Adventures with Augie

I learned about this daylily 3 years ago

This Is Augie's Unique Beauty, it is as the name suggests unique. The broken color is a trait not found in Tet daylilies. Each bloom from Augie's Unique beauty is different, and occasionally it throws an all gold bloom.

To learn more click on the hybridizers name below

Augie Krupien

I purchased seeds for AUB on the lily auction as I was fascinated by this flower.

I purchased the seeds from Rich Howard at CT Daylilies

CT Daylilies

Rich is wonderful to deal with and has a great selection of plants. He knew Augie personally and had one of Augie's cultiver AUB which had never been released commercially. AUB X AUB was one of the very first dayllily seeds I ever planted, along with seeds from my variegated daylily that had gotten me interested in hybridizing.

The following year I was lucky to win a fan of AUB on the lily auction. The bidding was pretty fierce! It wasn't really luck it was the most I had ever spent on a plant EVER! I was thrilled none the less. Rich contacted me shortly thereafter to let me know he feared AUB had been reverting to all gold blooms, and offered me my money back. I was crushed, and decided I had to keep the plant regardless of the good chance it wasn't stable for the broken color trait. Rich was great, he gave me a very deep discount, and didn't charge me for the seeds I had also bid on.

AUB was gorgeous, it bloomed true to form, and set seeds for me. They were my first sales on the auction. I have lots of seedlings in the greenhouse for myself from those crosses too.

Well this year I learned that Augie was throwing more gold blooms, hmmff I couldn't imagine my AUB doing that I wasn't too concerned.

My first AUB seedling bloomed, and as others experienced they were all Gold.

Seedling #1

seedling #2

This was to be expected, and I wasn't phased there is always the F2 generation right? I made sibling crosses and saved pollen to cross back to AUB.

Then it happened AUB bloomed

ALL GOLD
Well that wasn't good, it seems AUB isn't stable after all. I pondered that the trait would be lost, and that it wasn't possible to pass the trait to it's seedlings. Ah well ya pays your money , ya takes your chances.

There are many scapes and buds left on my AUB clump, so time will tell how this turns out. I am still hopeful that I will see some blooms with the broken color trait. It could also be that they show up in re-bloom. I will label my scapes and observe what happens closely.

I have had some wonderful daylily surprises from my first hybridizing efforts this year, so I resigned myself to you can't win them all. I still had scapes that hadn't bloomed on my AUB clump, maybe it is only the new fans that revert. It may be I just need to divide out the gold, like with Kwanso variegated and green fans.

THEN look what I found the next day.

AUB seedling #3

I was so excited I had to drop everything and e-mail Rich right away!

The broken color trait on one of my seedlings. It is more prominent in real life than in the photo. This bloom is clearly displaying the broken color trait.

Another AUB seedling that will bloom soon

This one has really chunky buds on a short plant

AUB X Connect the Dots Seedlings that should bloom next year, I have lots in the greenhouse for the following year, and the start of a good crop of seeds for after that.

AND THEN

I noticed a Daylily blooming that was mislabeled, and realised that something was wrong!

There was some work done with an excavator right where AUB was and I guess the big clump I had was destroyed, and a piece of it, was all that was left. The piece ended up in the seedlins lined out just behind AUB.

My adventures with Augie are just beginning.

A few days later my Daylily friend Richard Howard found a seedling in his seedling bed that has the broken color trait. It's a non-AUB seedling cross!

Wowza this is very exciting