So, two years ago I planted Michael's Sword and Bee's Bob Baker. First blooms were sculpted cristated or "bearded" whatever but then not so much. I doubled down and got Dan Patch which bloomed beautifully just like the photos. We will see how he does next spring. I've also just added Tiki God to the mix. BTW, all were obtained from growers much farther north than Texas, my Texas.
I'm coming to the conclusion that these forms need hard dormancy, or a certain amount of chilling hours to bloom properly. I haven't been successful finding much information to confirm my suspicions.
Would love to hear about others experience growing this form of daylilies in warmer climes.

Hi Nancy,
Although I'm not from a warm climate I do grow/have grown a good number of Sculpted cristate forms. I also understand why you might reach a conclusion that cristate cultivars need a certain amount of dormancy based on your warm climate experience and the inconsistency seen in the cultivars you are growing. Do daylilies with dormant foliage habit normally grow well for you? Michael's Sword, Bee's Bob Baker and Dan Patch are registered dormant. I think there are a number of NGA members that can tell you some dormants do well for them in the south and others do not. While an individual cultivar may need a period of dormancy to perform well, an officially recognized daylily Form does not. Sculpted cristate forms have been hybridized and registered from both the north and south with evg, sev, or dor foliage habit.

The inconsistency you are seeing is likely due to one or a combination of factors.
Foliage habit - these are registered dormants that simply may not grow well in the south. Any daylily that does not grow well may not be able to perform to the hybridizers registered information.

Your plants are relatively newly planted - When hybridizers record the registration info it is usually done at clump strength. Some cultivars can take a few years to establish themselves and perform to the registration info. Moving plants north to south or south to north can also slow this process as the plants need to adjust to a different climate.

Inconsistency within the cultivar itself to produce cristate blooms - Sorry to say many of the early cristate cultivars are inconsistent in their ability to produce cristate blooms. This form was not popular with a majority of hybridizers... thought of as a fault and the resulting sdlgs tossed to the compost. With the official recognition of the Sculpted cristate form in Oct. 2010 they are slowly gaining in popularity as growers and hybridizers see their uniqueness. As hybridizers work with them the consistency to produce cristate blooms in registered and introduced cultivars has the potential to improve.

My own experience with several of the cultivars you listed....
Michael's Sword - a dormant, has been grown here, zone 4, for 7 years. The blooms have been extremely inconsistent in producing cristation, maybe 1 in 10 will be cristate. Pod fertile.
Dan Patch - dormant, new last year. The few blooms it produced this year had some blooms more heavily cristate than others. Pod fertile.
Tiki God - registered sev, closer to dormant, this one was hybridized in New Hampshire not to far from me (Paul later moved to NC) growing here since 2012. It has been very inconsistent in producing cristation but is pod and pollen fertile.

Have you tried growing Texas Feathered Fancy? TFF is a registered dormant hybridized in Texas, grows well here too. More consistent than Michael's Sword and is pod and pollen fertile.

Thank you Char for the awesome explanations and suggestions. It all makes perfect sense. I had read that MS needed to clump before it could actually bloom to its full potential, guess I'm just a bit anxious, or in denial. I also keep trying to grow peonies here. Not looking forward to it, but I guess I'll soon be trying to pawn these off to someone up north.

Well shoot, I certainly wasn't trying to discourage anyone from growing cristate forms! Personally, I think Sculpted forms are the most interesting, fun and exciting form to grow and hybridize. The seedlings continue to surprise me with what they will do. There's no reason to jump the gun and get rid of yours Nancy. Give them a chance to really settle in and then decide, if nothing else you could make some seeds As far as I know Bee's Bob Baker is pollen fertile. I haven't grown it, but either purchased or was gifted seeds of a TFF x BBB cross years ago. There are other cristate cultivars that are reliable producers of cristate blooms. As I mentioned Texas Feathered Fancy might be a good diploid to try, a 2006 intro so you should be able to find it reasonably priced. I don't grow Greetings Earthling or Emperor's Crocodile two of the newer diploid cristates, so can't comment on them. Wooster Mindcraft was new here this summer. We both will see how Dan Patch does next year. Tiki God is a tet. Of the tets I grow the most consistently cristate for me have been Cabbage Patch, Extra Effort, Lady's Corsage, Little Big Ears, Southport, System of Edges, Tarpon Back and Two Views. Some of these were hybridized in the south and may do well for you, too.

I do the same thing, try to grow plants that are not suited to grow here. Surprising some actually grow pretty good if they get through the first few years. All it will take is one bad winter though and poof they'll be gone. (I so want a palm tree.... )

I briefly had 'Texas Feathered Fancy'. It had a couple of flowers its first year (neither had sculpting although there was a hint of a raised midrib). It didn't make it through its first winter here, disappointingly. If it does well for you, Char, maybe I should try it again. Or else maybe I should actually get around to starting the seeds I got from its pollen

One thing you could do, Nancy, is look at the NGA database for pictures from different places of the cultivars in which you are interested and see how consistent the flowers are. I assume most people will post pictures of their best flowers which could skew the impression but it still might be worth a try.

I had 'Texas Feathered Fancy' here on the beach and it lasted 1 year. Needed cooler weather, maybe not Ontario or Vermont cool, though.

Sorry to hear you both lost TFF. I've seen a lot of seeds from it on the LA over the years so it appears to grow for a number of folks in different areas. I would definitely give it another try Sue and also get those seeds planted!

Thanks for the encouragement, Char! If I come across TFF again I will give it another try. I know these things can happen for no obvious reason, the first 'Cherry Cheeks' I got dwindled away to nothing - I tried it again and the second plant has been excellent and I've had it for years, so it's not always the cultivar per se. If I'd based my opinion on the first one I'd have thought it was a weak plant, but the second is far from that.

I do have 'Bee's Bettie Sue', a parent of 'Michael's Sword' and 'Bee's Bob Baker', and it has done well here so far - it has had pretty much all plain flowers though but lots of them. It's planted in the same bed that TFF was and acquired at the same time so I don't know for sure what TFF's problem was.

I've had plants die over the years that I thought looked healthy, it happens sometimes. Bee's Bettie Sue was one of the early ones, never saw the fabulous cristation it showed in the '97 DJ image. You've given me hope. It has become easier to find now and is listed sometimes on the LA. While adding a few dips to the collection I replaced it this year Received a nice healthy plant that is settling in well it decides to like it here this time. The majority of my hybridizing focus has been Sculpted tets, but I do plant 50 or so seeds a year of cristate dip crosses for fun.

Thank you everyone for all your encouragement. I've been reading the Facebook page of Brad Best Bearded Daylily Society, so much information there as well as testimonials from people in my neck of the woods.

I will endeavor to persevere.

I know some folks in that group....if anyone should be able to give you a reason why Michael's Sword is inconsistent for you it's the hybridizer.

Oh that's good news, I'm happy to hear you will persevere! Sculpted forms are full of surprises, I hope you will have fun growing them and making crosses if hybridizing is something you want to do.

The cristate forms such Bee's Bettie Sue, Texas Feathered Fancy, etc. are inconsistent because of the genetic basis of the cristation. They suffer from what is called 'variable expressivity'. That means the cristate appearance varies in each flower that is produced. It can vary from no cristation in some flowers to full cristation in others and anything in-between. It is not known what causes the variability.
The variability is part of the genetic bases for the cristation. It also results in what is called 'incomplete penetrance'. This means that some daylilies that genetically should show cristation will never show it. Incomplete penetrance may simply be the extreme version of variable expressivity. That is, a daylily that is genetically cristate may show cristation in 100% of its flowers or in any percentage down to 0% or in none of its flowers.
I have both Bee's Bettie Sue and Texas Feathered Fancy (TFF) and I am in zone 4. Both rarely show cristation in any flowers here. I have had no problem growing the first TFF I received but a second plant of TFF I received suffered spring sickness after its first winter here and did not survive its second spring as a tiny single fan (as small as a newly sprouted seedling).

Daylily dormancy and winter cold. There is no scientific evidence that dormant daylilies require winter cold. The available scientific evidence indicates that dormant daylilies, for example, Stella de Oro can grow and flower without winter cold.

It is fun to see so much interest in the bearded daylily. I have a clump of MS and this year saw 100 blooms and i would say 95% were bearded even with 25 pods.

BBS is very inconsistent, but I have 5 other bearded intros and all 5 have been 100% so far.

There seems to be a lot of variability with MS dependent upon location. I'm a stone's throw away from its birthplace so maybe that's why it does well for me and friends near by.

THIS sdlg is out of MS and will be an intro.

@DavidR

Have you made crosses of 'Michael's Sword', 'Shroud of Turin', 'Dan Patch', 'Lady Patch', and the fifth cultivar with each other?

If you have then:

Have any of those seedlings flowered?

What percentage of their flowers are not normal?

@DavidR

Sorry, I do not see a seedling photo in your post.

I have several "bearded" plants zone 3 and will see if any are sculpted cristated this year. Snow cover is.hopefully enough.

I bought some seeds of Exotic Echo x Texas Feathered Fancy this year, not too worried if they are cristate form or not as I bought them just out of interest and are my 'Wild card' seed purchase as a complete change from the single mini and small flowered dips that I generally buy!

Will be interesting to see what they are like in our climate--always assumimg that they flower and can open here of course! 🤣

Scatterbrain said:I bought some seeds of Exotic Echo x Texas Feathered Fancy this year, not too worried if they are cristate form or not

'Texas Feathered Fancy' (TFF) has not produced much in the way of crested flowers here. It does have a few petals every now and then with a little cresting. Having said that, I think that seedlings from a cross of TFF with 'Exotic Echo' have a reasonable chance of showing some cresting (in locations and environments where cresting appears at a reasonable frequency on cultivars such as TFF).

Thanks Maurice,

Don't know if anyone in Britain has tried growing cristate forms so I have no idea if they will have any cristation or not! I suspect not as varieties that are double in most climates are singles here, (very few doubles are doubles) and we tend not to get teeth or frills here either so I suspect 'cristate ' ones will be just regular flowered here too.

@admmad

I grow Texas Feathered Fancy in zone 7b and it's shown bearding in 100% of the blooms. Sometimes it's more pronounced than others, but it's always there. I've had it probably 3, going on 4 yrs. now. I just planted some seeds and if they don't succumb to damping off like a bunch of other crosses have (Grrrr) I hope to get something worth keeping and working with.

Here's a couple pics of it. I would have used it more last year but we had so much rain during bloom season that a lot of would-be crosses never happened.