Lydia’s Cloth is a 2013 introduction that has been 15 years in the making. One of our first breeding goals was a purple daylily with a white edge that performs well in our climate. We started with Munson varieties like Court Magician and the narrow white edges from T. Grand Masterpiece like Moldovan’s Ruffled Royalty and Hanson’s Tupac Amaru. These plants did not yield a breakthrough in larger white edges on purple flowers.Â
Our first break was our Tears for Gus. While evergreen and not a vigorous grower here, Tears for Gus did pass on white edges and was the parent of Ancient of Days. This clear purple with large white edge was evergreen but had a lot of dormancy in the genetics and produced many dormant kids. Of these, Lydia’s Cloth was the best. The genetics of Lydia’s Cloth also includes T. Lavender Blue Baby and Joan Derifield. In 2011, we had a clump of Lydia’s Cloth in the garden that had well over 200 blossoms and we set over 35 pods. We should see over 150 new seedlings from Lydia’s Cloth bloom in 2013. With Lydia’s Cloth being dormant, having excellent scapes, and yielding clear purples and reds, we have achieved one of our goals of having a white edged purple that does well here in our climate. Photos below show Lydia’s Cloth and some of the seedlings we saw in 2012.
Lydia’s Cloth
Seedling 30-3 – (Heartbeat of Heaven x Lydia’s Cloth) – This seedling has been one of the best purples we have bloomed in the garden. Nearly flawless blooms that open perfectly has been the most impressive feature. Our larger clump this year got the rot that was common in the midwest in the 2012 growing season. I think we salvaged the plant but it was set back and will delay introduction. We will have a separate blog post on this flower later.
Seedling 16-13 (Violet Victory x Lydia’s Cloth)
Seedling 244-13 – Lydia’s Cloth x 4-2
Seedling 244-17 – Lydia’s Cloth x 4-2