Floyd Cove Nursery Introductions Offered

            EMERALD BAY is a beautiful lavender rose pink blend with a large green watermarked eye and green edge. Blooms are wide, round and overlapped with slight recurve. Beautiful deep green arching foliage marks this cultivar. Arching foliage is becoming a premium as some of the fanciest daylilies seem to want to have coarse upright foliage.

            When I first bloomed this flower I stood back and softly said to myself, “Wow”. I had never seen a flat cream white flower with a wide flat chartreuse green fringy edge. I still haven’t seen anything like it. It is a truly amazing flower.

            This gorgeous sib to DIXIE SUNRISE got its pod parent’s green edge and color and its pollen parent’s size, ruffling and angel wings. Like DIXIE SUNRISE there is an amazing clarity of color for such a large bloom. Interestingly DIXIE SUNRISE was from early pods on LESLIE RENEE with JUDY FARQUHAR while GREENWAY was from later pods on LESLIE RENEE with JUDY FARQUHAR.

            This dormant sib to OVER THE MOUNTAIN was widely admired in the garden. Beautiful clear orchid flowers with plum violet eye and edge and deep grass green throat mark this cultivar. It is this combination of flower size, color clarity and bud count and branching that makes this cultivar very special.

            MULBERRY FREEZE is a gorgeous mulberry purple with a blue purple eye and shaggy chartreuse green edge and throat. Nicely formed flowers are round, wide and overlapped.

            This huge gorgeous brilliant orange with a large flaming red eye and edge is destined to be one of the great oranges. Tall elegant scapes hold the flat heavy iridescent blooms in an outfacing manner for perfect viewing.

            When I first saw PISTACHIO EYES I knew I could never go back to using Tetra Connie Burton pollen because PISTACHIO EYES was such an improvement. From that day on Tetra Connie Burton became only a pod parent.

            What can I say about TET PEPPERMINT DELIGHT that I have not said already. It has been a monumental parent in getting the eye alone in daylilies to be bigger than eyed daylilies of the past. The red eye on this flower extends from the green throat all the way out to 5 ½”. Outside the huge eye is a bright yellow flower base and hidden behind the recurve is a bright red edge.

            Visitors to the garden like really big flowers and STONE ISLAND is one of the biggest. Well over 7” if stretched out, the flower sits naturally at just under that. STONE ISLAND gets its size from JUDY FARQUHAR but it’s pinker like its pod parent. The gold edging is an enhancement on both parents. STONE ISLAND is simply a terrific combination of size, form and color. For the hybridizer the 4.5” petals and 2.75” sepals are exceptionally important for getting flowers of size with good form. A slight halo appears during cool weather suggesting that STONE ISLAND could be used with the eyes. This is something that needs to be explored.

            I consider SULFURITE PRISM a hybridizer’s bridge flower for a number of reasons. First and foremost it is the first introduction from Tetra MALACHITE PRISM and several people have asked me to introduce one of the Tetra Malachite Prism flowers. Tetra Malachite Prism is a very difficult parent to work with. Flowers begin to open early and pollen is often ruined unless protected and the pollen is especially weak and the plant itself does not set seed pods for me. SULPHURITE PRISM, the first of our prismatic series overcomes both obstacles by being easy to use both ways.

            Early blooming reds are a treasure in the garden and TALLADEGA is the best we have done to date. This brilliant clear rose red with a pink watermark and white ruffled edging is gorgeous in providing color other than yellow to the early season.

            I have always felt that white edging would be stunning in a red flower and TALLADEGA certainly bears this out. TALLADEGA is also one of the few reds I have seen with deep flutes, ruffles and angel wings.  An outstanding flower. Fertile both ways. Very limited.

            This wonderful sib to CHRISTOPHER MOODY is like a super ROCK SOLID on steroids. THOMAS TEW comes in a little later than most of the Tetra Peppermint Delight seedlings but what a dramatic impact it makes with huge cream flowers with dramatic black plum eyes and huge chartreuse throats on very tall well branched scapes. The old convention that you got the plant habit from the pod parent and the flower from the pollen parent is born out in this flower.  The tall well branched scapes come from ROCK SOLID but the flower size and dramatic eye is from the pollen parent. Our tallest and best branched daylily from Tetra Peppermint Delight.

            What an incredible daylily VOILA FRANCOIS is. This round heavily ruffled antique white, like its sib LACY ALL OVER, rarely if ever hangs up. Blooms open early and perfectly flat despite heavy substance and deep fluted ruffling and occasional angel wings.

            VIOLET ETCHING is a pretty amazing flower in so many ways. It comes from two rose flowers, each of which has lavenders and purples in their backgrounds. The pod parent has the lavender MUSICAL MEDLEY and the purple SEIZE THE NIGHT while the pollen parent has the lavender LAKE EFFECT in its background. It points to the recessive nature of the modifiers that give us lavender. VIOLET ETCHING is a huge mauve lavender with a slight blue lavender eye and double edges of blue lavender and chartreuse. The image may show white or pale yellow but the edge in the garden is more chartreuse and usually has numerous chartreuse teeth, as well. I know it sounds kind of gross but green teeth in daylilies, unlike green teeth in people, can be very attractive.

            As most of you know I am a big proponent of low carotinoid and high white base to give exceptional clarity of color. WHITE BASE is the best illustration of how the white base and white edge of the flower can help enhance the color clarity. It is an excellent breeder because of the size and the white base. It’s all about size and color and presentation when talking about flowers and when you have both you have tremendous garden impact. The sneaky little secret is that you also have a hybridizing tool that cannot be beat.

            This is one of our earliest flowers to bloom. When CHERRY SWIZZLER begins blooming there is literally a sea of green as a backdrop. Along with NARROW PATH you could not ask for a better beginning bloom.

            The beautiful mint green blend was not totally unexpected given the number of green flowers in the background of MINT OCTOPUS. Fairly low for a spider but with an incredible bud count and branching MINT OCTOPUS makes a wonderful border spider. Its green cast offers a cooling aspect to the ordinarily hot colors of the daylily garden.

            NARROW PATH is one of the earliest flowers to bloom in the garden. A stunning purple with a black chevron eye and citron green throat. NARROW PATH is noteworthy for double scaping – i.e. sending up an immediate rebloom scape from the same fan.

            NO STRINGS ATTACHED is easily the largest flower we have ever introduced. Normally standing 15.5” across with a wing span as much as 17” NO STRINGS ATTACHED can be seen as a giant pink version of the already huge SKINWALKER. Outfacing blooms standing very tall just blow the viewer away. This is one monster daylily. Cascading sepals give the blooms an interesting clover leaf effect.

            What a wonderful plant Wild and Wonderful is. While its pollen is sterile it sets pods easily and rarely, if ever, passes on pollen sterility. PAINTED PINWHEEL is a great example of the fine quality you get from Wild and Wonderful. All twists and curls like its half sib TWIST and SPIN. PAINTED PINWHEEL is more an amaranth pink with a black red eye and deep citron green throat.

            I have loved twisting and spinning daylilies ever since I saw the first of Snooks Harville’s spiders. I was determined that I would have that same movement in the tet spiders. TWIST and SPIN is an outstanding example of what can be done to give motion to the tet spiders.

            BROADWAY ELF is a gorgeous velvety purple true miniature with a deep plum black eye and edge. Beautiful form on this little ruffled beauty is punctuated by a deep green throat and low arching foliage.

            At only 16” one might ask how this could not bloom down in the leaves. This is where the craft of hybridizing both the plant habit and flower in conjunction works. The flowers bloom perfectly well above the foliage on low slender foliage. Most eyed tets have large coarse foliage which Grace has worked carefully away from to create balance with her tiny flowers.

            BROADWAY SPOTLIGHT is a bright ruffled yellow with a red eye and edge and a very green throat. The colors complement each other nicely.

            Wow! This mauve lavender with its lavender purple eye at 2.125” is one of Grace’s smallest blooms. The eye is described as a lavender purple but it does have gray blue tones, as well. Fine foliage and scapes in scale with the small flower makes this a beautiful proportioned plant.

            LITTLE STAR BRIGHT always draws an “ooh” or “ah” when people see it. No wonder! It is what I call an isolated cut off eye whereby the eye has been relegated to a dollop of color in the center of the petal.

            The entire flower is somewhat star shaped and can be described as a mulberry

 Cream with a charcoal bulls eye ring and dollops of mulberry dissected by a white midrib to create a very special and unique pattern.

            Where do I start with TINY PLAYMATE ? Daylilies like this is why I treat a plants such as BOOGIE WOOGIE BLUES. First of all the flower is a striking bicolor with lavender pink petals and cream sepals, a “white face” watermark and a green throat. The watermark is cut and divided by a dominant charcoal gray eye. The plant at 13” is a super dwarf with low arching foliage.