I have a question about reporting scape height, bud count and branching on this site. Which scape does one choose? Does she or he choose the most prolific scape in the clump, take an average of several scapes, or average all the scapes? The latter chose would be an onerous task on a large daylily clump. For example, my Point of View has a scapes that has a w terminal branch and a bud count of 13. However, the more typical scapes have v branching and a bud count of 8 or 9. Scape heights range from 25 to 28. My Point of View has no lateral branching, but in the case of hybrids that do, would the majority of acapes have to exhibit that trait?

Any advise for this poor neophyte would be greatly appreciated.

It is advised to do averages, including rebloom scapes. It does take good record keeping, but by averaging, a fairly accurate number of blooms and branches for a cultivar can be expected when grown elsewhere.

I had high expectations of doing lots of reports this year, but my organization was not up for the job. I way underestimated just how much work is actually involved in keeping a record of bud count, scape height and even just general garden performance of a plant. I hope to do much better next year. My plan was to wait till the end of the season then do measurements and bud counts on the dead scapes, that was a total bust.
So, if I can figure out how to keep a spreadsheet, I will try that next year, and record each scape and bud count as soon as the scape finishes blooming. Then at the end of the year take averages. That's my plan...we'll see how well that works. Anyone have examples of spreadsheets they have done for such a project?

I also intended to keep records of bud count and branching this year, but I guess I just got busy with other things... If you don't have time to average all the scapes, then my advice would be to take the average of a few scapes, or look to see if most of the scapes are similar, and just measure and count one of them that is "typical" for that plant. If most of your scapes have 2 way branching 8-9 buds, but a couple have more, I would say 2 way branching, 8-10 buds. It's a happy surprise when a plant performs better than expected, so err on the side of caution. If you were to report only the best scapes, then it's likely others may not get those results, and that can be disappointing.

That is alot of record keeping. I cannot imagine folks here who have collections of 500 or more keeping up with it. With my paltry collection I will keep in mind suggestions from Larry and Jessie.

I actually did that about six years ago. It was a daunting task that I didn't find worth the effort, but if I were a hybridizer, I might.

I created an example of what I did (can't get to my 'real' documents since I am at work on lunch right now). Here is what I did:

Thanks, blue23rose
Scape height would be easy to add to that. I was just wondering how many scapes I would need to leave room for?
For example right now most of my plants have 1 to 6 scapes, by next year they should be larger clumps and the number of scapes will be larger also hopefully. So if I have clumps that send up 10 scapes and reblooms twice or more I am looking at a lot of scapes. I had some plants this year that had tall scapes then the rebloom scapes were down in the foliage. I had some that had short scapes and the rebloom scapes were tall like normal, and other variations of growing patterns. Some I swear have sent up at least four or more sets of scapes this year, they just never seemed to have stopped. Better records would have let me know exactly...

Thanks Vickie. I think I am coming to the same conclusion you did. In line with Larry's question--how did you keep track of which scapes were entered in the spread sheet. Did you mark them somehow to avoid double counting?

I intend to pull mine when the info is entered . Many of my scapes turn loose early and are easy to remove, but I do have a few plants that almost refuse to give up a brown scape, those I will just cut off even with the ground. Then there will be no double counting.

I don't think I am quite understanding what is being asked... if we are talking about record keeping on an already registered cultivar, detailed records shouldn't be needed. Maybe if it's blooming much shorter or taller than registered (which would call your attention to it in the first place), or how a pattern may change appearance from initial bloom to rebloom, or if it has a registered bud count of 40 and you get 10 at best.......details like that can be made without much effort. I think for the most part, though, if you wish to compare your plant against its registered stats, only cursory notions need be made. In a large collection, detailed notations would probably be futile, as stats can change from year to year because of the weather and from garden to garden because of cultural differences.

If a registered cultivar is causing concern, it shouldn't be too much trouble to monitor it for a season, research how it performs elsewhere and then make the decision whether to keep giving it garden space or move it out.

When seedlings come into play is where details are needed and those details need to be accurate *for your garden* IF you are hybridizing and want to control your breeding program(s).

Daylilies are very versatile plants, as are the folks who grow them. How deeply a person wants to go into daylilies is an individual choice. From the harried homeowner that just wants a little color to the dedicated hybridizer that want to build a better (or different) daylily, the effort a person needs to put forth to be successful will depend on their goals.

I think what brought the record keeping into play were the regional differences in how plants perform and it is an effort to get the regional information more accurate. Nothing new in that, and it may be that it is not worth the effort, but it certainly makes you pay more attention to your plants, and I am always hunting for reviews from people in my zone when I look at the plant of the day feature. The results in zone 4 for a plant are seldom what I could expect in zone 8b. I doubt many people will fool with it, but I hope a lot do.

For me, I think it was just being on this site and wanting to know what I was getting compared to others, and also being able to partake in the conversations in the threads, especially the Daylily of the Day threads. I enjoy those. There are many cultivars in the AHS database that do not give branching and bud count, so I would rely on others' reports to get an idea of how a cultivar would perform.

I also recorded in my spreadsheet the FFO and tried to take a picture of at least the first and last bloom of the season to get an idea of how long each cultivar bloomed. I think it all depends on how anal a person wants to be about it As a hobby, there are all kinds of statistics a person could amass if one wanted

I think you said it all Judy when you said this:

judydu2 said:Daylilies are very versatile plants, as are the folks who grow them. How deeply a person wants to go into daylilies is an individual choice. From the harried homeowner that just wants a little color to the dedicated hybridizer that want to build a better (or different) daylily, the effort a person needs to put forth to be successful will depend on their goals.

Skipper, most of my counting was done when most of the scapes were done blooming and I would just cut the tops off or pull them out completely like Larry said he was going to do. A few bud builders, like Raspberry Wine for instance, really made me wait. But that was a good problem to have, lol!