Background history:

'Walter Kennedy' is a evergreen tetraploid introduced in 2008 by Patrick Stamile. See Patrick and Grace's website for information about the daylilies they grow in Arroyo Grande, CA: http://www.distinctly.on.ca/st...

For more information about Grace (and Pat), read Char's thread:
The thread "ATP Series: The Daylilies of Patrick and Grace Stamile" in Daylilies forum

Walter Kennedy is a mid-season bloomer with possible re-bloom. It has earned the following AHS awards: Award of Merit: 2016 and Honorable Mention: 2013. It is listed as pod and pollen fertile with currently 4 registered children: http://garden.org/plants/paren...

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

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.





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Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Walter Kennedy')

It barely survives here in zone 6.It is pretty when it does bloom.

It did not survive the first winter in my zone 3 garden. It was so pretty and I really loved it so my daughter bought me another one this summer. So it gets another chance here and if it doesn't make it I won't try again.

Susie - I hope your new plant makes it over the Winter.

I love this cultivar! It is my most favorite red bloomer. I obtained it this Fall. I received a bogo of this plant for a total of 4 fans. It started sending up two scapes shortly after I received it and is still blooming. It is an EMO even on cool mornings. This photo was taken early morning when the temps were in the upper 40's. I was amazed that the blooms opened up so beautifully despite the chilly temps. And because of the lower temps that entire day, these 2 blooms were still open and rather pretty the following morning. They finally began wilting around noon on the second day.

As far as stats, it is below stats since it is a newly planted cultivar in my yard. But the number of blooms (even below stats) has me impressed! I hope it multiplies and makes a nice clump in 2017! I also hope to use it in my hybridizing efforts in 2017.

It is hard to capture the deep red color in photos. Most of my photos show it with more pinkish color instead of the true red colored blooms. It is a keeper in my garden and a wonderful intro from Patrick Stamile! I love, love, love Walter Kennedy daylily!

This one was a gift plant which I planted it did not survive it's first winter here in Minnesota. Will not retry this daylily here in the far north.

I also have experienced failure with Walter Kennedy, but I planted more this last summer. It has good genetics and I want to tap into those.

I've had it 3 years now and we've had good snow cover and it's still going. I mulch it really well and it is not growing in leaps and bounds but it is pretty enough the few flowers I get are enough that at long as it keeps going it's a keeper.

Nan sent this up to me as a rescue. The fans were so tiny, I was sure it wouldn't make it but it still had two fans, looking bigger and more healthy by October…we'll see!

I am very glad to read @Zoia's post above. As you may guess, Walter Kennedy did not do well for me here in zone 8b. I bought two plants in the spring 2021 and started out with eight fans, which I planted in a clump in a good spot in a new bed. Since then the plant rapidly dwindled and developed rust. It never bloomed. I potted it up, hoping to baby it along, but it continued to dwindle. By the time I sent it to Zoia in September of 2022, hoping to give it a chance, there was only one fan left (according to my notes), and it was tiny. I was really disappointed with Walter Kennedy, but it seems to be one of those plants that prefers a different climate. I see from the reviews above that it also struggled in very cold zones, so maybe Massachusetts is the sweet spot. I hope so.

This picture was taken in February of 2022 when there were four fans left.