Gardener creates paradise of hybrid daylilies

Where do all the new varieties of trees, shrubs, flowers, vegetables and fruit come from?

They usually result from natural or planned crosses of two or more different parents. Of all of the garden flowers, the daylily is among the most hybridized.

One local amateur who has populated his garden with these stunning plants is Mark Jensen. His collection consists of some 750 different named varieties and some 400 that he jokingly refers to as his kids.

His interest in growing and hybridizing these plants came about over a long period of time.

"I always had an interest in gardening, and my mom had a bit of a garden," he said.

His early career as a river guide on the Colorado and in Alaska left little time and no permanent growing area to garden.

"Unfortunately, I never had a space for a garden, and when I finally had some space, I just grew the normal vegetable garden. I finally got the daylily bug when I got a place in the Avenues," he said, adding that his interest in daylilies was sparked at Burningham's in West Bountiful.

"I'd go out and buy a couple — or three — and then bought more and more," he said.

Then he found a copy of an American Hemerocallis Society magazine, which piqued his interest in crossing plants.

"I had attended the University of Utah and majored in premed and biology, so I understood about making crosses and how to accomplish that, and so I kept crossing different types together.

"Doing my own hybridizing was fascinating. Because daylily flowers are so large, they are easy to cross. You take the pollen from the anthers, (the male portion of the flower) and transfer it to the pistil (the female portion of the flower) of a specific female flower."

Jensen started out making random crosses but later he began to look at what he wanted for the outcome.

"I like a wavy edge on the flower and I like to get a thick petal. The thin wavy petals don't last well in the sun. I also prefer the pastel colors."

To get the traits a breeder wants, it is sometimes necessary to make many crosses between different parents or to cross one of the progeny back to an original parent. Each time, the object is to increase a desirable trait or decrease a less desirable one.

"Making the crosses is both a blessing and a curse because you soon get addicted. I soon had hundreds of seeds from my crosses that I planted in my new garden when I moved."

He advises those who want to develop hybrids to make specific crosses to get more desirable flowers or plants. The crosses are weather-dependant and if it is too hot, the pollen is not viable and the crosses do not take.

When I asked how many seeds he got from a cross, he said he usually gets between four and 18 seeds.