several of my August 2015 seedlings are putting up scapes

Apart from being pleasantly surprised that they do, I was wondering
whether they will from now on flower this time of year ( and so will have a ML bloom time).
(Some of the crosses have parents that are both ML, but not all of them. Some crosses are even from parents that are EM.)

Or is the fact that my seedlings are going to flower now just a result from them being sown in August (2015) and were they just too young to do it during their real, inherited, Bloom Time?


Mayo

I'm not an expert as you surely know, but they will bloom when... they'll like!! Blooming time for me it's an useless information. Just one of mine did bloom at the expected time, the others bloomed when probably they felt good.
Do you find exact match on given blooming time for your daylilies?

Mayo, I believe once they mature they will sort themselves out. Just keep taking notes. A lot of the EE and E daylilys do bloom early around here. Same for the late and VL. The majority bloom mid season for me.

I believe young seedlings can and do open their maiden blooms at times that may not reflect what they will settle down to after they have a few years growth. Most of my registered cultivars do reflect their registration bloom times after they have been in the ground a few years.

That is what I was told too, even with named cultivars that I bought. Seems like they need to get settled in. I would wait at least another year or two to make sure of their "real" bloom season.

I would expect that the flowering time of daylily cultivars is very complex.

As perennials and since they neither require a cold treatment to flower (vernalization) nor a specific day or night length to flower I would expect that seedlings would flower as soon as they have reached mature/adult size, whenever in the year that occurs (as long as they have enough time to flower before winter arrives, in those locations which have severe cold winters, etc.)

Second, hybridizers in warm winter climate locations (Florida & California) have indicated that nearly all daylilies can rebloom. I agree with that as I have looked at the recorded information on reblooming in the daylily species and their early hybrids and have concluded that it is likely that nearly all daylily species can rebloom given the appropriate growing conditions. So that should mean that once a seedling has reached mature/adult size and flowered it should flower again on a definite schedule since each flowering episode will only be controlled by the amount of growth required by each new fan to produce a scape. Recall that every new scape is produced by a new fan. However, a seedling begins as a tiny plant and must grow to adult size. That requires a certain amount of time and growth tends to depend on the size of the plant already achieved. Once a plant/crown has reached adult size it should take the new fan less time for it to reach flowering size again as it does not need to start at seedling size. There is already a crown with a certain amount of stored resources that can be used to start growth until the new fan leaves produce enough resources to support themselves completely. So it should take longer for a seedling to reach its mature size and bloom for the very first time versus how long it should take for it to reach its second bloom period. All bloom periods from the second on should require more or less the same time or growth (at the same temperature and under more or less the same growing conditions).

However, locations with cold winter climates during which no growth can occur will cause changes to the simple growth and flowering pattern. The arrival of cold weather could simply stop development and that development could continue from where it left off the next spring. On the other hand cold weather could kill scapes and then the plant would have to restart from scratch the next spring. It might also be that cold weather effects might depend on how old or large a scape is when the cold arrives.

How long it takes a fan to reach flowering/adult/mature size will always depend on the temperatures it experiences - warmer means quicker (except above optimum temperatures).

thank you very much for your answer, Maurice!
You always make it very clear to me how things work

If I understand correctly the fact that my August2015 seedlings spent the Winter in my garage (16/24 lights, temp 75F) must have been a big factor in that some of them have reached mature/adult state already

Makes me reconsider to place some of my recent seedlings in the garage the coming Winter...



Mayo

Mayo62 said:thank you very much for your answer, Maurice!
You always make it very clear to me how things work

You are very welcome.

If I understand correctly the fact that my August2015 seedlings spent the Winter in my garage (16/24 lights, temp 75F) must have been a big factor in that some of them have reached mature/adult state already

Yes.