Mud, I am not familiar with Matthew Kaskel. I have heard of him but have never read anything about his program..
There are so many beautiful diploids on the market and they are really reasonable, at least some of the older ones are.
I really have quite a lot of them and if you are intersted in a particular dl..e-mail me and I'll see if I have it to spare..They produce so many more seedlings than Tets. Ellie DOWN WITH RUST, I SAY!!!!

Ellie, thanks for the offer, but I don't know of any dips I want. The dips are mostly a "what the heck" kind of thing. I have a little extra room in the gh and want to try it. I am not expecting anything great, but am just trying for something that would be a nice garden plant. I agree that they are more prolific seed producers than tets.

Regarding Kaskel, to the best of my knowledge, the last popular daylily he introduced was LACE COOKIES. I wanted it, but never got it. Incredibly, on email robin, he stated it had very poor rust resistance. At the time most people were trying to downplay the disease and some would get bent out of shape when it was even mentioned. So, I was impressed with his admission.

I had thought about using GRACEFUL EYE in the gh, but you and I both hate it that it often has one petal that doesn't behave. In looking at some of my old seedling pictures, I think it might not carry into the seedlings, so I might go out today and pot that up for use. I really have not thought out the dip crosses, but am just using some of my favorites. Have to be careful or will get more seeds than I want. I think I can only handle around 2,000.

Mud

Mud,

If you change your mind and decide you would like some more dips, I have a bunch. Ours have all died back for the year, but in the spring I could send you some divisions if you see something you're really interested in on my trade list (which is a work in progress, please pardon the construction mess!). I have older ones, but some are quite nice garden plants. I don't have a rust issue here in the frequently frozen north, so I have no idea what might be more rust resistant. Let me know if you want something; maybe a small trade could be fun.

What are you looking for in a daylily, besides rust resistance? Just curious. We all have such varying tastes and goals when it comes to breeding this amazing flower.

Laurel

Laurel, thanks for the offer. However, I probably already have more dips than I can use. My main focus is still with tets, but I have a small amount of extra room in the gh and thought I might throw in a few dips.

As far as what I am looking for in hybridizing, I am looking for different things in the tets and dips. In the tets I am looking more for things such as heavy ruffling, with and without eyes and edges (hybridizing for both), dark colors with light edges and next year I am going to hybridize especially for white.

In dips, it is just a casual thing because I have some space. I will just be trying for nice garden plants. Some equal, or better, could probably be purchased for less than $10. I guess in the back of my mind I still remember one of my nicest daylily memories was when I had many fans of FAIRY TALE PINK and for several days I had 50 to 65 blooms open each day, in what was essentially a humongous clump. Since getting into hybridizing, I don't have large clumps and tend eliminate them to make room for newer plants, mainly my own seedlings, prior to choosing keepers. Just thinking it might be nice to hybridize some nice garden plants and set aside a fairly small area to let them grow to many fans, for the effect attained with the FTP plants mentioned above.

I do not anticipate planting a lot of dip seeds. I think something around 2,000/yr. total seeds is about as many as I can handle. Last year, I had over 2,000 tet seeds. This year was less. So, the dip hybridizing is just sorta mucking around to see what happens. I do think the dips have a beauty of their own.

Mud

Hi Royce: I can attest to the fact that Lace Cookies is NOT rust resistant. It was the one that began it all in my garden.

As to M. Kaskel, Frank Smith talked about his seedling "Best Edge" which he had used. If I remember, he said his new intro Princess Diana is from it...and you'll notice, Dan Trimmer's Jennifer Trimmer (http://trimmerdaylily.com/cultivars/jennifer_trimmer.htm) has it as well. So, he's obviously still working and sharing...

I'm trying to remember, but I'm thinking that Frank Smith said while there was much to admire about this Best Edge seedling, it was not something Matthew was going to introduce as it had some issues...something about maybe being a bit thin and not holding up in the sun? I'm not sure, so I hesitate to say...please, no one take this as gospel! At any rate, both he and Dan Trimmer obviously found it workable!

One other thing, (I hope this doesn't ramble too far off) this reminded me of was that the hybridizers down there in Florida really do share with each other. Luddy Lambertson said he buys from the others to see what they're doing and then does his Luddy thing on them. He mentioned Gunja A. and Gerda Brooker coming by and taking some of his blooms for the pollen. This came up in a rather amusing way as a question was asked how Gunja had used some of Luddy's brand new intros as parents in her current introds. He smiled and told the story about her and Gerda....

I'm poking around on the LA (being good, for now) and I found this: http://daylily.com/cgi-bin/auction.cgi?seedsdaylily&1164222067

If this link works, it is to seeds from Kaskel's Best Edge...yet another hybridizer using it....

Thanks for the comments. I looked at the seed auction. Already very expensive, with several days to go. I also looked at Trimmer's catalog. Some nice introductions from Kaskel's seedling. Can't help but wonder why Kaskel didn't introduce the seedling.

At first, I thought I would send Kaskel an email, but have about decided to drop the issue for the time being. I now have all daylilies I intend to use in hybridizing next year, potted up and in the gh. I think I will probably just go with what I have.

Some people in the daylily business are really kind and sharing, as you mentioned. When I visited Christie's, she gave me several blooms and I did not ask or even hint for them. In fact, I had already finished hybridizing for the year. She showed me one daylily she liked. I moved the scape slightly to get a closer look and it broke. Yikes! - I was mortified, but she was very gracious and gave me the entire scape. Happily, we then noticed it had scape blasted and was only hanging on by a thread, so I did not feel so bad.

Again, thanks for the comments and feel free to ramble as much as you like on any of my posts.

Hi Royce,

Phone trouble kept me off the computer for a couple days - ACK, GardenWeb withdrawal STINKS.

I think I'm more likely to breed dips than tets - I like the grace and delicate color of many of them, and the way that they can form such wonderful clumps in the landscape. (I know Tets can do the same - I'm finding it hard tonight to describe exactly what it is about dips that I find more graceful and almost "old fashioned".) I'm not breeding for ruffling or extreme eyes, so the Tet gene pool is not where I'll be fishing the most. Someday I'll be like the mirror image of your breeding interests: seriously into dips, and playing with Tets on the side just for the "what the heck, why not?" factor.

Laurel

Is anyone else having a problem logging into GW? I can read the posts fine, but when I try to sign in, it takes a very long time.

Laurel, I agree with you that lots of the dips have grace and elegance. A long time ago, I might even have foolishly said they seem to have a feminine elegance and beauty. Of course, with our modern political correctness, I would no longer even think such a thing, let alone say it.

When I first started hybridizing, those helping me were into tets, so that is what I started with. I still like some of the things about tets, such as heavy ruffling and some of the things many do not like, such as the large gold edges, eyes with wide edges, etc. I guess I really like all of them.

Royce