I found a picture to show pollen freezing.
Get tweezers or the locking forceps to pick one of the anthers from the box and take it to the garden.
You can think about what pollen you want for next spring and freeze it now. You will then have a choice of what to use no matter what is in bloom.
I prefer using fresh pollen but I do have seeds from using frozen pollen from Coffee to Go (for example). I collected the pollen from another garden since I don't grow it. I think I got a seed on every flower I tried with that frozen pollen. I also think that I could use my method in the matchbox and send it anywhere in country that could receive it in 3 or 4 days and you could have good pollen ready to use or freeze from any flower for postage.
Florida hybridizers (Pete Harry and Dan Trimmer) offered pollen to Ashton from any flower they grow when we went there last year. They said to bring a small matchbox and collect the pollen and it would be good for 4 days to be used or get it in the freezer and it would be good for future years. Bill Waldrop in Georgia demonstrated this method for Ashton. He had a freezer with bags of matchboxes holding frozen pollen. He just took the matchbox and opened it over all the anthers on a flower and closed the box over them. Then just held the closed end and pulled it away breaking off the tips of all pollen anthers in the box. Leaving the parts shown in my picture above. He regularly used his frozen pollen very successfully.
I tried the plastic tubes and more sophisticated methods but this works better and is easier and I end up with better pollen. This is the method many of the known hybridizers use. I wish I would have tried this first since in past years I had fewer choices of parent plants for pollen when only collecting it from fresh blooms.
Now there is always something to try with thousands of seedlings and 8 or 9 hundred registered daylilies. And I also have larger freezer bags filled with matchboxes holding frozen pollen.
Maybe this will help someone.
