7” bloom, 43” tall
4-5 way branching / 15 buds
Diploid
Bloom season: Early-mid
Foliage: semi-evergreen
UNKNOWN x GREEN ARROW
18ar01
AVA’S ACE – Hunter-A.R. 2025
My granddaughter, Ava, got interested in hybridizing when she was 6. She was in the garden with me when I was putting labels on seedlings. Was she inspired by my beautiful flowers? No. When she found out that you get to name your creations yourself, she was sold! Eleven years later, we are registering her first cultivar. In tennis, an ‘ace’ is an inbounds serve which is so powerful, that the receiver can’t touch it. Ava, now 17, is on her school’s tennis team and gives lessons during the summer at the park district.
In 2017, Ava was helping at our Wisconsin Daylily Society daylily show. When we were cleaning up afterwards, she asked if she could have some of the blooms that we were tossing into the trash. Since her family rents their house, a hybridizing garden in her yard is not an option. So I took home the pollen from her rescues and dabbed on daylilies in my patch that I knew she liked. The following year, we planted 20 each of 3 crosses. This past summer, it was time to clear out that bed. Too busy working 2 jobs and playing tennis, Ava wasn’t able to help. Her fellow hybridizer cousins helped me select the best plants, and we culled the rest. Ava chose the ones that she wanted to register from our photos, and proceeded to NAME them.
‘Ava’s Ace’ is lemon yellow with a raised rib, slightly ruffled petal edges, and a green throat. It’s an open form, with sepals that curl back. As a large bloom on a tall plant, it really shows off from a distance. It is also a good cultivar to use as a backdrop for shorter plants. The label got messed up on this one, so we’re not sure if the pod parent is ‘Margo Reed Indeed’ or ‘Monacan Trail’. We will get a hint when we see offspring, however we haven’t used it in hybridizing yet.
$80 / double fan
