Awaiting Bloom

In late May there is a lull in my garden. The weigela, iris and golden alexanders are in bloom, but mostly the garden is just green. The peony, foxglove and rose will soon explode, and the petunias and impatiens I grew from seed in my basement, though still very small, are producing small pockets of color. But mostly I am waiting and staring out across a sea of green. 

What I want is this: I want my daylilies to bloom. 

I still have a month until they begin. 

I've been contemplating. One way to bring excitement to my gardening days earlier in the summer is to get a greenhouse. Northern hybridizers with greenhouses are able to have a first crossing "season" in May and early June and a second in July when the daylilies bloom outdoors.

But I'm fairly certain a greenhouse is not in my future, at least while I'm living n Massachusetts. Eventually Andy and I will retire to Maine, and I know I will have a greenhouse then, but for the next five years I am both stuck in Massachusetts and also stuck without a greenhouse. 

So what to do? 

I think the answer is to expand my hybridizing. 

Here's what this. means: Bearded iris, baby.

Hybridizing bearded iris does not appear to be as simple as hybridizing daylilies. For one thing, iris closet their sexuality more so than the exhibitionist daylily and lilium. With iris, it took me a bit of time to even locate the stamens, and I had to actually watch a video in order to figure out the whole "stigmatic lip" thing. Further, it seems that iris pollen is more stealth than that of lilies. The stamens are fairly easy to locate now that I know where to look, but I have yet to find an iris with a lot of pollen on any of its anthers. 

Figuring out out how to pollinate an iris led me down a slippery hybridizing slope. It's raining today, so instead of weeding and puttering about the garden I spent the morning researching how to pollinate lupine (not that hard), zinnia and echinacea (seems nearly impossible) and lilium. Of those three I am most interested in echinacea, but I think they might be too complicated for me to go down that road. For one thing, every one of those little disc florets on a "single" echinacea flowerhead has its own stigma and anther, and so each can make a seed. This is great for reproduction, but not so great if you're trying to control making a hybrid without self-contamination of pollen. Honestly, I don't even get how one would do it! 

Hybridizing lilium seems a lot like hybridizing daylily, except that apparently there is a lot of cross-pollen contamination that occurs because of bees and the fact that ornamental lilies have about a ton of pollen on each anther. In order to deal with this hybridizers place tinfoil over the fertilized stigma and then remove all the flower's stamens. I couldn't find any information on how long it takes a baby lily to grow a huge, flowering bulb. That is something I wonder. Does it take  2 years? 4 years? more?

Anyway, I plan to try my hand at hybridizing iris next season. It's a bit too late this season: I have only a few iris to use and they are all boring. What this means is that I can buy some cool iris this summer. :) I'll also try to hybridize a few ornamental lilies this summer. I've always loved the oriental and orienpet lilies, so I have quite a collection already to use in hybridizing.

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Last fall I introduced two daylilies with the AHS. I should have waited, because I don't have enough of either plant to sell any fans yet, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to see how the whole process worked. 

My fall, 2020 intros:

Caligula. Tet, 29" E, re-bloom. three-way branching, semi-evergreen. Nite Bite x Calamity Jane.

Queen Irene. Tet, 28" M, re-bloom, three-way branching, semi-evergreen. God Save the Queen x Arabian Veil.

By 2022 I will likely have enough of each plant to sell a few fans. I also have a few more daylilies that I plan to introduce next fall if they do well again this summer in my garden. They are:

Little Lemon Cake

The Ruby Zebra

Little Rose Red

Peppermint Stripes

Dixie Darling

Henrietta

Dixie Darling and Henrietta are both old-school flowers, and so I may not introduce them. However, I do love them... so maybe? The clear pink color of Henrietta is so beautiful, and both of these plants bloom for over a month straight, have a zillion branches, increase quickly and are hard-core dormants. I just love them! But... they are not fancy. 

Little Lemon Cake is a beautiful yellow with deeper yellow edging, but what I really love about it is that it is such a strong, prolific plant and it also completely resists rust. I had an outbreak of rust in my seedling bed last year (must have come from a plant I bought from the south...) and Little Lemon Cake did not suffer even a bit. What a goddess! 

Little Rose Red is a miniature, and I love her color. She doesn't increase as much as I'd like, though, so we'll see. 

The Ruby Zebra is both vigorous and interesting. Her stripes are sometimes yellowish and sometimes closer to brown and sometimes closer to white. Peppermint Stripes is just a very pleasing flower. The plant also has great branching and height. 

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In other news, I've been working on a plan for Four Dog Farm. I know I will become commercial very soon--if in a very small way--as I plan to start selling my introductions. The question is, to what extent do I want to sell my other plants? I certainly have enough to sell... and sell... and sell.... , and it would be great way to keep my farm in check in terms of size. But, it's a lot of work. I packaged up a dozen lilies and sent them to my good friend, Alina, in Maine, just to see what that would be like. Between dividing, digging, cleaning and packing it took me well over a day to just deal with those 12 plants! (I understand line-outs, now. ha! But I don't have any room to make line-outs! Or, maybe I do, but it would require a restructuring of the garden that absolutely seems overwhelming to me.)

I do know that by the end of the summer I would like a functioning Four Dog Farm website from which I can sell my introductions. I also plan to start keeping a blog, even if no one reads it! :)