I will say this. When it opens right and clean, it's pretty amazing. So far it still doesn't do that very often for me. I'm going to say the jury is still out on this one. I'm getting good scape height, but not much bud count, and not great consistency for me yet (purchased in 2017). Last year, we had an early warm spell and cold snap in April. The result for me was several tender plants aborting scapes including Duck's Dark Side and Egyptian Queen among others. It looks like I was averaging about 8-9 blooms per scape in '18 and '19.
Several Early bloomers have struggled the last three years because of late snows in April, so... I'm not sure I'd be so patient with other plants, but I haven't really seen it when the conditions were right, so I keep giving it the benefit of the doubt.
On an OK day
More often not so clean
I guess I don't really have a picture from a really good day, but they definitely happen.
2020 no increase but it bloomed well and I put pollen on 3 flowers, Megatron, Purple Cheetah and Vampire Bat and collected seeds. Definitely pollen fertile. We had a very hot dry summer and the blooms opened well. Unfortunately my camera did not capture the dark color but turned it more red.
