Greenhouse Hybridizing . . .

For me, there is no greater plea-
sure in daylilies than hybridizing 
and walking the seedling fields 
to see the results of your art. 
Yes, in my opinion, hybridizing
is as much an art as brushing
paint on a canvas. You select a 
pod parent and combine that 
with a selected pollen parent. 
Your selections may be for a 
particular color, large or small 

flowers, full formed or UF's, 
eyes and edges, teeth and 
tentacles, etc., etc, the select-
ions are unlimited. Select for 
what makes you happy.  

In this instance, I am working 
for reds with teeth. Toward 
this goal,  I used  H. 'Horny 
Devil' as the pod parent, and  
H. 'Jean Pickles' as the 
pollen parent with a result-
ing first generation seedling 
shown. Now, I need to work 
on cleaning up the color and 
enhancing the teeth. I would 
like to get the teeth in both 
white and gold, maybe with 
a watermark on the bloom..







Another cross that I was 
anxious to make was to use  
H. 'Elisa Dallas' and H.  
'Crazy Ivan' with each other. 
I have always admired the 
eye of H.  'Elisa Dallas' but 
wanted a little better plant

under it along with a larger 
flower. I thought H. 'Crazy 
Ivan' might do the job for 
me so I used it's pollen. 

The resulting seedling was 
larger with a better plant 

underneath and I picked 
up the form of  H.  'Elisa 
Dallas' that I prefer. The 
eye shows with a small
watermark and a great green 
throat. A very striking flower.

All of our hybridizing is done in 
the greenhouse between 
late February and the end of 
April.


Hybridizing daylilies is 

easy which is probably 
why so many people are 
doing it. As I have shown
above, you pick your two

parents with a goal in mind,
or,as many hybridizers do,
simply put pretty on pretty.
When you have selected a
pollen parent,you break off
an anther and place the
pollen on the tip of the pod
parent pistil. If the cross
takes,you will see a seed
pod forming in a few days
which will mature between
50-55 days.

The pollen should be yellow and fluffy. If it is white and hard,
it is probably not good. Images showing good, fluffy pollen (top), 
pollen to pistil (center), and newly formed seed pod (bottom).

As I said, hybridizing daylilies is easy . . . try it, you might like it. 
I guarantee that once you see some of your own seedlings 
bloom, you will be hooked.

Life is very, very good. 

to be continued . . .