I forgot to add that the weather certainly was the culprit. It had rained and the temps had dropped overnight to lower than normal for July. The daylilies refused to open.

How bizarre! And aren't the daylilies smart to know not to open? LOL It's too bad your trip to Harmon Farms was wasted though.

That is odd. Never happened to me. I did hear a true story about "the summer that never was". We were in north-central PA [Potter County, near the NY border] around 1998. The people at the B&B where we were staying said the summer before was so cool [and it is a very mountainous area] that they had at least one frost every month and there were virtually no flowers and no crops. Was NH in on that?

About two weeks ago the low temp overnight was around 50 f. Still blooming in my garden were Final Touch, citrina Thunbergi, Stella D'oro and happy returns. These plants all had buds that refused to open. The buds opened just enough that you knew they would be today's flowers, didn't happen, the next day the buds were mush.

Sherry

Belle Isle Sentry often reblooms in Sept. and goes til frost. On really cold days in Oct. it takes 2 days to open and it is brownish instead of purple. I used to have Priscilla's Dream that did the same a couple of times. It pretty much bloomed regardless of the temp until at last too many frosts stopped all blooming.

The thing that was so weird was that this was in JULY when it was peak daylily season here. (This not-opening thing often happens in late August and September with the late-bloomers because of the low temps but never in the heat of summer). It wasn't cold on that night, just slightly cooler than normal for late July but it had rained overnight so I guess the combination of rain and the cool night triggered it. Carl had called up other daylily folks in Mass., Conn. and as far away as Rhode Island and they had the same weird experience. When I had awoken and saw my daylilies all closed up I just thought that it might be because I'm in a mountainous area. I had high hopes that Harmon's farm would be fine since they are a zone warmer than me in southern NH. I was shocked to see nothing blooming!

Very Odd!