Substantial Returns

Substantial Returns

(Sdlg#STSE9)  

                                                         

                                                   

(Stella De Oro x Substantial Evidence) 

24” scapes - 4” flower - Diploid - Early Midseason - Diurnal - 2 branches - 10 buds - Dormant - Rebloom - Unusual Form - Spatulate

A very open, flat flower in bright cantaloupe melon, the color intensifying toward the center of the petals and sepals and becoming darker toward the small army green throat with rich cantaloupe stamens and pistil and strong rebloom.

I will discontinue carrying Substantial Returns as a regular stock item in 2022. For more information, see this post.

In this picture you can see the lovely spatulate form and the flat and open throat. The stamens were removed for pollination. There had been a very heavy rain storm a few hours before this picture was taken.

Substantial Returns grows well in my garden and in the other gardens where it has been grown. It has been a strong performer and has recurrently rebloomed between two or three cycles of scapes after the initial scapes in my garden. It is a fast increaser with nice, dark green foliage. It is a senescent (dormant) plant, going underground in the winter and forms a resting bud here in my garden in both very cold and very warm winters. The scapes only show moderate branching, but there is a high scape to fan ratio on established clumps in addition to the rebloom, so it gives a very good show in the garden.

Substantial Returns has shown no rust in my garden since its first exposure in 2012, even when completely surrounded by highly susceptible plants (which I have done on purpose to screen its resistance). Both of its parents have repeatedly shown resistance to rust in my garden. I have reports of Substantial Returns showing equally high resistance in other gardens where it has been grown and I look forward to hearing how it does in other areas of the country.

Substantial Returns good traits don't end with the fine plant traits, though. The flower was a revelation the moment I saw the first one. It is very flat and looks bigger than it actually is because of the flatness with little to no trumpet in the throat, especially on established clumps. New divisions can be less flat, but that passes as the plant establishes. The petals are thin and the form is spatulate. 

My favorite form is spatulate. I never expected to get one in the first generation cross. I expected to get a round, normal-formed Stella clone, hopefully in melon and with a little rebloom. I was amazed by this small, flat, open, unusual form flower in a beautifully clean, bright melon with strong rebloom in my garden. This was far more than I expected, and shows how much interesting breeding potential yet lies in Stella De Oro and how much modern, concentrated phenotype genetics Substantial Evidence can offer, even when crossed to older cultivars with more old-fashioned type.

The flowers of Substantial Returns open well and are beautifully ruffled on the petals. They are always more narrow in the throat closure area than they are at the ends for a consistent spatulate shape. The sepals open well and are occasionally quilled. They are always narrow. I suspect that Substantial Returns will be a valuable breeder for small Spiders and small Unusual Forms of all kinds. It should also breed well for reblooming traits.

Substantial Returns is very fertile both ways and I have used it heavily over the last couple of years (2014 and 2015) as a pollen parent. I also have hundreds of seedlings with Substantial Returns as the pod parent from several years (2012 - 2015). Its seedlings grow well, quickly and many show the beautiful dark green foliage of Substantial Returns. I saw the first flowers on some of these seedlings in 2015 and was very impressed by their potential. I am excited to see them as they mature and as more and more flower over the next couple of years. I have gotten some very pale melon, clean lavender and purple and some near white seedlings amongst the first round of flowers from Substantial Returns seedlings and I believe it will be a very usable cultivar to bring color clarity into unusual form, flat and small reblooming lines. Substantial Returns combines two very fine plants.

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I have worked with Stella De Oro since the nineteen-nineties and have grown it since the early nineteen-eighties. I have produced a few melon flowers from Stella over the years. I have the original Stella De Oro that was purchased in the nineteen-eighties that I have grown in several gardens on the farm since and have been able to use it in breeding.

The original Stella De Oro clone (left - click pictures for larger examples), grown in a pot. This division was taken from one of the original clumps to be used for breeding in 2011 and is the pod parent clump of Substantial Returns. 

Darrel Apps has made good use of Stella and Mike Huben integrated Stella descendants into his lines at the beginning as well. Bob Sobek has used Stella to good effect, as have a few others. I already knew I would use Stella, but was very encouraged when Mike Huben told me that I should go to Stella to start a reblooming line. Mike also pointed out that Darrel Apps had advised him about Stella throwing melon offspring and that he had confirmed this as well. I too had witnessed these visually-melon seedlings, so this confirmed what I suspected about Stella - that it is a cultivar with a lot to offer that has to be used carefully, with well thought out crosses with advanced phenotypes. 

When I began seriously thinking about what I wanted to breed in daylilies, I knew Stella would be a parent, but I wanted to cast about and find new phenotypes, advanced gene combinations that are far beyond the simple, round Stella. One of the first amazing flowers I found was Substantial Evidence by Richard Norris. I was simply awed by the flower, but more so, Substantial Evidence turned out to be a good plant plant, in addition to being a great, advanced flower representing an actual line breeding for trait intensification. In addition, Substantial Evidence has proven to be an amazing breeder for me.

This amazing cold-weather shot of Substantial Evidence shows its amazing coloring. Substantial Evidence seems to be a color changer. This is often its morning look before it fades to a yellow/ gold edged in a touch of rose with a light polychrome rose overlay. This flower seemed to hold its fully rose color because of the unseasonably cold weather that day and no sunshine. It was quite amazing, but this is not typical of it later in the day in most instances. The photo below shows the typical afternoon look in my garden.

I suspect that Substantial Evidence (SE) is a melon carrier, though I can't be sure whether it is heterozygous or homozygous for this particular gene. (Melon is often meant to imply a genetic change so that carotene is changed to lycopene. I cannot say for certain, as I have done no lab-work on the pigments of SE. There are many ideas and some hard research about lycopene-changing genes. It seems that this trait that I am dealing with in Stella, Substantial Evidence and Substantial Returns is a simple recessive gene that makes the change from carotene to lycopene.)

I knew I wanted to combine Stella with Substantial Evidence, hoping to combine the many fine plant traits of both cultivars with the melon flower color that Stella can produce, the flat flower of Substantial Evidence and the rebloom that Stella is famous for with the rebloom that Substantial Evidence has been shown to carry (See Ashwood Wray of Sunshine). I made the first cross of these two cultivars in 2011. 

I planted the seeds from the Stella De Oro (pod parent) x Substantial Evidence (pollen parent) cross outside in the spring of 2012 (March) and saw the first flower in the summer of 2012, when the seedling that would become Substantial Returns was only 4 months old and sent up a scape with four buds. When the first flower opened, I was just blown away. It was much more advanced in flower form than I had expected to see and it was a melon. You can see its first flower in the picture below. It gave two rebloom scapes in 2012, both with more than 4 buds. In 2013 the plant flowered in early midseason, starting about a week after Stella. It also gave several cycles of rebloom in 2013.

Substantial Returns 

First flower in the seedling tub.

You can see the pink "select" tag I had just tied on the base of the plant.

Vorlon Revelation

Vorlon Revelation

(Sdlg #HTWUT12)

(How’s the Weather Up There x unknown)

50” scapes - 9” flower - Diploid - Early Midseason - Diurnal -  4 branches - 33 buds - Semievergreen - Rebloom - Very Fragrant - Unusual Form - Crispate-Cascade - Double percentage 25% 

Bud building, clear cream with rose band, extending rose veins slightly up into the petal above chartreuse to green throat.

I will discontinue carrying Vorlon Revelation as a regular stock item in 2022. For more information, see this post.

Named for the surprise appearance of the Vorlon ambassador, Kosh, outside of his encounter suit on the sci-fi television show Babylon 5, Vorlon Revelation is a stunning flower and, like the Vorlon, appears different depending on who views it and on which day it is viewed. It is large, pale and clean colored. The flower averages 9”, but can be much larger on the first few flowers or in wet years. The scapes are well branched, averaging 4 branches plus the top V, but it can have more branches on well-established clumps. The scapes are tall and on established plants hold up very well in spite of the big flowers and the many buds. The plant typically bud builds for a very long season and can actually end up producing far more buds per scape than the registry number of 33. The plant frequently reblooms in my garden showing both instant rebloom and some fall scapes in some years, even in dry years and on some new divisions.

The flower is a pale, clear cream with a rose band that radiates up into the petals and the petals and sepals are often suffused with a pale rose overlay. Sometimes there is more visible rose in the petals and sepals, though it often fades out by the end of the day, and occasionally there is a partial edge of rose on the petals. The throat is large and green turning to chartreuse as it reaches the band.

The shape of the flower is an unusual form with a good amount of ruffling on the petals and tight ruffles on the sepals. The flowers are crispate, often pinched at the tips and tend to cascade. That is the typical flower, however, this flower often does a lot more. Some days it produces stamen-transformation doubling, while on others it produces midrib cristation. On some days the petals and sepals quill, giving the appearance of a spider type (though that is an illusion, of course). Regardless of the form is takes, the flower is always stunning, breathtaking and catches the eye from across the garden. It is a revelation in a mature clump.

The plant is very vigorous, forming a large clump quickly. The Increase is very fast and it recovers very quickly from division. The foliage is semi-evergreen and is very hardy here in my zone 6 garden. The foliage is nice, but it can be a paler green than I prefer in late summer. In spring it is a bright grass green. The clumps can be very large and the foliage quite tall. In drought, the foliage can get a bit ratty looking, but the plant tolerates drought well without decreasing in size and shows no lack of vigor. I have grown this plant in rough conditions with no inputs such as extra water or fertilizer and it is a vigorous and strong grower and bloomer even in those conditions. It can be extremely stunning when given more inputs.

 Vorlon Revelation is very fertile both ways, producing big, vigorous seedlings in a range of weird and wonderful flower forms with clear colors and tall scapes. Vorlon Revelation shows moderate rust resistance, and has shown that same level of resistance consistently for the five years of my screening work. It only shows strong breeding value for rust resistance when bred to cultivars with very high rust resistance. When bred to plants with moderate rust resistance or moderate to high susceptibility, I have seen very few resistant seedlings. However, my seedlings from crossing Vorlon Revelation with very resistant plants are very promising and exciting. Most important for the gardener, Vorlon Revelation is tolerant of rust and doesn’t decrease in clump size, fan count or vigor from having rust.

Vorlon Revelation is a wonderful garden plant and a useful breeder. With its amazing, large and variable flower, its fast increase, easy divisibility, stunning scapes and impressive garden display for a long period of time, it is a valuable cultivar for gardeners and breeders.

Fast-increasing new divisions of Vorlon Revelation showing very good performance in their first year in an average test garden with no amendment and only minimal fertilizer added in the form of a small amount of lime and nitrogen a couple of times a year. The scapes of most cultivars are shorter on their first-scapes-after-planting than they will be when the clump has matured in two to three years.

Mount Doom

MOUNT DOOM

(Sdlg# POINWUT7)

(POINSETTIA X WAY UP THERE)

48" scapes - 4.5" flower - 5 branches - 30 buds - Midseason - Dormant

Bright cherry red trumpet, slightly darker red band above chartreuse throat, white midribs, cherry red stamens and pistil, obverse of sepals dark cherry red, obverse of petals bright cherry red half way down, then bright yellow, with white midrib.

I will discontinue carrying Mount Doom as a regular stock item in 2022. For more information, see this post.

Named for the mountain of fire where the one ring was forged by the dark lord Sauron in Tolkien's epic Lord of the Rings, Mount Doom is a very interesting flower, showing pattern and visual interest on the back of the petals and deeply pigmented sepal backs that reminds one of the mountain spraying fire into the sky. This flower produces an interesting visual effect, especially at sunset, when the flowers literally glow like lanterns as the setting sun shines through them. Visible at a distance, it beckons like a volcanic explosion, making use of the trumpet shape and often upright flowers to showcase the showy backs.

The effect is at its strongest when the plant is grown in full sun. In shade the effect on the backs of the petals and sepals can be more muted and new divisions are also more muted in appearance, becoming more strongly pigmented as the clump establishes. I think this is a very interesting new direction with great potential: ornamental fronts and backs of both petals and sepals. The potential for combination with other phenotypes is vast.

The seed that became this plant was bred by Mike Huben. It's parents are the old Stout cultivar 'Poinsettia' as pod parent and Mike's 2015 introduction 'Way Up There' as pollen parent (Way Up There is from Arterial Blood by Huben as pod parent crossed to Pit of Despair by Brian Mahieu as pollen parent), so while it derives from Mike's breeding and is part of my selection program, we also have to credit both Brian Mahieu and A.B. Stout's original program for this plant, as well. Mount Doom shows that even old things like Stout's Poinsettia still have interesting genes to offer to modern breeding programs. Mike sent me a group of seeds from various crosses in the spring of 2011 and amongst them was a packet of seeds from Poinsettia x Way Up There. Mount Doom was the best plant and also turned out to have the best flower of this group. I consider Mount Doom to be a true breakthrough.

Pit of Despair

In addition to the amazing flower, Mount Doom is also an excellent plant with nice foliage that is senescent (dormant) and is attractive. It is a fast increaser that handles division well and recovers quickly. It forms a large clump with a high scape to fan ratio. The scapes are tall and well branched with many buds when established and blooms for a long period. It is extremely impressive at clump strength and is a beautiful plant in the landscape.

Mount Doom is very fertile both ways and I have produced many seedlings from it. The numerous pods have dark pigmentation and the scapes have mild dark pigmentation - just a flush where the sun hits the scapes, and not full dark scapes. I have gotten some seedlings with dark scapes from self pollinating Mount Doom and I think its potential for dark scape breeding is also an interesting and worthy direction to pursue. I have since made many crosses in this direction, but have not seen flowers from those seedlings yet.

Mount Doom shows moderate rust resistance, but its moderate level has been very consistent over the five years of my rust screening project. The seedlings are variable for rust resistance, except when Mount Doom is bred to very resistant cultivars that have shown breeding value for rust. In such instances, Mount Doom has thrown a few rust resistant seedlings.