You might want to check out FIREFLY FRENZY. It is a tall daylily, and the blooms light up the garden. I rank it as one of the most outstanding daylilies that I have.

Nancy

Some favorites of mine are THIN MAN, SPIDER MAN, PEACOCK MAIDEN, SPIDER MIRACLE, and SO MANY STARS. Good luck -
Kathy

I would suggest looking at Pat Stamile's spider introductions from about 2000 forward. I have not gotten any of them because I was afraid of Florida evergreens. They would be perfect for you to try and many of them have upward of 50 bud counts. Debary Canary is one example, although its 3.9:1 spider ratio leaves it a bit short of being a spider. Wild and Wonderful and Spinnaker are others to consider.

Check out Woodhenge Gardens - Margo Reed and Jim Murphy.
Lots of spiders/ufo's .

Here is a link that might be useful: Woodhenge Gardens

Zone 8 may not be far enough north for the dormancy of Margo and Jim's plants. That why Stamile's spiders may do better.

I lived just north of Atlanta for many years (zone 7) and could grow anything with the exception of some very hard dormants. I found those when I got a whiff of spiders. I grow a lot of Stamile's stuff now down here in zone 9, including spiders, and I find that bud counts may be rather .... inflated. Most haven't been moved in 2 years so I may change my opinion this year!

Thanks to all who responded. I am very new to this. I have grown daylilies for several years, but they were just conventional, older, and passalong plants. Imagine my surprise to discover that "Destined to See" (Which I have had for five years) is considered to be a spider at some of the sites that I visited. I will tell you that my interest was sparked when I came across the Paynes's In The Grass Daylilies website. I saw their "Christening Spirit" and I was smitten. It may not be the best UFO around, but I love the color, and just the look of the flower. Since then I have been burning up the Internet looking, looking, looking at every UFO, SPIDER, VARIANT, POLY, ad infinitum, that I can find, and I have found LOTS.
To Nancy I say, thank you for recommending "Firefly Frenzy". I checked it out on the Joiner website and I think it is lovely. It has something that always gets me--very fragrant. I call this THE BAIT, for who doesn't want a beautiful daylily plus wonderful fragrance.
To Kathy, thanks to you for your choices. I have a somewhat passing knowledge of them, with the exception of "Thin Man" so I went to Shooter's page and looked it up. It is a beauty, too.
Edward, Julia, and Beachlily, I appreciate all your help. I have seen Wild and Wonderful and it is a good looking lily.
Now, on my own, I participated in my first Lily Auction, and I was the successful bidder on "Small World Snow Owl". I know the hybridizer lives in VA, but I am hoping this will do well here in Northeast Texas. All the lilies will arrive next week and the anticipation is building!! I know all you are anxiously awaiting the day when the first blooms appear!!! One more thing, I found Jack Carpenter's "Pink Super Spider" on the internet, and as he is only 3 hours south of me, I think this gorgeous plant should make it here. I have seen pictures posted and they were all beautiful. As a dear friend of mine says "Ain't Life Grand?" and it is when there are daylilies in it. I love the Daylily Forum, so many interesting and helpful people. Avedon

My apologies to the Trimmers. "Thin Man" is a Trimmer daylily, not a Shooter. I may put this one on my next year's list. The problem I find here in my garden is that reds don't hold up in the heat. There are probably good reds that are pretty sunfast, I just don't happen to have any. I'll have to do reseach on this if I want to plant reds that don't melt away when the sun hits them. Avedon

Pink Super Spider is NOT by Jack Carpenter. Rather it was hybridized by Kate Carpenter (now deceased) who lived in North Carolina - zone 7,I think.

I planted THIN MAN last fall because it scores well in the popularity polls, it has a couple of awards, and the price isn't too steep. It's my "test" spider to see how well I like them.

The hybridizer names are kind of hard to keep track of since so many of them are [Verb]-er names...Trimmer, Shooter, Joiner, Salter, etc. I'm sure it's not so hard if you actually know the people. :)

Nate

Thanks, Floota, for setting me straight on the true hybridizer of Pink Super Spider. I think she did a super job. There are 18 photos of this daylily posted on another garden website, and I see that Pink Super Spider will also go poly. I hope to have it next year.
Nate, I hope to hear back from you when you get the "test results" on your THIN MAN. Since you are in a warmer climate than I, do you plant your reds where the sun hits them in the afternoon? If so, how do they hold up?

Honestly, I'm a newbie too. We bought our house in 2008, and with all the new garden space to fill, I got interested in daylilies last year. So I've got 15 different cultivars, and none of them have been in the ground longer than 10 months.

But I do have several reds (THIN MAN, FIRE AGATE, BOLD MOVE, RED RAMPAGE) in places with different sun/shade properties, so I'll be happy to report results when they come!

I bet someone with more experience can give some advice though. One plant that has been mentioned recently here as a good red that holds up well in the Texas sun is KENT'S FAVORITE TWO by Kirchhoff.

Nate

Thin Man is one of my absolute favorites! As a Garden Judge (I just resigned), distinctive daylilies are to be recognized! Thin Man is on the Stout Medal list. Hope it wins!

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Since there are a lot of newbies, can I just say that UFO is one of Margo Reed's daylilies ... UF or Unusual Form is the correct description.

UF's happen to be my favorite form, I wish people would use the correct terminology. :>)

Beachlily, your photo of "Thin Man" just blew me away. What a stunner! And, it is up for the Stout Silver Medal. That will be icing on the cake if it wins. Nate, are you seeing this? Now you know how your new "Thin Man" can look in your garden--bet there will be more spiders in your future.
Pamghatten, you are right--we should use the correct terminology. I will always now only say UF. I wanted to see Margo Reed's spider UFO, so I checked out their gardens, but there was no picture of UFO. She does have many beauties. I liked "Ice Water", "Once Upon A Time", "Crystalline Entity", "Dancing With Giraffes" and lots more. I wish you would tell us some of your favorites. Avedon

Yeah, that's a great photo of THIN MAN.

While we're on the topic of spiders, one that I haven't found myself interested in despite being a Stout winner and high in the popularity polls is SKINWALKER. In photographs it looks kind of confused and messy, and the green-to-pink-to-violet gradient doesn't look nice to me, not to mention that the name makes my skin crawl. The whole presentation makes me think of skinny-fingered boogeyman hands or something.

It's listed as a dormant, so it might not be appropriate down south anyway, but I just haven't figured that one out. Maybe it just has to be seen in person to be loved. Are there any SKINWALKER fans here?

Nate

I'm in Dallas, Texas, and I no longer pay attention to the dormant/evergreen thing. I have dormants that thrive like crabgrass and evergreens that dwindle. Here's a list of my best growing/blooming UF/spiders:

Long John Silver
Planet Max
Jan's Twister
Cameroons Twister
Yabba Dabba Doo
Wind Beneath My Sails
Lavender Green
Kindly Light

I grow and love the flower on Skinwalker but in three years it's still a one-fan wonder.

Random Harvest, I spent some time looking at your list of daylilies. I had some knowledge of a few of them, but I don't know anything about Lavender Green. I agree that it may not matter about being dormant,or evergreen because I have both that do well. I see that "Planet Max" is a Margo Reed semi-evergreen, and you say it's doing fine at your location, so there you go. I did check out "Planet Max" on the Plant Files Photo Data Base and there are several photos of it. One comment made was that it seemed to be sunfast, and that's important to us that see our reds and dark colored lilies---black red, deep purple, etc. crash and burn when the afternoon sun hits them.
On the internet, this website caught my eye. The Pick-a-lily Daylily Diary with an entry dated in January of 2009, It actually states this lady's 60 favorite UFs and Spiders of 2008. Naturally, I had to look at that, very interesting. She has a lot of Ned Roberts, including "Skinwalker", and there are a lot of Stamiles. She has "Square Dancer's Courtesy" which is a Payne introduction and they are down below Houston. So, here is this English lady growing all these daylilies from the US. and they are thriving. She has Gossards, and he's in Ohio, and so on. It would appear that perhaps we can take chances and order plants from other zones that might not seem compatible with our temperatures. I guess it just depends on the gambler in the person, but I would not spend a lot of money on a daylily that I was afraid would die on me within a short time. I liked the lady from Nova Scotia daylilies who said that a certain hybrid of hers would not do well in Zone 8 or higher. It would be nice if we could always get that type of information. Avedon

Yes, I agree that Planet Max color holds up well but its main claim to fame for me is that it's a blooming fool.

PLANET MAX
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Lavender Green is an oldie but goodie (Kennedy, 1962) that came from Robin Calderon of Earlybird as a bonus and it quickly became a favorite. Here it is with Navajo Princess.

LAVENDER GREEN
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Avedon,

UFO's real name is Unidentified Flying Object, shortened to UFO ... so you might find iton her site under that name.

Favorite UF's and spiders in my zone 5 gardens - still under snow!

All American Windmill
Angelus Spangles
Asterisk
Astral Voyager
Bark at Me
Bradley Bernard
Brown Exotica
Cerulean Star
Chevron Spider
Curly Rosy Posey
Dark Monkey
Dark Star
Desert Icicle
Dizzy Miss Lizzy
Do The Twist
Dune Needlepoint
Earth Wind & Fire
Ferris Wheel
Firestorm
Fol de Rol
For Algernon
Gadsden Greensleeves
Ginger Twist
Glen Eyrie
Golliwog
Heavenly Angel Ice
Helter Skelter
Highland Pinched FIngers
His Highnss
Holly Dancer
Jan's Twister
Jersey SPider
Jo Weiss
John Karl Seager
Karen's Curls
Lady Fingers
Lake Norman SPider
Lilting Lavender
Loch Ness Monster
Lola Branham
Mad Max
Magnificent Hummingbird
Marked By Lydia
Medicie Feather
Mighty Highty Tighty
Morgen Le Fey
Morticia
Nathan Sommers
Orange Clown
Orchid Corsage
Ostrich Plume
Parade of Peacocks
Perfect Arc
Platypus Pam
Prague Spring
Prairie Satan
Primal Scream
Prissy Frills
Purple Many Faces
Quirky
Radiation Biohazard
Raspberry Butterflies
Raspberry Griffin
Red Ribbons
Red Suspenders
Rosy Lights
Ruby Spider
Scrambles Legs
Skinwalker
Sky Hooks
Slapstick
Spider Miracle
Starman's Quest
Sweet Charlotte
Taco Twister
Talon
Tennessee Tan
Twist of Lemon
Vampire Lestat
Venusian Heat
Walter's Tango
Westward Wind
Whirling Fury
Wildest Dreams
Wind Frills
Wind Master
Winds of Love
Yellow Mammoth

Just some of my favorites! LOL! Unfortunately, I can't tell you how they do in your climate. But these all grow well up here in the North.

Pam

Random Harvest, hope you come back on so I can tell you how much I enjoy your photos of "Planet Max". I really do like clump shots so we can see the whole plant. It really does look good.
Pam, so glad you posted your list of favorites. I know some of them but lots I don't, so I am looking forward to spending time researching them. Know you have had more snow, so you must be ready for warmer weather. No snow here but it turned off cold, 37 degrees here this morning when we were in the 80's on Saturday. This weather is crazy. Nevertheless, our daylilies are growing and some of them are a good size. Five new daylilies are due to arrive tomorrow or Wednesday. You can imagine how much we are looking forward to getting them, regardless of the weather. Now I am off to start looking at your list, will check in later. Avedon

I began researching Pam's list of favorites, and when I typed in "Angelus Spangles", I discovered Mystic Meadows daylilies. Pam, I think I have found your "home". Mystic Meadows has all your daylilies, and I loved being able to pull up the pictures and also to have the other pertinent info right there. As far as the cold weather-warm weather thing, I have two Moldovans, "South Seas" and "Turkish Turban". I know these are not UFS, but they are northern-bred daylilies, and they are just wonderful in our garden. "South Seas" is one of the longest blooming daylilies we have, for a large flower. As to the UFs, there are a lot of really good looking ones that I have never seen, so I am interested in adding some of them. Thank you, Pam and all others. Oh, Random Harvest, I found the "Lavender Green" daylily on the Brooks Hybridizers website. I see she is in Oklahoma and has a lot of the daylilies on your list. Do you buy from her? Looking forward to any replies. Avedon

I just wanted to follow up on my SKINWALKER comments. I saw it in person at a flower show yesterday (it won best UF/Spider), and it was really amazing. The three-dimensional form is what makes it great, and it's really difficult to capture that in a photograph.

Nate

I want to add a couple more that do well here in 8b - Conrad Nelson and Frilly Bliss. Check them out. Not expensive, but really lovely UFOs.

I don't know if you like doubles, but I am having amazing results with Savannah Sweetheart. Blooms are well above the foliage this year, and so very delicate and lovely.

Nancy

I just came back from a month's visit with my mom in Missouri, and it's been quite an experience. She happens to live in one of the major areas that was flooded. Fortunately, the house is in the hilly part of town, so we weren't directly affected by the high water. However, I was very affected when I wanted to go home. I could not leave, because Highway 67 South from Pocahantas, Arkansas was shut down. Parts of it were underwater, so I had to wait. When it did reopen, I couldn't leave because of a death in the family. It almost seems frivolous to say that my husband was calling me with the daylily report since I couldn't get home in time for the first daylily bloom. In this time, a number of the daylilies have bloomed and I am happy to report that all the new daylilies ordered have blooms or have scapes. My only UF that is blooming is "Destined To See", and it is just cranking up for a big bloom season, if the weather cooperates.
I was happy to see new messages. Nate, glad to know that "Skinwalker" is better than the photos. Like you, I wasn't too keen on it, but now I'll reconsider.
Nancy, I looked up "Concorde Nelson" and the photos of it are lovely, ditto with "Savannah Sweetheart". I do like doubles, but I have only a few. One of my favorites is the Joiner hybrid "Jean Swann" and I guess Joiner does all those "Savannah" named daylilies.
You can imagine, being gone a month with no computer, I am way, way behind reading all the topics on the Forum. I will be up all hours trying to catch up. Oh, yes, I have seen "Frilly Bliss" and I think it's another one going on the next year's list. Anybody else with more recommendations, please chime in. I love finding out about any UFs. Avedon