I was scrolling through old threads and saw that Char ran this subject back in 2017. I thought it would be fun to have an update, as a way of kissing 2020 goodbye...

Hard to pick just 10, but here goes. More or less in order of appearance


Wineberry Candy, prolific and beautiful, blooms from early to late in the season

Margaret Seawright

Another outstanding, floriferous plant, early bloom through mid season


Alnilam, super old cultivar from the 40s, excellent plant habit


Paper Butterfly, super bud counts, blooms its little head off for a month or more


Fuschia Dream, super flower power on this one

Demetrius

Just an old favorite


Paco Bell


Not totally sure...was sold to me as Cherry Cheeks, which it definitely isn't. I'm pretty sure it's actually a Lake Norman Spider, but whatever it is, wow!


Tiger Blood, long lovely season out of this one


Dollhouse, a lovely mini

These are the plants that really went for it this summer, blooming with lots of flowers for long periods of time

Here's a better photo of Fuchsia Dream,

How I wish I could keep subjects like this in mind during the entire year. It would be great if I could just name the top ten performing daylilies right off the top of my head. Why not? Why shouldn't I be able to spout those names off right off the top of my head anytime someone visits and ask "What are the top performers in your garden", now that is a different question than what are the favorite plants in your garden?" Shouldn't I also be able to answer that question also at anytime. But no, I have to look back through photos, look through notes and then try and decide on the top one, two, three, four etc. Now I am trying to be a backyard hybridizer, but it seems I will never be very good at it because I just don't seem to have the skills of observation and the mental memory abilities needed to make a good analysis of the plants, well that would be OK I suppose if my note taking was better. I have looked at some of the journals or collections of notes that some hybridizers have left behind for us to look over. I see such great detail of observation, notes on things I just seem to pass over with little attention being given. So I am studying to become a garden judge, mainly with the goal of increasing my knowledge and my observation of plants. How great it would be to be able to spend a few days with some of the great hybridizers and listen to them talk as they go about the work in the garden and point out little things most of us will never see.

Wineberry Candy was not one of my top ten performers, it struggled and eventually just disappeared. I nursed it along for a couple of years but it never performed well here.

Paper Butterfly for sure was somewhere in my top ten performers, it bloomed and bloomed and finally even managed to open a bloom in early Dec. a first in my garden.

Femme Fatal, would have to be in my top ten performers, the number of blooms it put out was amazing. It was a large established clump, so it had the advantage over many of my plants. I dug the clump and divided it in November this year, so next year it will not be putting out all those scapes and blooms.

But looking through my photos this year I was amazed how few I actually took. Even in May and June the peak bloom months, I took very few photos this year. Thinking back and looking at my new acquisitions I think it was because I was so busy adding 80 new plants this year (something that will probably never happen again). I was digging and planting and making and extending beds, gawking at all the new blooms instead of taking photos.
I must say some of the G. Pierce plants had amazing blooms even this first year in the garden, and I feel sure some of them will appear in my top ten next year...I am going to keep this top ten theme in my mind all year!
Sorry I am not able to provide a great top ten list, just wait till next year!

Well, I can provide you with 5 this year.

Without a doubt my top performer this year was,

'Heavenly Bengal Tiger' A spectacular showing that displayed a trait that I have never seen before in a daylily. After putting up instant re-bloom scapes, it produced another round of scapes with a third blooming. Yes, from the same fans that had previously bloomed from. Has anyone seen that before?


Spacecoast Francis Busby. Heavy substance, prolific bloomer and all around exceptional plant.


Marked by Lydia was another top performer. It was growing in a pot this year, but now in its own spot. Planted in the foundation bed of my home. It was full of Polymerous blooms this year and will always be in my collection.


Naturecoast Lottie is another favorite with a thick, well branched scape.


Tuscawill Snowdrift always performs well.

I find this a hard question. I tend to be so influenced by how much I like a particular bloom, that I can't be unbiased

However, in no particular order, these ones bloomed profusely and for a long time.
Here is the first few:

Catastrophe Waitress


Arnold Raeker


Anglican Church (a late bloomer)

Here are a few little ones that performed very well.


Elfin Reflection


Little Bit of Heaven


Alpine Mist


Magic Elf

I'm not going to give 10 but my best performers this year were...

CHERRY PEACOCK which definitely exceeds its stats in my garden and I need a step stool to photograph it.



ISABELLE ROSE is a superstar



VICTORIA JOSEPHINE blows me away.

I'm a stats geek. Not only will I give you 10, I'll tell you how I'm defining their performance.

Most blooms per scape. We had a hot, dry summer, so some that normally perform didn't, but these still did great for me.

Earlybird Sunshine (Skinner)


Tart of Darkness (Ball_Linda)


Red Tapestry (Pearce_Ginny)



Most Days Bloomed

Lady Bandit (Culver)


Howdy


May May



Most scapes

Black Eyed Stella


Bertie Ferris



Best all around Dip Seedling
Chasing Your Dreams (Gossard '15) x Rambunctious Rosie (Davison-J '09)


Best all around Tet Seedling
Jackie Canner (Rice-JA) x [Tetra RFK (Doorakian/???) x Victoria Josephine (Todd)]

Hakuna Matata was my best blooming plant this year. This was its 2nd year, 1 scape had 50 buds, the other 2 scapes had I think 44 and 46 buds. I have never had a plant perform this well, can't wait to see next year.
Midsummer A Woman's Work started blooming June 2, and bloomed continuously with rebloom til mid October at our 1st hard freeze. It had lots of scapes and I did not count buds on many, but the ones I did count had upper 20s and low 30s. This is in a very dry part of the garden that gets no added water or fertilizer.
Spacecoast Francis Busby was a great plant here also, along with Dance with Giraffes

Here in Florida, the 2020 spring weather got hot fast and my bloom season started earlier than ever. First bloom was in late March. The daylilies grouped their blooms in April but the bloom season ended in mid-October. Here are my favorite of this year!

Nature Lover


Jared Timothy Bell


Orange Blossom Trail


Orange Spice


Voila Francois


William My Angel


And from a seedling's first year of bloom. It's out of Shakespear's Red


It was a very good year!!

Beautiful, Jill, Tim and Arlene. Amazing bud count on Hakuna Matata, Nancy!
Tim, I commend you on your record keeping!
Gorgeous seedlings Tim and Arlene

From my 2019 seedlings that first bloomed in 2020, these were the ones that won the performance category, not the most exciting bloom.

A 2019 seedling that bloomed in July, 2020 for the first time had 4 branches and 28 buds. It is the highest bud count for any 2019 seedling. It was a very dry, hot season and I did very little watering.

Baby Blue Eyes x All American Baby #2
4 branches, 28 buds

The runner up for bud count on 2019 seedlings is this little one with quilled sepals.

(Jocelyn's Oddity x Pony #2) x Midnight Smoke Rings #5
4 branches, 24 buds

Great thread for updating, Zoia
It's always interesting to see the performers from other areas. Nice looking seedlings too. Strange year for the daylilies. Long cold spring, extremely dry, record number of days over 90 degrees and I don't water the beds. There just never seems to be enough hours in the day and being on our own well the garden is on it's own if it's dry. So it's no surprise to me that 3 of my top 10 are my own intro's, they are bred to be on their own
Tossed By the Waves, Dimes in the Jukebox and Feel the Thunder all had their typical great branching, set pods and bloomed well over a month.



Pawprints on My Heart started the season off with a mass of open blooms every day.


Hidden Cameras, this one is always a good performer and throws an occasional poly bloom.


Two pleated forms that are always covered in blooms, Van Gogh's Ear and Mercury Lounge.


Quicksilver Girl, does a little pleating as well. A shorter plant than many of Curt's with great branching and bud count.


Willow Dean Smith, right along the path as you enter the garden. Delicate, feminine look with the soft ivory edged in pink. Also throws poly blooms frequently.

Beautiful blooms, everybody! There's some new ones on my want list! I had to chuckle, whenI looked up Hidden Cameras, there are a bunch of photos...except most of them say Char under them! Obviously a favorite...

Got Isabelle Rose in Sept. Hopefully I will see blooms in 2021!

Jillz said:I'm not going to give 10 but my best performers this year were...

CHERRY PEACOCK which definitely exceeds its stats in my garden and I need a step stool to photograph it.



ISABELLE ROSE is a superstar

• Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Isabelle Rose')
• Uploaded by Jillz

VICTORIA JOSEPHINE blows me away.

Got Hakuna Matata at the local daylily society sale in the Fall. It's looking strong and hopefully it will do well this year!

alilyfan said:Hakuna Matata was my best blooming plant this year. This was its 2nd year, 1 scape had 50 buds, the other 2 scapes had I think 44 and 46 buds. I have never had a plant perform this well, can't wait to see next year.
Midsummer A Woman's Work started blooming June 2, and bloomed continuously with rebloom til mid October at our 1st hard freeze. It had lots of scapes and I did not count buds on many, but the ones I did count had upper 20s and low 30s. This is in a very dry part of the garden that gets no added water or fertilizer.
Spacecoast Francis Busby was a great plant here also, along with Dance with Giraffes

And I'm hoping Spacecoast Francis Busby ( planted in August) does as well for me up here as it does for Stan in Florida,

Top ten....how fun! I see some beautiful things that I may need to add to the garden here.

Last summer seems a lifetime away, but I do recall a few of the standouts.




I must disagree with Miss Davi on this one, we need more and more of this one, not less.




I am particularly fond of this Korth 2020 intro. It set pods with ease, and was continually loaded with blooms.




Magic? No way! Having the support of a fellow watermark lover and mentor? Invaluable! Everything a watermarked daylily should be!




The finest Polston I grow....and I grow a lot of them! Huge and in your face!




This daylily is amazing in every way! Multiplies quickly, loads of buds, magic pollen and a killer edge. Perfection!





Talk about amazing saturated color....this one has it all. I crossed it with everything, because there are so many directions to take it!





A really great daylily that really outdid itself this past summer. I moved it to a new spot, and it exploded with extra fans and tons of blooms. Magic pollen too!




I love this daylily and it's striking color and edge. It seemed to bloom forever, and was a favorite among visitors!




Registered this summer as MASTER JACK, I was continually impressed with it's multiple bloom days and interesting contrast between the watermark and flower color.




It's first year, and what can I say except perfection!

I have lost count, and I'm too lazy to preview this list....lol, but I hope that everyone can stay safe. Never has there been a summer that showed how life giving and life saving a garden can be.....mentally and physically!

Happy New Year!

Steve

10 exactly, and I loved reading the comments on everyone of them.

Paintball Party: Bud Count:16-20 AHS shows 18
Branching: 2-way
Steve said:
"A really great daylily that really outdid itself this past summer. I moved it to a new spot, and it exploded with extra fans and tons of blooms. Magic pollen too!"
I think this demonstrates that really high bud count and high branching numbers are not necessary for having lots of blooms. How can we show this when giving stats for daylilies? I feel that plants like this can get passed over when looking at the stats currently available.
I often do a search with 20 as the minimum bud count with a minimum of 5 branches. Yet I have plants in my garden that are outperformers with much lower bud counts and branch counts. Currently stats just can't show how great some plants are at performing in the garden.

Larry,

While I am a stats guy and was a math major in college many, many years ago....when it comes to daylilies I always start with the premise that if a plant is under performing, I need to see what I am doing wrong first before coming to any conclusions. PAINTBALL PARTY is a prime example. It's original spot was too congested, and surrounding plants always seemed to overwhelm PP, and it failed to bloom in both 2018 and 2019. I moved it to a newly created area where three crab tress had been removed....soft soil, plenty of sun, and it exploded like never before.

Here in northern Illinois, bud count and branching are not my main concern. Rebloom either, unless it's instantaneous. Vigor and fertility are important. A plant that continually sets thirty or more pods each season will always have a place here. There are a few special cultivars that have wondrous pollen. LAVENDER BLUE PLANET and a new one coming from me soon, name saved as SYSTEM OF EQUATIONS have pollen that will set on almost anything in any kind of weather. They will always be a part of my growing season.

I know that what's important to me may not be on everybody's list. I do think that registration has to start someplace....but for me, those numbers never come into play when I buy a daylily. Things like "sets pods easily" or "vigorous" are words that will always get my attention. Their are no wrong answers, just personal preferences which are to be expected and welcomed.

Telling me that a particular cultivar has five to six way branching and 40-50 buds doesn't float my boat, because I know those numbers will never happen here. VICTORIA JOSEPHINE is truly wonderful here, but seems otherworldly for Davi. Rust resistance is not important because even though I hate rust, it doesn't over winter here. I do appreciate accurate images and think for the most part hybridizers do a good job....at least the ones I buy from.

I do see poor quality daylilies from time to time. I would never want to do a "bottom ten"...lol, because it always still could be my fault....lol, but we all set up our own wish list based a lot on what we see in our own gardens, and I think that's the way it should be.

Me

Larry, thanks for doing the counting on Steve's post. I was too lazy to scroll up there and do it, but you saved the day.

That's really what's special about the Daylily of the Day threads. You can actually ask questions and get information on specific plants that matter from real gardeners in your own zone.

I'm a stats guy, and one thing you can take my word on, you can staticize the joy right out of anything. Between all of us, we could track all the bud counts and rebloom and stuff by zone, but not everyone wants to do that. Further, not everyone waters or fertilizes the same, so what would really be learned by doing it? And thank God the world isn't made up of stats geeks like me. I'd be wanting artists to track how much red they use per painting so I could narrow down my art searches by my favorite color.

The only stat I want to see that we don't have is what zone the hybridizer was in when they made their stats. Over time, I can look at that information and get an idea for how their stats will differ in my garden.

Nice list, Steve. So many beauties to enjoy and make seeds from!