Maple Butter
Maple Butter (2013) Pearl Harbor X Sassy Sally
Tetraploid, 5.5”, 29”, Dor, EM, 5 branches, 36 buds, fertile both ways. Ruffled butter yellow with infusion of rose amber across the petals and concentrated around the petal edges. Green throat. The maple coloration of this daylily varies with weather conditions and seems to be more generous on those cool mornings in the early part of the season when pancakes or waffles for breakfast are a good idea, but only if genuine Vermont maple syrup is on hand, preferably medium color, which carries more flavor than Grade A Fancy. On hotter days, when a heavy breakfast would weigh you down, the maple keeps a discrete presence out on the edge.
When I moved to St. Louis in 1995 and befriended Oscie Whatley, I created a hybridizing program based on expanding the parameters of the Whatley ouevre, moving his plants in directions he wasn’t taking. SASSY SALLY was a wonder to me when he shared a piece of it a year in advance of registration. Its low bud count spoiled the first generation keepers I obtained in crosses with Sherry Lane Carr and Great White, but second-generation work solved the scape problems. The cross to PEARL HARBOR proved that SASSY SALLY can negotiate for a fine scape in the first generation.