I am having a very similar season as you. Many of my older plants are just now producing scapes. They are much smaller than last year and the bud count is way down. However, several of my 2006 seedlings are reblooming and are dividing by three and four scapes. We had a very long dry spell with hot days and very cool nights. Not sure why the seedlings are doing better than the well established plants.

This has been a sub-par year for my daylilies, too. I had way too many dropped buds, small blooms and yellow foliage.

The best performers were VICTORIAN LACE, ART IMPERIAL, GYPSY ROSE LEE, PLEASE SAY YES and a slew of Munsons.

My best so far are Mystical Rainbow,Isle Of Dreams,Breed Apart,and Rocket City.

Betsy

Mine haven't bloomed well this year either, some that usually bloom for a long period just haven't, like Hyperion, neither of my Bonanza clumps have bloomed at all yet & don't show signs of bloom. I know it is late, I don't remember it being this late though. Oddly, 2 of my best blooming ones were 3 seedlings I bought from a local grower. Pandora's box bloomed better this year than ever before.

Same story here, with the roller-coaster weather we had in Spring. Oddly enough, the established clumps were not the best performers. But rather, the clumps I divided and transplanted AFTER the horrible weather performed best: Rocket City, Lavender Deal, Strawberry Candy, Atlanta Moonlight, Pardon Me. Also the plants I received by mail (after the weather settled down) did fine.

I'm blaming the bad weather for the bad performance of the established plants.

Julie

Some of the best performers were the Hanson purples. THROUGH DARK WATERS, NOSTERATU, BEYOND THUNDERDOME, POPUL VUH.
Another one that's not as flashy as some but has been in almost constant bloom and rebloom since the beginning of the season is Keith Miner's RASPBERRY BANANA CHEESECAKE. It has really good branching and bud count and is a pleasant cheery bloom. That consistency and performance is definately what I like to see in a workhorse garden plant.

Janet

Ballerina on Ice
Big City Eye
Desert Icicle
Destined to See
Hyperion Elite
Love or Else
Peggy Jeffcoat
Ruby Spider
Velvet Ribbons
Whistle a Happy Tune
Wineberry Candy
Woodside Commemorative
Yazoo Elsie Hintson

Looks like I still have to work on my popularity poll vote(s)! Well, two will come off as Whistle a Happy Tune and Destined to See haven't been here long enough...but what bloomers, especially Whistle a Happy Tune. The last one will be hard...

Thanks everyone for your input. Just goes to show that differient yards have differient results. I don't have most of the ones mentioned, but of the ones I do have Pardon Me bloomed--and is still blooming well as usual. The blooms on Strawberry Candy and Mystical Rainbow have been fine, but fewer than usual and Breed Apart emerged late and hasn't put up a single scape. One of last year's garden stars for me, Role Model, has dropped about half it's buds. I sometimes think daylilies are psychic. Seems like when one has a bad year it knows it had better bloom it's head off the next year, but if it had a spectacular year it knows it can get by the next year with a below average effort. Of course if it underperforms for several years I let it go somewhere where it might be happier.

With the early freezes and severe drought, none of my established daylilies performed exceptionally well. Daylilies that ususally have 20-30 buds had 8-10. Forget lateral branching - it just didn't happen here.

For best performer in the area of bud count, it was the 3-way tie, with each of the following cultivars having a whopping 17 buds per scape.

HILLBILLY HEART, two years in the ground but first year to bloom

BARACUDA BAY matched last year's bud count

TECHNY PEACH LACE, down from 28 buds per scape last year

The best rebloomer was ADAMAS, who rebloomed twice!

The longest bloomer was a tie. Both oldies, with rebloom, bloomed for a total of 6.5 weeks.

SCARLET ORBIT
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PERSIAN MARKET

Debra in dry, dry Nashville, TN

Similar experiences - low bud counts and late bloomers with Custard Candy being the garden superstar. Atta girl!

Wish I had pics to share. So beautiful. My best performers were Siloam Double classic, my favorite daylily. It bloomed its pretty head off. El Desperado, a later one, is really putting on a show now. And the flowers are huge! I'm just starting out, only have a handful now but it wont take long to fill up my yard : )

Jen

I'm bumping this up, hoping some others will share their best performers.

Debra

This is Wild Mustang taken yesterday.

My three oldest daylilies (in all ways old - oldest hybridization dates, over a dozen years in this garden, & at least 5 years in the same spot) did the best for me this year, with lots of bloom, good quality flowers, good foliage & general vigor. They were Cherry Cheeks, Anzac, & Buttered Popcorn.

Most of my small Siloams were a disappointment this year, with less bloom & smaller than usual flowers & some odd colors. S. Virginia Henson was positively orange this season, which has never happened before. S. David Kirchoff had very few blooms and was nearly unrecognizable. The others were mostly just so so.

OTOH, S. Double Classic (three clumps) & S. James Kraft which were moved (further out in the same bed) late last year did very well. I would have thought these two would have taken a hit from the weather, but all 4 clumps increased in size & bloomed well. The 3 clumps of SDC (planted together) started blooming early for me (June 19th and continued blooming until 2 days ago).

Of my newer (to me) daylilies all planted in the last few years Strutter's Ball, Orange Vols, Condilla, Custard Candy, Charles Johnston, All Fired Up, & Tuscawilla Tigress showed the best increase & very nice blooms.

Ed Brown, planted a couple years ago, did not increase as well as the ones above, but every bloom was perfect. A lot of my others in the first half of the season had opening problems.

While Custard Candy was a real winner this year, Strawberry put out about half her normal blooms, but at least the blooms were good. Wineberry Candy had a lot of blooms, but they were often deformed looking. Ed K's lovely Wineberry Candy picture had no relation to mine. My three Elegant Candies (in different locations) all bloomed well, but at widely different times and colors. The first one to bloom had only a faint red halo, instead of a ring, but was a good pink. The 2nd looked pretty perfect, good ring and fairly vibrant pink color & the 3rd one varied from orangish to pink on some sort of whim that I couldn't figure out.

Barbara Mitchell (well-established clump) had mostly small blooms this year, but her planting partner, a much less famous dl called Secondhand Rose was pretty spectacular. Most everything else was sort of in between these two, with the exception of a small but tall very old spider variant called Red Magic, which finally got its act together this year & bloomed its head off.

One more daylily that I wanted to mention is Little Grapette. This one always confounds me. It consistently blooms every other year for me. This year it was very nice. Last year 2 blooms. The year before that lots of bloom. The year before nothing at all. You get the picture. Has this ever happened with anyone else? I do deadhead, so that's not it. LG has been moved & split once in the 10 years or so that I have it, but kept right on its every other year schedule.

Leslie,
I think daylilies like Cherry Cheeks, Buttered Popcorn and Anzac have stood the test of time because they always put on a decent show. All three are very tough daylilies that can put up with poor soil and very little water. CC and BP did well for me this year too, despite the early freeze and drought conditions. But because they have lower bud counts, they never make my list of top performers.

BUTTERED POPCORN and CHERRY CHEEKS

Debra

Leslie, I had the same experinece this year with Custard Candy and Strawberry Candy. Custard Candy was great and Strawberry Candy had far fewer blooms than usual.
One that I just got last August that has done very well this year is this one--
Voices of Spring

These were my best performers this year
caprician fiesta- bloomed for 5 weeks streight and multiple blooms at a time
Sue rothbauer
Mardi gras parade
Star of fantasy
Just plum happy
Frans hals
Pandora's box
Pardon me
Strawberry candy
Of course they were all plants that are well established. Hoping for lots more blooms, on the "cooler" ones I got this year next spring! -Jessica

The season is only half over but I thought I would post on the best earlies.

Siloam Double Classic has been putting on a show. It looks fantastic but I do have to note that only about half of the blooms are double.

Pandora's Box has lots of well branched scapes and has lots of blooms open most days.

Wineberry Candy is looking nice. It always opens well and the colour is great. It is still a week from peak so I will be posting some clump pictures soon.

Don Stevens is also putting on a great show. There always seem to be 6-10 blooms open on a huge clump.

I'll be back to comment on the mid-lates.

Edward
Timberlea, NS

PS Strawberry Candy had its first bloom today.

leslie197 are you a writer? Your description were vivid and clear and was so interesting, you have a gift.

Debra in Tn. Love your combo of Buttered Popcorn and Cherry Cheeks. You must have to wear sunshades when you walk past that patch of color.

My best performers this year has been the plants that have been established the longest. Darla Anita, Larry Grace, Lori Goldston, etc., all those good older ones.

Of the newer ones the best performer was by far Carved Initials. It put on a show for sure. To me it is a stunning daylily and of the newer ones is my favorite.

CARVED INITIALS

Carved Initials is one of the few daylilies I have that looks exactly like it's picture on the hybridizers web page.

Hello everybody,

I'm new to the Daylily forum......been over on the Round Robin trading forum for a while.

I am glad to hear that I'm not the only one that had a bad DL season. Here in NC we had a solid 2 night freeze into the 20's at Easter. Really cut everything down. Then the May drought hit ..... not a drop of rain all month. I guess it was pretty much the same most places. Strange year!!! Barbecueing outside in February....freezing in April.

All my Spacecoasts did very poorly.....still look bad.

I would have to say my best were:

Victorian Lace
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Shores of Time
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Destined to See.....It is still reblooming today!
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and Darla Anita
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Even though these had been dug and divided repeatedly in the last 2 years they really proved themselves to be worth their weight!

Some older varieties that did very well were:

Southern Sunset
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and Indy Longlegs
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Roxanne

Hi,

A big surprise for me this year was Lullaby Baby. I don't usually have good bud counts, seldom even count. This guy put out 38 blooms on a stem though. It also surpassed the 19 inches it is listed as and must be as tall as 30. I'm not the kind to baby my daylilies with wonderful soil or water so this must be some kind of daylily.

I wouldn't say the color is my favorite (palest peach, near white) and the blooms aren't huge, but they aren't tiny either. Apart from the number of blooms I really like the shape of the flower, the green throat, and the fact that each one opens perfectly.

Miss Jessie always puts on quite a show. She's palest yellow and old rose in a near spider shape with huge flowers. Even a smallish clump always seems covered in blooms.

Hello,
I am a babe in the woods compared to you guys--just getting started with my second year with daylilies. However, I felt compelled to respond here because the very dark Derrick Cane, which I planted in 2005, opened its last bud today. Between two plants, side by side, Derrick Cane has been in bloom every day since late May (the 25th, I think). That is no exaggeration! No other daylily I have did anything like this. Next best was probably Kwanza Gold, which bloomed in May and rebloomed early in July.

Mike in Myrtle Beach, SC, Zone 8

Just to spite me Siloam Double Classic had 8 blooms today and every one of them was double.

It was an odd year in the PNW as well, although I have been looking at it as a mixed blessing. All of my blooms have been about 1 1/2 weeks ahead of any other year, and for a change, a lot of my ruffles and edges actually look like those of the rest of the world. (I have come to the conclusion years ago that the cooler climate will definitely mute the spectacular ruffles, edges, etc... and by no means should I try to grow a deep deep red with any success.) Our winter was not as dramatic as the rest of the country, although we had an excess of rain this spring..even for the Seattle area. The minus is that as others have posted, some of my old standbys have been very disapointing. Outrageous is usually a showstopper for me, and it had plenty of blooms again this year, but they were small and muted. My best were

Black Plush Spider--Nothing has ever daunted this baby! Like the post office, neither sleet or snow nor dark of night...

Jersy Spider

By Myself

And the first year to bloom for me although I have had it in the ground for three:
Street Urchin

Julie

Terrible year for daylilies. Lost a bunch of them. On the bright side I was able to come up with a list of best performers. (From the size of it you would think it was a great year)

Always Tomorrow  Superb bloomer and rebloomer. One of the best
Buttered Popcorn  Always dependable
Carmel Glaze  Unusual for it, but was a good late performer
China Bride  Best performance this year
Delicate Design  Good show this year
Land of Cotton (Dbl) Â Great, it outdid all of my doubles
Winning Ticket (Dbl) Â Came in a very close second
Snow Blizzard (Dbl) Â Great performance, but came in third
El Desparado  Always puts on a show. One of the best.
Fluted Fancy  Lots of blooms this year. Unusual.
Forever Abundant  What can I say except its forever abundant
Indian Ripple  3rd year in my garden. Great show every year.
(I know I posted a lot of it this year, so I thought I would show you itÂs baby picture)
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ItÂs A Miracle  Good show this year
Jedi Codie Wedgeworth  Great year with strong reblooms
Louise Boswell  Best show this year
Moonlight Masquerade  Outstanding year
Red Volunteer  Always a dependable bloomer
Rocket City  Great as always
Star Struck  Good as usual
Stoplight  Late bloomer that just goes on and on.
Untamed Glory  It had itÂs best year this year.
Wilson Spider  Really put on a show
Spider Miracle  Sits next to El Desparado and they had a contest as to who could bloom longer (El Desparado won by two weeks
Spiderman  put on a better show than I expected.

Tom