Beach City Blues

Deep blue sky and deep blue water,

Color trickles through my shoes;

Chased the lover, then I caught her,

Called the Beach City Blues.

You know how it is: another day in paradise. But losing somebody is an ache that doesn't go away. And even the brightest sun can't chase away the shadows from your heart.

This flower with its bluish highlights and subtle shadow-eye caught my attention from the first. It's a mulberry-lavender bitone with a blue-illusion eye (which my camera found difficult to capture). Petals have raspberry veining and a scalloped pencil edge in white (and sometimes blue and gold). The lighter sepals sometimes have a white thumb-print at the tips. The chartreuse throat leads to a very green heart.

Up to 5 way branching, with a budcount that ranges from 20 to 27. Fertile both ways. 

Nothing beats the blues like an AHS convention. This flower is named in honor of the 2018 convention in Myrtle Beach, where it was an auction plant.  

Seedling 11-H-3 (Court Magician x Big Blue) x Blue-Eyed Angel)

Height 28-30"

Flower 5 ½ x 3 ¼ x 1 ¾

Semi-evergreen
Midseason

Finger Lakes Katie Sykes

I first met Katie Sykes at a club meeting where she sat like a queen with her hat and handbag beside her. With the impertinence of my (relative) youth, I inquired whether she grew any daylilies herself?  She looked at me coolly and replied, "Only about 200."

Catherine Hargrave Sykes

Later I learned that she was a very busy lady! In addition to maintaining her immaculate garden of choice cultivars, she enjoyed travel, tennis, skiing and golf--even golfing the day before her stroke. She was a lifelong member of the Chatterbox Club, the Country Club of Rochester, Junior League of Rochester, Rochester General Hospital Surgical Twig, and a founding member of the Hunt Hollow Ski Club.


Finger Lakes Katie Sykes is as sunny and energetic as her namesake. The flower is a vivid cadmium yellow, very creped and gently ruffled, with a lighter midrib and olive heart. Petals roll back, sepals recurve. While the budcount is not exceptional, Katie produces lots of flowers: she blooms and blooms and then reblooms.

Katie left us in 2012, but will long be remembered in the Finger Lakes Daylily Club. I am indebted to her husband, Mr. Robert F. Sykes, for permission to dedicate this flower in her honor.

08-W-2 (Exact parentage unknown, but evidently from crosses made with Flash of Javelins, Ikarian Honey, and Victorian Lace.)

Height 30” 
Budcount 13-15
Flower 5 ½ "
Dormant
Early Midseason
Reblooms

Introduced at $75 double fan

Wallaroo

The Wallaroo is a cheeky bush creature, a midsized marsupial midway in height between the little wallaby and the big red kangaroo. He can cover a great distance in a single bound.

Wallaroo the daylily is a dependable grower that covered itself in flowers for 6 weeks this summer. With three-way branching and a budcount of 12-15, it bloomed and bloomed.

 A sib of my earlier intro Black Key Polka, but instead of the butter yellow base color of its sibling, Wallaroo is cream-lavender-pink with a black-purple inkblot eye. The eye is bisected by a raised cream-lavender midrib. Though not a spider, it has narrow petals which gently roll back, while the sepals recurve and sometimes twist (as in the photo at right). The eye is repeated on the sepals as a ghost-image. The amber throat is distinctive. 

Very free flowering. Makes an outstanding clump.

Wallaroo will be an auction plant this summer at the National Convention in Myrtle Beach.


03-A-2 Paper Butterfly x Happy Bandit
Flower 6 x 2 x 1 1/2"
Height 28-31"
Dormant
Early Midseason

Introduced at $100 DF

Fond Regards

There are some people who touch our lives in ways we can never forget. They are always carried in memory, even when we see each other only rarely. Just a few words in a Christmas card can warm the heart.

Fond Regards is a tenacious diploid saved from my church garden many years ago. I always enjoyed its cheerful color and carefree habit. Then this year, in full clump strength, it was a focal point in the garden. And when it rebloomed, I gave in and said, "OK! I will give you a name."

The flower is cotton candy pink with a subtle fuchsia eye and white midrib. Petals are creped and ruffled, the ruffles extending into the chartreuse throat. 

Budcount is modest at about 12 per scape, but with many scapes, fast increase, and rebloom, it makes a lot of flowers. Diamond dusted.

Fond Regards is a distinctive flower that says "thinking of you."

White Temptation x Grape Velvet
98-WT-5
Semi-evergreen
Height 22"
flower 4" x 2" x 1 1/4"
Mid-Late
Reblooms