WELCOME TO DAYLILY E-NEWS, a free electronic newsletter brought to you by the American Hemerocallis Society, also known as AHS. Daylily E-News is for all who share an interest in daylilies, including members of the American Hemerocallis Society and other horticultural organizations, educators, garden writers, news media, and anyone who loves to garden.

This month we highlight the 2012 AHS Photography Awards. Hundreds of talented photographers enter this competition every year, and this year was no exception. View the beautiful winning photos later in the newsletter.

"In 2009 my garden became an AHS Display Garden, 'Lollipop Garden,' named after our cat. I dabble at hybridizing, just for fun, and registered my first two daylilies with AHS in 2010, 'Lollipop's First Creation' and 'Lollipop's Whiskers'. I have a few more I might register in the next couple of years."

"With all my beautiful daylilies, a relative talked me into getting a digital camera (Canon PowerShot A590) which I have been using ever since with some very good results. My photos have appeared on various websites, been printed in the Eureka Daylily Reference Guide, in The Hosta Journal, and other places as well." 

Gary Rieben, a member of the Ombudsman committee and Registration committee, answers this question.  The parentage recorded by the hybridizer may be found in the online Daylily Database.

 You can access the database from the Daylily Society homepage, www.daylilies.org. Scroll down the left-hand menu to "Daylily Database Online" and click "enter." Or you can go directly to the Database by typing www.daylilies.org/DaylilyDB. Enter the name of the cultivar for which you would like to learn the parentage and click on the "search" button.

If the hybridizer knows the parentage and has submitted the information when registering, it will appear in brackets as the last item in the registration data. In some cases there may not be any specific parents listed if they are not known or if the plant results from unregistered seedlings.

You can find an explanation of the parentage data by going to "Daylily Registration" from the main menu on the home page and scrolling down to the "Parentage" paragraph. If you want to trace it further, you can look up the parentage of the parents the same way.

Or, if you want to know which plants have a specific parent, you can click on "Advanced Search" on the initial search page and fill in the name of a parent in the "Parentage" field. The result will be all plants with the requested parent.

WHY WON'T A DAYLILY I HAVE IN A CONTAINER GROW AND SEND UP FLOWER SCAPES?

Bill Maryott, a member of the Ombudsman committee who gardens in Freedom, California, suggests that the best solution is simply new soil. You need to pick up some good potting soil and replace the soil in your containers and replant in the new soil. Be sure to add some slow-release fertilizer. Bill says he uses about three tablespoons with three-gallon pots.

Replant the daylilies just up to the foliage (crown)  level, then water them in. Make sure they are getting a full six hours of direct sun year-round and moisture every three or four days. Never let the pots dry out.

When one transplants daylilies, the foliage should be cut back to about 8 inches, to avoid excess transpiration (Transpiration is the process by which moisture is carried through plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, where it changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere). The plants should start growing immediately.

THE DAYLILIES IN MY POTS HAVE THESE LITTLE WHITE "RICE-LIKE" THINGS DEVELOPING DEEP IN THE LEAVES. WHAT ARE THEY?

Bill Maryott answers about these "white things." He says these are certainly aphids.

Aphids are grey, brown, green, or white and may suddenly appear down inside the foliage in great quantities. There is an easy solution here. You can buy a small quantity of an insect spray labeled for use on daylilies and spray it on the foliage and it will kill them immediately. [Ed. note: You can also wash the aphids off with a strong blast of water from the hose, or wait for natural predators like ladybugs to eat them.]  For more information about aphids, visit the AHS Daylily Dictionary entry at http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_dictionary/aphids.html.

HOW MANY DAYLILIES HAVE BEEN REGISTERED?  IS THERE A BLUE DAYLILY YET?

Michael Bouman, another member of the Ombudsman committee, checked the online database at http://daylilies.org/DaylilyDB and found that there are 72,079 registered daylily cultivars as of the end of 2011. Several thousand are added each year.

You may wonder how and why thousands of daylilies are registered each year. It's because hybridizing them is so easy and so much fun. Michael states that hybridizing daylilies has been a popular backyard hobby in the United States for over a century. There are hundreds of small-scale enthusiasts like Michael  who might just "get to the point of having something good enough to register."

Many hybridizers are attempting to hybridize a blue daylily.  Michael has seen some daylilies with central bands of color that look pretty blue to him - denim blue or even sky blue on occasion - but never the whole face of the flower. Breeders are trying to enlarge the central band so much that it crowds out any remaining color on the face of the flower. Michael does keep checking the new registrations and some hybridizers are getting closer.