lesser plant traits, but that is a sure way to miss your goals.
Darrel Apps has been a big influence to me. I think he is the most under-appreciated daylily breeder of our time. Darrel Apps work has been the work of a true plantsman, someone who really understands what plant breeding is. To daylily breeders only into tetraploids with all the fancy bells and whistles, his small reblooming diploids probably don’t seem too sexy, but if you really evaluate what he has produced, and then look at what he started with, that is the art of plant breeding! Anyone can buy some of the latest-and-greatest fancy daylilies and cross those and expect to get something right off the bat, but to just see a hint of possibility, make the outcrosses and then go through the generations required to recombine multiple genetic traits into individual plants, creating something new in the process, is what a real breeding program is. I have used several of his diploid introductions in my own diploid work to great effect, especially his red rebloomer Endless Heart, which has extremely high rust resistance, excellent rebloom and great breeding value for both traits. I have only recently begun growing some of Darrel’s tetraploids, but they seem to be sound, vigorous and hardy. However, having read Darrel’s introduction to Stout’s book many years before I started my breeding program, I was aware of him and so read all I could find on him and his breeding program at the beginning of my own breeding program.
The final breeder that made a big impact on me in the beginning of my program was George Doorakian. Already in love with the green throats and triangular eyes from Navajo Princess, cultivars such as Malachite Prism, Emerald Starburst and Rose F. Kennedy caught my attention right away. While I love the look of those cultivars, and it is an influence on me from Doorakian’s work to know that the trait can be greatly accentuated, the strongest influence from his program was how he pursued it. He decided what he wanted to do, he brought in plants he felt could accomplish that goal and he just patiently made it happen. That is very inspiring to me.
From the start of my preparation for my program, I have recognized that there would be multiple points that I would want to focus on. Because of my background and experience, I knew I would never be able to just focus on one color, or one shade of one color, or one form, or anything else very narrow, at least not at the beginning of my program. To me, that is refinement work that one does long after they have established a sound program, or is what you pursue if you just want a nice, small hobby. My years of experience with daylilies had shown me that there were many points that needed attention, and perhaps the flower was the least of those, though there were areas needing attention there too. Over the years, my preference had moved more toward tetraploids. I love their large plants, thick scapes and heavy flower substance. Yet from the first tetraploids I had grown, something about them had the “whiff” of problems, especially the frequently poor pod fertility displayed by many tetraploids when compared to diploids, amongst other traits. My observations suggested that there were probably chromosomal imbalances due to how the tetraploids came about - chemically induced ploidy conversion - and possibly also from the hybridization process that all daylilies derived from, which may have then been intensified through chemical conversion. My interest in hybridization as both a force of evolution and a major mode of domestication meant that I was well-aware of the chromosomal imbalances that can occur in hybrids in both plants and animals, and especially in plants within polyploid materials derived from chemically induced conversion. Based on my many years of research and breeding, I knew that some chromosomal imbalances can be corrected when hybrid or converted material is backcrossed to species material. This has been done extensively in many other genera of domestic hybrid plant breeding programs, but has never been done to any extent in the daylilies.
The backcrossing with species that Brian Mahieu had done in his program was interesting to me as I was formulating directions for my program, however, I wanted to do that sort of work at the tetraploid level, as I felt this could “iron-out” the issues I saw in the majority of the modern tetraploid gene pool. Brian Mahieu had pictures on his website of two seedlings he felt were the result of crossing an H. citrina clone with a tetraploid cultivar, so this planted the idea. I also learned about the existence of Dr. Halinar from Brian Mahieu’s website. Brian Mahieu’s work had also influenced Gil Stelter to pursue creating cold-hardy tetraploid spider and unusual form daylily cultivars by crossing fulva species variants to tender tetraploid spider cultivars. These two examples suggested to me that a species backcross program at the tetraploid level was possible. My communication with Dr. Halinar gave me the direction and basic data to get started. He agreed with my assessment that there were issues that could potentially be improved through the backcross to species.
By “ironed-out” tetraploid plants, I mean plants that show the best traits of the species of the genus, in the sense of high fertility with vigor and ruggedness. I would then like to see these traits combined with the best traits of the hybrids; tall scapes that are well branched with high bud counts and interesting flowers in a wide range of forms and colors, with or without all the bells and whistles of the fancy flowers. I say ‘with our without all the bells and whistles’ because I would happily grow very plain flowers in a single color if that is all that could be accomplished on the type of plants I want to grow. However, I now know that I can produce this kind of plant with the fancy flowers we see in the most extreme modern lines, and while I suspected it at the time, I couldn’t be sure then. In terms of what the plant I am interested in represents, I have discussed that already a bit above. I will go into more detail about that here, but before I do, I want to detail the layers of my program, and how I have approached the development of that program.
In terms of the overall program, I have Goals and I have Ideals. Goals are more short-term and involve individual traits or groups of related traits. The goals are something to aim at, milestones to mark the way toward the ideals. The Ideals are more longterm, and are hopes about final outcomes, dreams to keep me moving forward as the goals are achieved. Here is a list of goals and ideals that I established at the beginning of my program.
Goals
- Identify exceptional species, species-like and fancy modern hybrid daylilies to use as base plants for line development. This goal will not be a fast or easy one to fulfill, and will require several years of observation. There is really no way to know if a plant will actually fulfill such promise without a period of testing under my observation and in my own conditions. Five years is generally the minimum time to make such a determination.
- The species and species-like material mentioned in the first point is to open up the gene pool of my tetraploid program, as the tetraploids represent the narrowest gene pool within the Hemerocallis. The modern hybrids mentioned above are to provide fancy traits not concentrated or revealed in the species.
- Begin to combine species and species-like material with exceptional modern hybrids to develop lines with species-like vigor, a widened gene pool, superior plant traits and fancy, modern flowers.
- Identify and reproduce plants that both form clumps that do not die-out requiring division to be “refreshed” and that also show good increase, creating strong, vigorous, long-lasting clumps for the landscape, but also plants that can be frequently divided for purposes of increase.
- Plant trait goals - strong and large roots, large and vigorous fans/plants/clumps, beautiful foliage, disease/pest resistance, strong tall scapes, high bud count, rebloom and/or bud building, tree-like multiple branching.
- Preferred foliage trait goals - senescent foliage (dies in late fall/early winter and stops growing), resting bud at or below ground level, late emergence of foliage growth in the spring, late freeze tolerance/resistance, attractive foliage in any color, but with dark, rich green preferred. A secondary segment of foliage trait goals is the production of plants with foliage that is semi-evergreen or evergreen that are rust resistant plants for warm-winter gardens, but that shows hardiness in cold-w
- inter gardens, a low incidence of winter-growth in cold-winter areas (especially in warm spells in winter) and that show high frost tolerance/resistance during late spring frosts/freezes.
- Flower trait goals - fancy flower phenotypes combined with strong substance, strong sun and rain resistance and resistance to insect pests. I like all the visual flower phenotypes, so there can be a wide range of possibilities. I have a special appreciation of near white, both as a flower color and as the base upon which to layer anthocyanic colors such as pink, lavender, purple or red. I think near-white has special applications in the garden both to bring bright light into the garden and because they seem to handle high heat better than any of the other colors. I have a special fondness of eyes, and eyes with edges, and additional patterns in the eye are nice too. I like piecrust, fringed and toothed edges. I like sculpting in all its forms. I prefer narrow petals to round petals, but like both, and all the form variations. I am especially fond of very open, flat flowers, but I also like natural trumpet shaped flowers, as well.
- Actions - Identify plants with the above traits and begin to combine then, making the basis for lineages. In this phase, rarely will all traits be found together in any one plant (and when more than two or three such traits are found together, that is noteworthy and exceptional). The great challenge is to bring as many of these traits together in individual plants as possible.
Ideals
- Combine the best select species/species-like plants with the most exceptional select modern hybrids, forming the base lines with both types in the pedigree.
- Remain patient and focused, using the best plants and selected, tested seedlings from them to continue combining the desired traits, continuously making individual plants that have as many of these traits as possible.
- Build lines that combine all the traits listed in the goals. This is done through braiding individual select species variants, cultivars and seedlings to continuously combine more and more desired traits, eventually creating individuals with as many of the traits as possible (hopefully all of them), then use these extraordinary individuals to breed lines with these traits.
- Continue to advance flower traits on exceptional plants. Once the goals have been met, the lineages have been set, and the Ideals reached, then the final goal can move into place - a simpler, smaller program that is based in flower breeding, selecting for new, advanced and complex flowers, but on superior plants derived from the long program of creating such plants that were infused with fancy flower genes from its inception. I also developed a layering system for the plants I would use in my program involving a primary layer (the species and species-like material deemed ‘exceptional’ after a minimum of five years of testing), a secondary layer (composed of modern hybrid cultivars that had been rated ‘exceptional’ after a minimum of five years of testing) and a tertiary layer (composed of plants that have desired flower or plant traits - some may have flaws in other areas, so may not rate ‘exceptional’, and so might only make a minor contribution and then be removed from the program, while others become part of the secondary level over time). In addition to the layering system that I would require to make a program representing the best of the species and modern hybrids, I also set an expected timespan for reaching Goals, and then reaching the point where I could expect to see the Ideals coming together. That initial timespan covers twenty years and is broken up into four, five-year segments. Timespan Segments
2.The second five-years - This is the period to begin to combine the plants selected in the first five years, combining primary and secondary cultivars, as well as crossing both primary and secondary plants with tertiary cultivars, to bring fancy flower traits or specific plant traits that are perhaps on lesser plants, onto the known-quantity of plants screened and of proven breeding value. This second period then forms the wider base that allows for the eventual production of BOTH the plant and the flowers I expect based on my goals and ideals. This is the secondary phase of meeting goals - proving breeding value for target traits and the individuals that display them, and beginning to blend as many of those traits as possible together, as well as spreading target traits throughout the entire population
3.The third five-year period - This period marks the time when initial selection has been completed, breeding value has been proven and complex combinations of traits can begin to be combined. This is the period where some goals should have been met, and while work toward goals is still ongoing, some of the ideals should begin to be visible within the population, at lest in small numbers. Focus on flower phenotypes can become a more prominent focus during this period within the superior family lines.
4.The fourth five-year period - This period marks the time when many goals should have been met, and (at least) some of the ideals should be coming together within the population. The major work of this period should be to continue combining the goal traits, and increase the numbers of plants and family lines that express the ideals of the program. Within this period, and proceeding it, major focus can move toward the most advanced and novel flower traits, especially within this lines that have met all the plant goals and are the epitome of the overall Ideals in terms of plant traits.
There is a specific traits I want to focus on a bit before closing out this section. It is plants that do not die-out in the center and that do not need to be frequently divided to continue to grow and flower normally. For me, such plants are the Holy Grail, and the development of lines of such plants is the priceless pearl found at the end of my Ideals. Because I made observations of this trait over many years before I started my breeding program, this has always been a central aspect of my longterm Ideal - the vision at the endpoint of my longview. We have all been taught that daylilies need to be ‘refreshed’ every three to four years, with clumps dug and divided or flowering decreases, but what I have been able to observe is that this is not true for ALL daylilies. Some of the non-rhizomatous species will grow in an expanding clump for many years without problems. H. dumortierii in our gardens here on the farm has at times grown in clumps for decades with no division and no ill effects, while consistently increasing, not dying out in the center and not diminishing. What I was able to observe through my many years of growing daylilies, and especially through those years of letting the gardens go, is that not all daylily plants are created equally. This makes sense, when you consider that the major focus of hybridizers has been the flower, and you consider that there are several different styles of plant growth and clump formation/behavior amongst the species. Since many species went into the origination of the hybrids, with little selection then applied to the minutia of clump formation/behavior, and most daylily growers digging and dividing regularly to increase for distribution, few people have probably ever realized or considered the variations in the plant to be of any relevance. However, my long experience with growing daylilies, my possibly unique set of observations, and a lifetime of experience and research in the natural sciences, hybridization, domestication, genetics, breeding and selection combined to present me with an opportunity to observe traits that might have gone unnoticed in other instances. I also have an eye for minutia and high pattern recognition. All of this has combined to allow me to either see something others were overlooking, or assign meaning and value to traits that others saw as unimportant or were ignoring.
What I have seen is that many daylilies will form a clump and then within two, three or four years they will begin to “crowd-out” in the center of the clump, with the central fans dying and leaving a ring of fans, often of reduced size, around the perimeter of the clump. These plants often also form a mound that extends up out of the ground, as new roots are growing on old, dead, dried, “mummified” roots. Left to their own devices, many of these plants wither away without division, while others eventually regenerate, becoming two, three or more new clumps in a ring around the old, dead, mounded center. Some species of Hemerocallis also show this plant behavior and it must allow them to slowly move around, making new clumps very slowly, sort of a ‘slow-motion’ spreading without rhizomes. My experience is that many individuals among the hybrids that show this plant behavior don’t tend to recover and eventually die out without digging and division, along with high inputs such as fertilizer and water. In a garden, none of this is acceptable or attractive, and so such daylilies really do require division every few years. There is variation in this type of behavior, with some individuals showing this behavior in just a couple of years, while some cultivars may take five years or more to hit this crisis point.
As I stated above, some species, such as H. dumortierii, also do not show this die-out/decline plant behavior. Obviously, rhizomatous types of daylilies won’t tend to show the die-out/decline behavior I have described either, but when I note cultivars that do not show the center-die-out/decline pattern, I am not referring to rhizomatous types, but to clump formers that can be maintained in clumps for many, many years without decline or deleterious problems. I have come to feel that this type of daylily is a true perennial, and that such plant performance is wildly preferable to most gardeners, especially those who have some life beyond endless garden busy-work. Time-and-time again I have been told by various people among the general public - some who are gardeners, some who are just average people who want a few flowers in their yard - that they don’t like daylilies “because they have to be divided every three or four years and that is just too much work, especially if you have more than a handful of clumps”. Many people want to plant a thing called a ‘perennial’ and walk away, then be able to enjoy it for years to come without having to do anything much to it, much like one would with a peony, a rhododendron bush or a flowering cherry tree. Over and over, I hear people complain about ‘perennial gardens’ based on the upkeep required in frequent digging and division, and I can’t disagree with their assessment. Other than us committed daylily fanatics, who has time?
I feel that the creation of such daylilies is an important long term step in making the daylily more popular with the gardening public, and that this is essential to the future of the daylily. Further, it is the essence of the important work of plant improvement. We often forget that the daylily flower is not the plant and actually has nothing to do with the vigor, survivability or performance of the plant. The flower is merely the reproductive organ of the daylily plant. Yes, it is a beauty to behold, but it has nothing to do with the survival or survivability of the plant. Its only reason in nature is to draw the insects that will pollinate the plant and ensure the setting of seeds. The flower serves only to attract pollinators to create the next generation. As we are the pollinators now, we can make choices, good or bad, in what we select for - what plants we select to reproduce and what traits we choose to carry on into the future. Through that we can determine what future these plants we grow and breed have in the wider world.
The last aspect of my program that I want to mention, which has been there from the beginning, is that all the various aspects of my program are grounded in the possible. Because of my many years of growing the genus Hemerocallis, the experience I had gained in plant and animal breeding before I started my daylily breeding program, and the research I did about Hemerocallis before I started moving pollen, I knew that the traits I wanted to work with existed within the genus. The work of breeding and selecting for disease and pest resistance are well-established aspects of the applied science of plant breeding. My decades of personal experience growing daylilies had shown me the type of daylily plant-growth pattern that I wanted to focus on. A.B. Stout, through his writing, had shown me how he had made the initial hybrid daylily population. R. W. Munson told me what to watch out for in the introduction to his book. The work of the daylily community and generations of breeders had shown me what was possible with the flower, the scape, the visual effects of the plant in general. Adversity had shown me that some daylilies had incredible endurance and survivability, and what traits were advantageous for the potential climatic extremes of my area. The Chinese, and other East Asian cultures, showed me that the daylily is far more than just a garden flower. Growing a wide range of daylily cultivars over several decades had shown me the good, the beautiful, the bad and the ugly - the desirable traits, as well as the undesirable traits that were being allowed to concentrate into the plants through being ignored when only the flower was the focus (the bane of all domestic breeding programs - progressively narrowing focus on minutia), just as Munson pointed out. My own artistic aesthetic informs my love and understanding of colors and forms.
To me, it was important to approach my program from a place grounded in the reality of the genus. First, because I wanted to accomplish my goals, and second, because I didn’t want to waste years chasing impossible dreams. You see, I don’t necessarily want to make something that doesn’t exist. I don’t care about making a ‘true blue’, or ‘true white’, or a specific shade of red, though others are welcome to do that if it interests them. I am happy with bluish-lavender and purples on the blue end of the spectrum. I am fine with near-white. What I want is to improve the daylily, making an even finer garden plant than we already have. Some daylilies can be a great garden plants, but they can be even better. I know this because I have had the pleasure of observing what some few daylily plants are capable of. Just as we have selected fancier and fancier flowers, we can also select plants with those finest plant traits, combining and intensifying them, and we can do that while still continuing to select fantastic, beautiful and cutting-edge flowers. It simply requires finding the right plants and making use of them, even if that means we have to take a detour for a decade or so to combine all the traits together. That is called breeding. I am not looking to turn the daylily into some other type of plant, but to improve and refine the marvelous plant that the daylily already is. Within the range of what is already in existence in the flower traits, there is a lifetime of work to be done just to combine those flower traits that already exist into every possible combination they could occur in, and to then get those flowers onto really fantastic plants. New and novel flower traits will likely continue to emerge, but I wonder, if that is all we collectively pay attention to and focus on, what kind of plants those new flower traits will end up on?
This is the first part of a two part interview. Stay tuned for part 2.
