I don't plan on keeping count unless I pick up hybridizing. I figure I can look at a daylily through its blooming season and either I like it or not. Of course, I'm not trying to compare between groups as you are.

Just curious - do you have a method of keeping track at this point - pen and paper, spreadsheet?

Christine

I don't do hybridizing either but I have kept up with ones that have been loaded with branches and buds to move up front for a better show.

I do keep track of the bud count from year to year and one thing it proves is that I am a really lazy gardener. I forget to fertilize, and some of my plants have not been repotted in seven years. The down side to growing in pots is you are their only source of water and food. I had one of the generic daylilys in the same pot for over 15 years and when I finally got around to repotting it the poor plant went into a state of shock. The following year it bloomed like mad and the scapes were at least twice as tall. You can really see the variation in bud count when you are writing it down in your little book each year.

I have a theory that the older varieties may not have all the bells and whistles that the new one do, but they are determined to bloom no matter what and grateful for anything they get while some of the new ones sulk if they aren't fed on a regular schedule and have a perfect exposure and their bud count drops down to nothing. Just my opinion.

JoAnn

Here is a link that might be useful: BARBARA MITCHELL

Joann: The doves eat gravel to assist in digesting their food. Seed eating birds have a second stomach or gizzard used to grind their food. The small pieces of gravel travel to the gizzard and assist in grinding the seeds that they eat. Hope this solves your mystery.

Actually I do not have a method set up as yet because last year was the first year I added lots of daylilies and no use making notes of bud counts on scapes that were on shipped plants because they really wouldn't mean anything. Those were scapes I should have cut off anyway but in most cases I didn't.

I plan on going out with a notebook and just writing down my observations daily. Haven't decided on the best way to record everything on the computer yet.

Budcounts have been on my mind because for the last few days I have had AWESOME BLOSSOM blooming. Last year budcounts of 4 per scape. This was a new daylily last year for me. This year budcounts of 4 again.

Another new daylily for me last
year was FRANCOIS VERHAERT. I remember it bloomed last fall for me with some
really small number of buds per scape but I did not make note of just how
many. I do remember that the flowers did not want to open all the way and
the colors were really off on the first few. This year it just started
blooming today. Lots of scapes as most fans seemed to have them but the bud
count is 4 for about half of them and 6 for the other half. Again, the
flowers just can't get open and there were about 6 of them today, not one
properly open. The color was good though, so at least I can't complain about
that.

Just finished my bud count for this years notes and could not resist mentioning STRAWBERRY CANDY. Had the plant in my yard four years and it never bloomed worth a darn. A good bud count was 5 and sometimes it was only 3. To top it off it was never just the right color. I finally sent it off to some one who was willing to live daringly and have no idea how it did there. I vote for getting rid of any daylily that has an extremely low bud count for two years in a row.

JoAnn

I don't count buds until the clump is at least 6 fans. That can take a while for some of my daylilies. Wineberry Candy is 6 fans with 6 scapes so this year I will get a good indication of what it is capable of. Last year South Seas was 5 or 6 fans with 3 scapes. They averaged 25 buds per scape. Frans Hals was a huge clump and the best scape had 35 buds. When I do keep track it is usually of best scape on a clump.

IMO.. it's not reasonable to wait for a plant to accumulate 6 fans of growth to count the one marquee scape's buds. Rather the total flowers per yr divided by the scaping fans producing an average per scape is closer to illustrating the genetic potential of a daylily. Good daylily genetics show well in yr two.. the best show good counts in the arrival yr given a good root system with stored calories.

Published budcounts as most are well aware are pure fabrication in 9+ out of 10 daylily writeups. Then culture plays a big role in the "math" used to do the counts. Greenhouse conditions.. overly rich growing mediums.. continous watering.. it not true budcount data in our gardening environment. Buying into the one scape count for a listing is why we have such poorly budded dayliles overall nowdays.. at least traveling into the garden setting.

My bud 'dog' nominee is Tequila Mockingbird.. a flower I had to see in person in my garden. Rec'd a nice well rooted triple fan this spring.. producing 3 scapes.. the counts were 2..3...2. And the flower opens very poorly too... wasn't worth the walk to get the camera.

Good thread idea.

Rita - Just wondering if you followed through on keeping bud counts and how they turned out. I'd love to see your date, and I think others would be interested too.

Debra

I did do quite afew bud count recordings but nothing is on the computer, just in my hand written garden notes. I did not do as much as I really wanted to as summer was just so busy. Between working, geneneral garden work and taking and posting pictures of my daylilies I seem to have used up all my time.

I will however drag out my notes and write up my observations here as it will give me a chance to write it up and put it in my computer also. I know that I will want to compare next years notes to this years to see what happens.

So stay tuned, I will be adding the information to this post as soon as I am able.

I usually keep budcount and branching records for the first set of blooms. Because I grow only evergreens, there are a lot of scapes. I can often tell how many scapes, but not always!

I had intended on counting the scars on the scapes, which I was keeping... laying on the ground in a neat pile behind each plant marker. That is until the mow crew decided to "help" me by getting rid of them all. ACK! I was going to measure # of scapes, scape hight and bud scars, but that is gone for this year. Grrr....

Next year.

Rita,

Bud count is something that I never really though to keep track of in detail... my classification to myself through the years has either been "stingy" or "full of blooms"... always figured "it is what it is". That was when I felt that I had all the room in the world to add DL's, and wasn't raising my own seedlings.

Now, although I still have room, I am starting to consider moving some of my less stellar performers out to the perifery (sp?) of my world and make room in my main gardens for plants that will flourish rather than just "do ok". For this reason, it will be definitely something that I will be tracking next year... especially during April, May, and June when all of you early bloomers are showing off your pictures and all I will have to look at are buds. It will give me something to occupy my time while I am waiting patiently (OR NOT) :)

I will be curious to see what your results are!

Fairysoapgirl... your missing scapes are what my Mom and I have learned to call collateral damage. We have had wonderful friends sharing some of our garden chores in Mom's yard this spring to help us get through a rough time, and as a result, have been at the ACK! stage more than once. (A climing rose that had FINALLY come into it's own cut off at the base because it was mistaken for a sticker bush, etc). Although you know that these things were done with the very best of intentions, it is kind of hard to hide the steam that starts to come out of your ears when you discover it!

Yup, there's always next year.

Julie

Ha, the grass mowing crew knows better than to mess with anything around here unless I tell them its ok. I did my budcounting while the scapes were still blooming when they got to the point of all the buds being out and showing. But I did mean to go out and do more bud counting as I only did some of the daylilies. Never did get a chance to finish the others.

I am so swamped with work (bill paying kind of work) that I have not even begone the budcount review that I want to do. Can't even get a post done to the e-mail robin, trying to get everything done. There a bunch of posts here that I haven't even read the last few messages and have not been able to coment. But I will get to it, I hope!

After I got the daylily crazies in 2007, I just bought pretty faces and planted away. I knew nothing about budcounts. Sure had to learn though. Now such things are very important to me. I really do wish I had the room to be able to just move the poor preformers to some back lot, this way I could see if they improve given time while I put something that preforms much better in its place. But just not the room here to do so. I either keep the duds and hope time makes them better or bite the bullet to replace them. Bummer.

It took me awhile to write it but I started a new post with the information about budcounts in my garden this past summer. Typing it out and actually looking at it made me realize how very few of my evergreen daylilies are really doing that well, at least as far as producing lots of flowers are concerned.

Rita,

I am responding here as I want to take the time and compare lists with your new post before I respond there. Several of your low numbers surprised me, but if I recal back to the first years that I had those plants, mine were fairly similar. More info when I take the time to be somewhat accurate on what I want to say.

Fairysoapgirl gave me an idea with her trauma.. I still have some scapes in some gardens I am cleaning out, so I can get an idea of those plants that way. Have been making notes here and there as I have been continuing to clean up the yard.

Julie

Actually, several of the low budcount numbers surprised me as well. Very few of them (even the ones with low budcounts) are in any immediate danger of being tossed out of here as I do know they need time. But really, I did want to start to keeping records as I had been warned about the possibility of truely low budcounts for many southern hybridized flowers.

What I am really looking forward to is to be able to complare the budcounts on my northern hybridized flowers and my southern ones. Now that will be truely interesting.