2022 Introductions from CT Daylily

Quantities are limited so call or e-mail soon if you are interested in any.

The pod parent, John Rice’s Bass Gibson, is the parent of many toothy intros—109 to date. The pollen parent, Bee’s Jonick is from J. Downie, who is perhaps best known for his Bee’s Bettie Sue, one of the first to exhibit raised appendages in the throat. Bee’s Jonick is a cross of Forestlake Ragamuffin X Tet Spindazzle. This cross has produced some other toothies—notable ones are Saber Tooth Tiger and Reap the Whirlwind. I have not seen any kids yet, but I expect some good ones with that pedigree.

My best friend Paul died on Jan 1,2020. We bowled on the same team for 40 years and celebrated many of life’s special occasions together. His wife Joan had died unexpectedly about a year and a half previous. I wonder at times if he missed her so much that he was “ready” to join her. His obituary, penned by his son Mike, read in part that he “entered into eternal rest on January 1, 2020, after a lifetime of adventures, love, and shenanigans”. The phrase stuck in my mind, and I wanted to use it to name a daylily. I miss you buddy. RIP… $75

Howard 2022

(Early To The Party X Yoga Man)
6"/30", E, Sev, Tet
Three way, 17 buds

Orchid with blue violet eye outlined in magenta, and yellow green throat, fertile both ways.

Dan Hansen’s Yoga Man has produced some of the best blue-eyed offspring I have seen. Blue-Eyed Soul is one of those, with a vivid blue eye zone. Blue-eyed Soul is a striking bloom. My sister thinks it’s the prettiest daylily I have hybridized. The eye zone is fairly consistent in appearance.

From Wikipedia: “Georgie Woods, a Philadelphia radio DJ, is thought to have coined the term "blue-eyed soul" in 1964, initially to describe The Righteous Brothers, then white artists in general who received airplay on rhythm and blues radio stations. The Righteous Brothers in turn named their 1964 LP Some Blue-Eyed Soul. According to Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers, R&B radio stations who played their songs were surprised to find them to be white when they turned up for interviews, and one DJ in Philadelphia (unnamed by Medley but probably Georgie Woods) started saying "Here's my blue-eyed soul brothers", and it became a code to signal to the audience that they were white singers. The popularity of The Righteous Brothers who had a hit with "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" is thought to have started the trend of R&B radio stations to play songs by white artists in the mid-1960s, a more integrative approach that was then popular with their audience. The term blue-eyed soul was then applied to such artists as Sonny & Cher, Tom Jones, Barry McGuire, and Roy Head.”……$75

Violet with a blue violet eye and slight edge of blue violet and silver with a green throat, fertile both ways

This one has very nice wide spaced branching, and some Northern hardy parents plants with cool patterns. The pod parent, Put on Your Dancin’ Shoes, is a patterned intro of ours from our award-winning Polar Vortex X Totem and Taboo (De Caire). Pollen is from Hanson’s There’s a Place.

I love the USA, but Canadians are special. I have always felt that Canadians, among other things, are exceedingly polite — and now we have some data to prove it. Two doctoral students at McMaster University, a bit outside of Toronto, compared millions of geotagged tweets from the United States and Canada from 2015. They looked at the top 10 percent of words most likely to be used by Canadians and compared them with the top 10 percent most likely to be used by Americans.

They found that Canadians, true to form, are just way nicer on Twitter. The most disproportionately Canadian words on Twitter are things like "amazing," "great," and "favourite." The words way more likely to show up in American tweets are "damn," "hate," "ass," and some racial slurs that I will not repeat here. I rest my case……$100/SF

Howard 2022

((Bear Claws X Tet Holly Dancer) X Heavenly United We Stand)
6"/35", MLa, Dor, Tet
Two way, 12 buds

Crimson self with green throat, fertile both ways

Diver Dan has the best red color of anything I have hybridized. Using Gossard’s Stout medal winner, Heavenly United We Stand, did not hurt. The pod parent is a seedling of mine, a cross of Whatley’s Bear Claws with the conversion of Warrell’s Holly Dancer.  HUWS has Tet Holly Dancer in it, so a double dose of its lovely color is passed on to Diver Dan.

It is named for my late brother-in-law who passed away in July 2021. He was married to my younger sister for 32 years. They met when he was her scuba diver instructor, hence the name. He was a good guy with a great sense of humor whom everybody liked. He will be missed.

This plant is limited as much of it will be going to family members….$45

Light pink bicolor with gold toothy edge and yellow throat, fertile both ways.

Fran Harding’s Forestlake program has had a profound influence on today’s toothy daylilies. This attractive plant is another one from her genetics. I almost registered it as having stippling. The paler sepals make the petal color and toothy edge pop.

Strangers in the Night is a 1966 studio album by Frank Sinatra. It marked Sinatra's return to number one on the pop album charts in the mid-1960s and consolidated the comeback he initiated in 1965. (Wikipedia). The end of the song is punctuated by his “singing” the phrase Dobby Dooby Doo. I was not a big Sinatra fan—always liked rock tunes better—but this one was catchy….$50

Howard 2022-SOLD OUT

(Magic Of Oz X Arno’s Bow Tie)

5.25”/33”, EM, Sev, Dip

3-way branching, 17 buds

Ivory unusual from cascade with a very large green throat. Fertile both ways. One of two diploid inros this year.

This one sold out early when I posted it on Facebook. It is slow to increase, so I do not have that much of it. It comes from two award winning parents.

I used to like to have Irish Coffee after a meal, but I have found that in my advancing years I have little tolerance for both caffeine and booze!....$125/SF—SOLD OUT

Purple with a lighter halo and gold toothy edge and yellow green throat—fertile both ways.

Nice color, good height, and many other attributes come together for this bloom. It will show some mid-rib cresting at times. Thistles and Thorns is from Karol Emmerich, and Wolfman from Jamie Gossard. I have several intros from Karol’s plants-and several from Jamie’s intros too. Karol has successfully demonstrated what can happen if you focus in your hybridizing. She produces award winning daylilies year after year. She, and many other hybridizers, are good examples of living with purpose.

I heard the phrase “Live with Purpose” listening to Little Steven’s Underground Garage on Sirius radio. Little Steven is Steven Van Zandt, who is one of the coolest guys around. He is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, activist and author. He is Bruce Springsteen’s primary backup singer and lead guitarist. He also played the role of mob consigliere Sylvio on the Sopranos. He punctuates his radio show with entertaining stories of all sorts of themes he will pontificate on between songs. One was titled Living with Purpose.

It’s a good philosophy for hybridizing, and for life in general. “Most of us discover our purpose by being aware and connecting the dots. We figure out who we are through the process of trial and error. It’s not a moment in time, but rather thousands of moments over time, that help us refine a vision and purpose for our lives.” (The Good Men Project- https://goodmenproject.com/).... $95

Howard 2022

(Diver Dan X Fire Bird Suite)

7.5”/50”, M, Sev, Tet

3-way branching, 17 buds

Fertile both ways, UFo cascade.

The pod parent, Diver Dan, is this year’s intro. The pollen parent is Dan Trimmer’s Fire Bird Suite, which has great branching here, and wonderful color that goes back to his conversion of Walter’s Tango. Very tall and really pops at the rear of a bed.

The name Might as Well Jump comes from Van Halen’s rocker “Jump”. The song was popular in the 80’s when 20 of my fellow bowlers and I used to bowl in the Schenectady Press Tournament. Bowling was not all we did LOL. One of my buddies put his head through the drop ceiling in the bar at Revere Lanes during our group rendition of the song. Good thing the owner liked us…..$75

Howard 2022

(Explosion In The Paint Factory X King Crab)

7”/32”, MLa, Dor, Tet

3-way branching, 13 buds

UFo cascade-- Orange red with a red eye zone and yellow throat—fertile both ways.

Beautiful color and great genetics. Held back an extra year for hybridizing. Gives some pizzazz to the late season garden. With EITPF as a parent it presents some very cool hybridizing potential. I should have crossed this with Might as well Jump-there’s always next year.

The name comes from a movie I have never seen. I understand I have not missed much….$100/SF

Fertile both ways — very pod fertile

So, introducing a smaller yellow dip is a departure for me. The pod parent, Hakuunzan, is registered with 100 buds. I thought this factor made it worthy of a dab or two of pollen. The result is impressive. The pod parent of Hakuunzan is a species, H. hakuunensis, and is 40” tall. It has a good bud count that I expect to be higher than it was in 2022, when everything had a lower bud count than in previous years.

I have been trying to use the name for a while and I suspect that this will be the smallest that I will ever introduce, so it has the moniker. It’s a phrase from Al Pacino’s over the top performance in Scarface some years ago…$55

Lemon chiffon with a dark violet halo and consistent, raised, large segments of cristate tissue in the throat. Fertile both ways.

I never intended to start a line of this genre (cristate) but sometimes in daylilies things happen that you just did not plan for. This look is not an area of emphasis for me, but fun to play around with. I sell most of these cristate crosses but have had a few that I have kept with some cool results.

I went to Europe two years ago on a river cruise--highly recommend these cruises. One stop in Germany entailed a dinner, lots of beer, and dancing –as well as doing a "shotski" --5 shot glasses were attached to a ski and filled with schnapps. Five people had to drink them simultaneously during a song. The shortest one got the worst of it-LOL

$125/SF

Tom Polston’s Deadliest Catch has been a good parent for me. This is the toothiest seedling it has given me, and it is one I like a great deal. I can’t think of anything I have seen in the seedling beds with larger teeth.

I know a few people who like cats. The guy who I consider a true Cat Whisperer is Peter Donato of Pennsylvania, and I dedicate this plant to all he has done for felines.

Peter is married to Shayna. Here, in her own words, is the story of two of their (currently 10 I believe) cats—Helen and Moo. Helen is blind. “Peter saw this sweet gray floof on Facebook and did not tell his wife that he agreed to adopt her. When he eventually told me I promptly said no, we cannot possibly have 6 cats. I was still working nights at the time and Peter actually pouted for a couple days over this cat. I then got the rescuers email, emailed her at 3am while on my shift at work and said ‘We need this cat. Please let us adopt her, I made a mistake.’ Long story short, no one had yet adopted her. We drive to NC and back in one day while I had the flu to get Helen”.

 “Moo was another Facebook find (Peter is currently banned from following FB cat groups.) A local man was feeding a feral colony of cats. Moo was apparently a picky eater and ‘not doing well’ so this man was trying to find him a home. After at least a week of mentioning this ‘sad’ cat I agreed to go see him. Peter actually said ‘he’s probably going to die’ we need to get him tonight. We got to this guy’s house and there was A TON of cats. Moo looked TERRIBLE and then I was genuinely concerned he might die. We took him home and got him to the vet that next afternoon. He was severely underweight and malnourished. He only ate boiled chicken. As such we had to concoct his food because cats need other nutrients that are not found in just chicken. We made this ‘food’ for about 4 months. After he gave me and a few of our other cats ring worm, he was quarantined for approximately 3 months. Moo is now currently living his best life and has tripled his original weight.”

  Meow!

$95/SF

Very nice branching and bud count. It is only the fourth intro from Holley’s Blue Eyed Susan, which has Preuss’ award-winning Bluegrass Memories as a parent.

As I have gotten older, I realize just how precious time is, and I try not to waste any. I have almost everything I buy delivered. I started before the pandemic and will continue to do so. It’s about 2 hours out of my life saved each time I need groceries. I use Amazon for almost everything else. I record everything I watch. Commercials comprise about a third of every show. I never watch them. I could go on but don’t want to bore anyone LOL.

Time is the one thing you cannot get back, and we all will run out of. There are many quotes about time. Time is money. Time waits for no one. Time flies.  Here’s one of my favorites: “Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.” — Roy T. Bennett

$125/SF