Bud count--it's a sore topic here. We have so many beautiful seedlings whose buds counts are fewer than what seems acceptable these days. To make matters worse, bud count can vary from scape to scape and from year to year.

Here's what we generally do. We plant the seedlings and leave them in place until they are about 3 years old. If a seedling is outstanding, we might take stats at the end of three years. Then we move the plant to a select bed, usually leaving it as a clump, but sometimes splitting it into two pieces. It will take 2 to 3 years for the seedling to come back to full strength. Then if we decide it will be registered, we take stats and then line out the seedling.

We take counts and measurements and take an average of those, but we do this usually just once or twice during the evaluation stage of that seedling. Any hybridizer who grows many seedlings is just not going to have the time to take stats every year. Also, I think that the stats should reflect an established clump, not a daylily newly planted.

I try not to include rebloom scapes in those totals. Rebloom scapes usually have fewer buds and are sometimes shorter than the original in our climate (though sometimes there are more buds and it's taller).

Bob and I have come to the point where we think bud count is over-rated. There is more to a beautiful daylily than bud count. Sometimes the bud count is so high that the flowers are crowded and don't open nicely. Sometimes the bud count can be lower but the scape density makes it put on a good show. And just because I get X number of buds doesn't mean another gardener will get the same.

Here's a good tip for taking stats. Wait until the scapes are dry and can easily be pulled out. Pull the scapes and bundle them with the name of the seedling. Store them somewhere (that's why our garage never sees a car in it) and wait until the cold days of winter. Do your measuring and counting in the winter. That's not my idea, but comes from Dave Mussar in Canada.

Nancy