Luel has been in charge of our blue eyed breeding program trying to get fancy blue/lavender eyed and edged flowers that perform well in the north. Luddy Lambertson and other southern breeders have made excellent advances in this color range but they do not always perform well in our climate.  We have had some success in getting dormant plants that grow well in our climate but this week we noticed a jump in quality in our seedlings from our “blue” program.  Below are some of the nice flowers we saw from our work with “blue” patterned daylilies:
Seedling 327-1 – from Spring of Living Water – much larger edge
Seedling 357-2 – Double edge with teeth
Seedling 357-3 – Wide edge – big jump from parents
Seedling 357-4 – Rich color against near white petals
All the 357 seedlings were out of seedling 912-11 (Grace Like Rain x Blue Hippo). Seedling 912-11 is a full sibling to Secret Ambition and is a potential 2014 introduction. It appears to be an excellent breeder. It was fun to be able to take these flowers and use the pollen on our breeding plants.