Dreaming of daylilies

When most kids his age were still learning to read, Brian Reeder was already breeding.

Growing up on his family farm in Kentucky, he got his first pair of chickens at age 5 and his first daylily at age 6. He dabbled with breeding, both plants and animals, as a hobby throughout childhood — developing an interest in genetics by his teen years. Since then, Reeder has committed his entire career to breeding, whether fowl or flowers, with the goal of improving each generation.

Self-taught, with tutoring from several professional geneticists, Reeder gained experience breeding fancy goldfish, colubrid snakes and poultry before turning his attention to horticulture.

“The biggest difference is that the plants don’t attack you or throw dust at you,” says Reeder, who left his poultry breeding research in 2008 after 15 years, “when my respiratory system just couldn’t hack it anymore, and I was getting too old to chase chickens around.”

Meanwhile, the entire time he was breeding poultry, Reeder kept growing daylilies and dreaming about breeding plants instead. After a couple years of dedicated research into daylily cultivars, he began buying plants in 2010 to supplement the hundreds of varieties already growing on his farm.

Reeder officially launched his daylily breeding program in 2011 and began making introductions in 2016 through his company, Sun Dragon Daylilies. With a slow-and-steady approach to hybridizing, Reeder is showcasing what the species can achieve.

Taking a two-pronged approach

Reeder’s breeding program covers two major branches. The first involves species and near-species stock, focusing on giant, vigorous plants that stand up to tough growing conditions like drought. The second, the flower breeding branch of his program, crosses “fancy modern cultivars” bred specifically for their blossoms.

“The fanciest daylilies are very difficult for an average gardener to grow,” he says. “They look marvelous, but we’re starting to see a lot of problems like infertility because they’re selecting for flower traits, not plant traits.”

By crossing these fancy flowers with tough traditional lilies, Reeder hopes to blend the best of both worlds to create “giant daylilies with the vigor and fertility of the species lineage and the fancy faces of modern cultivars.”

Reeder’s breeding program spans a 20-year cycle. The first five years were spent testing plants to select his breeding material; the second five were spent working with the seedlings of those tests. Now in the third phase, he’s blending the two branches together. The final stage will focus on perfecting those combinations of giant plants with fancy faces.

Making memorable introductions

Along the way to this goal, Reeder has already produced hundreds of viable daylilies, introducing more than 120 cultivars since 2016.

“If I’m going to make an introduction, it needs to have fewer problems than either parent,” Reeder says. “I always want to see improvement.”

His most important daylily introduction to date is Sun Dragon, “because it has almost everything,” he says — including extreme thrips resistance from its pollen parent, extreme rust resistance from its pod parent and a well-branched plant structure nearly 4 feet fall. Although the burnt orange flower appears muddy in color, it displays purple pigments layered over a yellow base. Because it carries the essential genes for creating pink and lavender flowers, Reeder ranks Sun Dragon among his most valuable stock for future breeding.

While some of Reeder’s customers prefer the traditional species look of varieties like Sun Dragon or The Spice Must Flow, others gravitate toward fancier introductions like Ziggy Played Guitar with its curling, cascading purple petals and bright chartreuse throat, Creepy Weird with its characteristically dark violet color or Barbie’s Dream Flower with its bright pink blossoms.

Reeder often pulls plant names from pop culture, with references to David Bowie songs or books by J.R.R. Tolkien. But most of his names reference the parent plant material, like Substantial Princess, a cross between Substantial Evidence and Navajo Princess — a common practice with show animals that’s less common in horticulture. Reeder openly acknowledges his ancestry lines so other breeders can retrace his steps and experiment with their own crosses.

“The more people there are breeding,” he says, “the more genetic diversity there could be.”

Cultivating patience

In an industry where many daylily cultivars hit the market after only 18 months, Reeder is gradually opening up the plant’s gene pool to showcase the best of all its traits.

“There’s just something so rewarding about being able to manipulate the genome with some level of control,” he says. “I love seeing things unfold as I’ve predicted, but I really live for the surprises.”

The key to his long-sighted breeding program, and the best lesson to learn from his approach, he says, is patience.

“Take time to field-trial your plants, and don’t be afraid to neglect them,” he says. “In fact, breeders should have a section of their garden that they neglect on purpose. Hardship’s not always bad — sometimes it can be your best friend if you just have patience.”

Brooke Bilyj owns and operates Bantamedia, a national award-winning content, PR and SEO firm based in Cleveland. She is a frequent contributor to GIE Media’s horticulture publications.