Re: OT: daylillies

From: Bill Shear <BILLS@hsc.edu>

A small number of "historic" daylillies can be had from marginal suppliers,
like Van Bourgondiens or Van Dycks, or even Wayside Gardens, which has sold
HYPERION for years, it seems.

Unfortunately I can't recall the variety name, but Van Bourgondiens is now
offering as "new" a bicolored red and yellow cultivar with a famous
artist's name (?!) which I know I grew back in the late fifties, and it was
being offered on the cheap then.

The mania for the "new" seems even greater among daylilly aficionados than
among iris folk.  And at $200 a pop, it can be an expensive habit.  To my
untuored eye,many of these "new" introductions seem little different from
those of 10 years ago.  But I recently voiced that opinion after giving a
talk on iris to a daylilly club, and the atmosphere in the room turned
noticeably chilly.

I prefer to raise my daylillies from seed.  It's easy, fun, and you get
some interesting stuff--like the foot-tall miniatures with 1" flowers that
appeared from a seed packet labelled "new giant tetraploids," or the bright
melon orange that blooms with the late tulips.  Daylilly species are neat,
too.  Right now I have H. altissima in bloom at about 6 feet, with fragrant
yellow evening-opening flowers.  It's been in bloom since mid-July and
still has buds to go.  It would be great for breeding season-extenders in a
new range of sizes.

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@hsc.edu>

How come you never hear about "gruntled" postal employees?
			-IAQ (Infrequently Asked Questions)



------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription
to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and
select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index