Luel and I (mostly Luel as that is her favorite) have been working on “blue†eyed daylilies going back to some of our first crosses and introductions. While Pinewood Mirror Lake (2018 Introduction) is the subject, the background on that cultivar takes us back many years. It has taken us a long time to get fancy and hardy daylilies with hardiness being the most difficult part as most of the really fancy blue eyed flowers available were all evergreen. The parents of Pinewood Mirror Lake were seedling 947-1 x seedling 229-1. Hope you enjoy the past and future of Pinewood Mirror Lake.
Pod parent 947-1 was a cross of (August Wedding x Destined to See) x Spring of Living Water. Spring of Living Water is a cross of two of our introductions (Arnold’s Daughter and Growing in Grace). Both of the parents had Destined to See in the background. Seedling 947-1 never made it to introduction status due to plant habit but was dormant and proved to be a good parent (also parent of Pinewood Evening Star).
Seedling 229-1 was a cross of 908-3 x Molly Marie. Seedling 908-3 was (T. Lavender Blue Baby x Destined to See) x Spring of Living Water. Molly Marie was one of our introductions and was a Spring of Living Water seedling x Cerulean Warbler.
Based on our background check, Spring of Living Water was in the background of almost all of the seedlings used in the breeding of Pinewood Mirror Lake. Spring of Living Water was an evergreen but grew well for us here and had good scapes. Seedling 229-1 was also quite pretty but was evergreen and never made it to introduction. However, crossing 229-1 with its great color and white teeth onto the hardy 947-1 gave us a plant we could introduce – Pinewood Mirror Lake. As a reference, the seedlings beginning with a “9†were from crosses made in 2007 and first bloomed in 2009. That is ancient history for daylilies. This points to two facts – 1-we have been working on this color for a long time and 2-we are getting old.
Pinewood Mirror Lake is proving to be an excellent parent. We started crossing it to some of our hardy seedlings and are getting big jumps in the size of the edge and eye.
Seedling 804-6 is a dormant seedling from another long line of blue eyed genetics back to Blue Hippo crossed to Pinewood Mirror Lake.
Seedling 806-1 is another Spring of Living Water seedling crossed to Pinewood Mirror Lake. The teeth come from Pinewood Mirror Lake.
This seedling comes from our Healing Waters (dormant introduction from 2016) and Pinewood Mirror Lake. Not much cream petal color.
Seedling 825-1 has seedling 585-1 as a pod parent. 585-1 is a cross of the beautiful lavender Saracenia (from Nate Bremer) with a Cerulean Warbler seedling. We love the rich color on this one.
Seedling 830-1 is a cross of a purple seedling out of Heartbeat of Heaven x Pinewood Mirror Lake. The blue eye came from Pinewood Mirror Lake.
Seedling 923-2 is a new seedling with Pinewood Mirror Lake as pod parent and our new double, Double Blessing as the pollen parent. A different look with that watermark eye.