I had 'American Freedom' at one time, many years ago, but eventually the deer (or drought, or something) did for it.
I very recently reacquired it late last season. It put up one bloom scape which was not tall (similar to your experience, Barb), which had a very few flowers.
Now the funny thing is that I have forgotten now exactly why I re-purchased this plant. I
think it may have been because I was looking at some images of some old seedlings (no longer here) which I had from it, and was considering its use in a cross with some other daylilies (though dang if I can remember which, and to what end). Here are images of two of the old-and-no-longer-here seedlings, so you can maybe see why my interest was stirred again:
As I recall, I really liked the flowers on those seedlings (well, except that they tended to splotch
), but the scapes were short (and I despise short scapes). Whether either of those had to do with 'American Freedom' (the short scapes were probably not from the other parent), or whether the scape height had to do with the poor conditions in that raised bed, I don't know. (The seedlings also did not rebloom, but again...) What I
should have done was kept the seedlings, upgraded their living conditions, and crossed them to something taller...
Now I will have to think about what crosses, if any, I will want to make with this plant this season, now that I have it again.
(I confess that I
did auto-make one cross on it last season (with a mate that I was using in most of my crosses), and got iirc all of one seed. I guess I will need to see what happened with that seed...)