NOTES ON HYBRIDIZING

 We haven’t seen a good rain for ages.  A massive drought caused a lot of stress (and damage) in my plants. I can water only a few plants at a time.  I am amazed though, that some daylilies withstand these conditions and even bloom. Here are some of my seedlings:

 I always see bees and hover flies visiting my daylilies. Hems are really nice and robust garden plants, and I think that their benefits in local gardens are severely underestimated. They are survival masters; where roses and many other plants would give up in unfavorable conditions, they live and bounce back with all powers after conditions get stabilized. Hemerocallis plants can thrive in climatic zones from 4 to 9. There are up to 90000 registered varieties; the breeding is driven mostly by american hybridizers, that is why it is more or less difficult to get modern varieties from overseas. Here: a bee is collecting pollen from “Wolfman” daylily. Irish Royalty - a daylily, best performing in dry and warm weather And a couple of my own seedlings:

Two weeks of heat, 38–42 C, it was unbearable in my test field. No water supply, no rain, I had to drive water cans from home for watering the most critical plants. The voles attacked my new seedlings bed. It is not possible wrap seedlings in protective nets, like roses, so I have to figure out another way to protect them. I am trying to insert the metallic rods (about 30 cm long) all around seedlings, but still do not know if it really helps; however, at least the spots where I used them were not bothered anymore, but maybe the voles also had another plans.  Here is my older bed, and the whole patch in the middle is missing. I still can‘t tell, did the voles eat all those plants or they just made it impossible for them to grow here because of the underground activity (or maybe both?).  I spotted three nice daylily seedlings.  My roses seedlings are only starting to bloom: