Background history:

'Madge Cayse' is a dormant diploid introduced in 1991by Enman Joiner.

For more information about this hybridizer, Char created a thread about Enman Joiner:
The thread "ATP Series: The Daylilies of Enman R. Joiner, Sr." in Daylilies forum

More information can be found on the Joiner Daylily Gardens website:
http://www.joinerdaylilygarden...

Madge Cayse is a mid-season to late extended bloomer with possible rebloom. It has earned the following AHS awards: Award of Merit: 1999 and Honorable Mention: 1994. It is pod and pollen fertile with currently 6 registered children: http://garden.org/plants/paren...

This plant can be found in the NGA Plant Database at:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Madge Cayse') .

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.





Also, please consider adding a "Local Report" to the NGA Plant Database! Thank you!

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Madge Cayse')

A lovely double daylily with the nicest apricot color, I always look forward to its blooms every year. The only negative about MC is that it is a very slow grower and its scape has too few buds. There are only 3 fans this year eventhough I have had it for 3 years now. Would love to know how it performs for others who grow it.

'Madge Cayse' is a very reliable double bloomer here; I have almost never had single or partially double blooms, and the few times that it happened, it was with only the first few blooms of the season.

The plant begins bloom here in late June; this year it bloomed from June 25th through July 18th (which is our ML season). This short period of bloom is due to the relatively low bud count, something that I agree with @kousa about. While less than a month of bloom is not ideal, I have to balance that against the time of year of the bloom; at this point in the season we are well off of our peak bloom, many daylilies have not yet begun their rebloom, so the bloom and color of 'Madge Cayse' is welcome.

In addition to the relatively low bud count, at least for me, the scapes tend to be top-branched. I have never had it rebloom for me (but then, it is in a part of a raised bed where it gets a lot of shade, and it is lucky to get fertilized once per year). These issues, and the relative shortness of the scapes (24" for me is short; I prefer my daylilies taller, which is why this one is planted in a 22" high bed), are the big drawbacks of the plant for me. (I suppose another drawback is that sometimes the sepals show some green, and sometimes, for no apparent reason (thrips?), I have some buds drop.)

All of that said, the blooms are really lovely and generally open well here. I don't recall ever seeing rust on the plant (which of course is no guarantee of resistance and my memory could be faulty, but I have had it for decades now). These and its season of bloom are reasons enough for me to keep the plant despite its drawbacks, and even though I mostly "do" (or am trying to do) tetraploids these days. (At present it is one of only three double daylilies in my garden, out of (roughly) 150 registered cultivars, only 32 or so of which are diploids.)

If you want a really nice and reliably double daylily at a time of season when other daylilies may not be blooming (or are winding down), and the relatively short scapes and low bud count (and possible lack of rebloom) are not issues for you, then go for it.

Polymerous - I gave you 2 acorns due to the extensive evaluation you posted. Very informative!

I received this daylily early this spring and thought it did quite well. It bloomed better than I would have expected considering spring planting, every bloom was double & lovely. Not a lot of blooms, I wasn't expecting that though. Not a tall one, but I'm ok with that as long as the blooms are out of the foliage, & this was.

Most has been said. As you can see in the first picture, there are a few buds that are dropping. However, the actual bud count is better than that of some Southern hybrids here. Slow grower and not a lot of scapes. But ravishing.

It seems from all the comments above that Madge Cayse is consistent everywhere. Here in Oklahoma it withstood our blast furnace summers and bloomed late in the season. It had no rust the one year I had rust, so perhaps it has better resistance then many. The blooms were a soft cantaloupe color and always double. It was on the short side and did well in a container. It wasn't an overly vigorous grower, but if you choose to grow in containers as I do, that's not a bad thing. I lost it during that dreadful below zero winter (remember it was in a small pot) and have missed it......Maryl

I have been having trouble growing Madge Cayse. And I have been trying because I love the color and the double flowers. I also like its small size.

I was given a small division of Madge Cayse during late spring of 2013. It almost died the first summer. After its near death experience, I dug it up and put it in a pot with other plants (maybe it is a social creature & needs others of its kind?) on my back stoop where I could keep an eye on it. During the winter months, I knocked it out of its pot & planted it in a finished compost pile.
Ditto summer 2014, 2015,2016.

While it looks quite healthy now, it has proved to be a v-e-r-y slow grower. It has yet to bloom! I personally think it is a very lucky plant that it has stumbled upon a very patient gardener.