Background history:

'Wild Child' is a semi-evergreen tetraploid introduced in 2002 by Salter.

It has earned the following AHS awards:
Honorable Mention: 2005

This plant can be found in our Plant Database at:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Wild Child') .

Please join in, if you own this plant! We would love to know more! I award an acorn for performance information posted to this thread.



Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Wild Child')

I planted this last year. Have yet to see it bloom, but I will say it has increased and is a monster plant. It went from 2 to 5 fans. Foliage looks great, even with all my rain and being planted in my heavy clay soil. I will update after it blooms this year.

I have had this plant for about 9 years. It has always done well for me, and I have never had any problems, blooms well and has increased very well. It is one of my favorites in the garden. It blooms a little later in my zone 6 garden than some of my other mid season plants. I like how the flowers are not all exactly the same.

I have had this daylily in my garden for around five years it has increased well, when it blooms unspotted it is lovely. When it blooms with what I call water spots like the previous posters picture, to me the bloom is ruined to my eyes unsure what causes this to happen.

Wild Child (Salter, 2002) height 24 in.(61 cm), bloom 6 in.(15 cm), season M, Rebloom, Semi-Evergreen, Tetraploid, Unusual Form Crispate, Coral with gold edge. ((Untamed Glory × sdlg) × (Ed Brown × Startle))
Awards: HM 2005
Wild Child is a thrip magnet for me, I have kids that don't have the same problem, one being registered (Cereal City Sun Catcher) but other's that do.
It all goes back to Startle, another thrip magnet that I composted years ago out of frustration, Wild Child may be next
I'd recommend looking for a better option.

Thanks Ed, now I know what the trouble is and consider a different daylily.

I have had Wild Child for a couple of years now. I am not a big fan, and am considering digging and giving away. But, I would hate to give it away just because it never or rarely has a super nice bloom. I would say it has blotchy, sketchy blooms about 98% of the time. I know there has to be plants out there that look similar, but don't have the ugly bloom. Not feeling the Love

WIld Child on a good day:


Wild Child on a normal (for it) day:


I feel the same way about "Startle" @EdBurton

Ed, I wonder what makes a flower a "thrip magnet". I've read that mostly early bloomers have that trouble. So far, I haven't seen any thrips in my garden.

I received Wild Child last fall. It's a big, beautiful plant that increased already, but it doesn't have scapes yet. I wanted it because of all the pics I saw in the database on this site, and sellers sites.

I can't have a constantly blotchy flower in my garden, and I certainly don't want to make crosses with it.

Mary I wish I knew what the answer was in Wild Child or Startle, or the few others including my own seedlings that have none of Wild Child or Startle in the parentage.
There has to be a trigger of some kind because it's always the same plants that show the damage throughout their bloom season.
What that is?

I have a theory about why some blooms show so much damage and others do not. It's the edge. The ruffled edges on some daylilies are not closed tightly for at least a couple of days before they open. That lets Thrips in where they can settle down and eat with impunity until the blooms fully open. Also water can get into those semi-closed edges. I don't get anywhere near as much damage on plain edged daylilies as I do ruffled/bubbled ones. Excluding the entrance gap on unopened blooms may theoretically solve the problem... At least that's my working theory.......Maryl

Maryl I think your on to something, but I have to add this thought, I have several heavy ruffled edges and a several more with teeth that show no thrip damage at all.
I have also seen thrip damage on the first few blooms of some plants that cleared up with remaining blooms.
Also seen buds with the pistil sticking out the day before bloom that also had no thrip damage even though there was an opening available.
some plants just don't work out

I became overly familiar with Thrips from growing roses for so many years. I just about gave up on White roses as they were almost always heavily damaged by Thrips. Thrips hate the light, which is why in single petaled roses which open wide quickly there is often less evidence of Thrips damage then in the densely petaled ones....... But Thrips aren't always hanging around just waiting for Maryl's blooms to open. It may seem like it, but it's not so. They prey on too many other plants that bloom at the same time. I suspect that some of the undamaged buds on ruffly daylilies just weren't noticed by the Thrips. Also, Thrips are cyclical. So you gets waves of them then some relief as they move on to greener pastures.....I've often wondered if putting a baggy over a bud at a certain stage of development might be a good test to see if that stops the blotching. Personally I've never tried it on roses or daylilies. As you said, sometimes it's easier to just move on. I did it with roses, eliminating all but a few whites, and I do it with daylilies.........Maryl

Maryl, this might be a good experiment for me and Wild Child this summer!

"I've often wondered if putting a baggy over a bud at a certain stage of development might be a good test to see if that stops the blotching. "

I've had Wild Child in my Canadian 6a climate, not sure what that relates to in the US. I'm not a fan (pun not intended).
It is very blotchy in my garden as well and the scapes are so short I don't see the flowers unless I'm standing over it. The plant has been strong here, multiplying well and nice foliage but what's the point when you can't see the flowers and when you do they are not attractive?

Mary: I really wish someone who enjoys experimenting would take the time to test the "baggy" theory on a rose or a daylily. I can't for the life of me figure out how blotching could occur in a closed daylily bloom without any entrance for "something" (Thrips, morning dew, rain, etc.) to come in. I can't see it being a disease of any sort since many of the initially blotchy blooms are replaced by clean/cleaner blooms in subsequent cycles; it just seems logical to me that there is an outside influence at work.......I hope you DO try the baggy experiment and let us know...........Maryl

I definitely will, Maryl. I've noticed the same thing with some of my plants - the first (long awaited) bloom will be soooo bad, then the rest are normal.

I gave mine away because it's always blotchy