Hunter’s Torch Daylily Garden is beginning to hybridize. We are creating new flowers by crossing the pollen from one flower to the stamen of another flower. Many of the crosses that we make will be with flowers that are valued at $50 to $250 a piece. Other crosses that we’re making are to try and change the color, size, edge or the formation of the flower with which we’ve hybridized.
When we make a cross, we put the name of the flower we crossed with the flower in the bucket on some type of foam critter or shape. If the cross takes where the wire that holds the critter is, a seedpod will form. If you get a seedpod above the wire where the critter is on the flower you buy, here’s what to do:
A. Watch for the seedpod to turn brown and begin to crack as though it’s going to open.
B. Pick the seedpod off of the plant, open it up, and take the seeds out.
C. Let the seeds dry for a day
D. Put the seeds in a Ziploc bag, put the date on the bag, and leave the bag and the seeds in the refrigerator for 3 weeks.
E. Take the seeds out of the refrigerator, and plant them just under the surface of the ground or in a peat pot.

Water them well when you plant them, and they should sprout and grow. They won’t bloom until next year, and when they do bloom, you’ll have a new daylily that the world has never seen before. Some may be outstandingly beautiful, and some may be ugly, but no one will have seen that flower but you.

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