Background history:

'Little Grapette' is a semi-evergreen diploid introduced in 1970 by Williamson.

It has earned the following AHS awards:
Award of Merit: 1977
Honorable Mention: 1974
JC: 1971
DFM: 1975
FS: 1992, 2013

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

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 'Little Grapette')

I had this one for quite a number of years it did well here with it's pretty smaller blooms, gave it to a friend to make room for a different daylily.

The first time I saw this cute little bloomer it had filled a large pot in a garden display and had almost as many blooms as leaves. I was quite impressed. some years later I acquired this flower and it has been a good and steady bloomer with nice color. It has been divided several times and now graces friends gardens too.

Little Grapette was one of the first daylilies I purchased when I went to my first daylily garden. It's one of my smallest daylilies, but has been a great little bloomer and very consistent. This summer I split part of it off and put it in my mother's memorial garden since she loves purple. I really like the green throat too. This is how it bloomed in my garden this summer.

LIttle Grapette was a very early purchase for me when I started growing daylilies. Unfortunately, within days after being planted in my garden it developed rust. Soon it was consumed with rust, and it only lasted a short time in my garden .

Little Grapette is a reliable performer in my garden. It blooms heavily and for a very long time. The blooms are always well formed and do not fade. It pairs well with bicolored daylilies such as Pandora's Box.

I agree with posts above. This was one of my first daylilies. Makes an attractive clump. Blooms well, moves well, easy to divide.

Also one of my first daylilies, I have multiple clumps of it now & have given away masses of it. I'm not fond of the small daylilies in general, & I don't find anything outstanding in the appearance of the flower on this one. I have a large garden & the small ones just don't stand out much. If you like the miniature daylilies & in the right place, this would be a great one. It blooms heavily and for a long time so I keep it in my garden.

Okay. So I am starting this post over because I closed out on the window I was working on a few days ago. Soooo frustrating!

I got a single fan of Little Grapette in 2009 for $3.00. I don't know how many fans it is now, but it is a nice sized clump happily sitting under the shade of some volunteer crape myrtles. The fans are small so it is hard to get in there and count all of them. It is registered at 12" high, but I believe my scapes gets a little taller.

Rust score for me is a 1 in my zone 6b garden. However, I noticed that the AHS score is 4.8 (shows susceptibility).

This shot shows the two-way branching and the low bud count. But what it lacks in branching and bud count, it makes up for in the number of scapes. Even the purple buds are pretty before they open.


To show the size of Little Grapette in my garden, here is a shot of it at the far right with other daylilies around it: Mister Lucky and Aztec Beauty in the forefront. Forever in Time, Red Volunteer, and Paper Butterfly in the background.


It really put on a show this year.

I purchased Little Grapette at one of the big box stores (Home Depot or Lowe's, I forget which). It was one of the first three daylilies in my garden. Since I purchased it, it has multiplied well. It's color can vary slightly, but it generally has good, consistent color and form. I like that it's eye isn't too prominent, too, it blends in well with the rest of the flower.

As far as hybridizing goes, Little Grapette is both pod and pollen fertile, but not to any noteworthy extent either way. I should note, however, that I rarely use it as a pollen parent. Since I'm somewhat new to hybridizing and don't have any blooming child plants from it yet, I haven't formulated an opinion of its offspring. I did, however, get a seedling from it (it was either "Pardon Me x Little Grapette" or "Little Grapette x Pardon Me") that appeared to not have the ability to produce chloraphyll; it grew out with white leaves and died off within a few weeks. Whether this is a random mutation possible from any combination of daylilies or whether Little Grapette may somehow be responsible for an increased likelihood of this genetic abnormality, I couldn't say.

Overall, Little Grapette is a cute little daylily. It isn't one of my top favorites and I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to anyone, but it's earning its keep in my garden well enough for now and it is one of my shorter daylilies, so I keep it to hybridize for shorties.

Rust score for me is a 1 in my zone 6b garden. However, I noticed that the AHS score is 4.8 (shows susceptibility).

I had 'Little Grapette' once but I got it from a big box store and I think it was a dud for some reason because it never flowered. That means I don't even know if it was correctly labeled so haven't commented on it in the thread.

But I just wanted to mention, Vickie, that the rust scores on NGA are not from the AHS, they were compiled by an NGA member from various studies. The "shows susceptibility" or not row is separate from the numerical rust rating and reflects the opinion only of the last person who edited that line. I would say shows susceptibility is somewhat more reliable than shows resistance in that box.

In 6b I assume you only get rust when you buy it in on new plants? In the normal course of events and generalizing, daylily rust doesn't reliably winter over in colder areas of zone 7 and should not do so in colder zones.

Thanks for the clarification on the rust scoring, Sue.

As far as the zone 6b rust, my worst rust plant this year was Seal of Approval and I got the plant in 2014 from another club member in our area, so I was surprised. The few other daylilies that had rust, I've had for several years, too. The last couple of winters have not been extremely cold long enough to kill it I guess.

I collect miniatures and "Little Grapette" is a great for a miniature collector. With it's long bloom time ,color and that it forms a clump quickly makes it one of my favorites!

I have had Little Grapette for many years and it always performs very well, with lots of bloom. I have it next to Siloam Ribbon Candy, and they bloom at the same time in my garden, and make a pretty garden picture. If you are new to daylilies, this is one that can be purchased inexpensively and it has been very dependable for me.

I put together some pictures of seedling blooms from this year. Golden Scroll x Little Grapette. As I looked them over I noticed that the eye (of Little Grapette) seems to be a strong trait, at least in this instance.

I planted LG in two different locations in the Fall of 2020. Neither one produced any bloom this summer.

Little Grapette was a bonus plant in my first order from Oakes Daylilies in 2019. It seemed to do well at first and did bloom that first year and the next two seasons. The blooms were tiny and cute. Little Grapette is the smallest daylily I've grown so far; it needs to be at the front of the bed or in a planter to be appreciated. I also liked the color. However, it never seemed to thrive, did not increase, and never put out many blooms at a time. It also was very rust-prone here. I eventually found it a new home.