Yep, you're working now. Don't worry about the garden not looking pretty at this time of year. I think everyone's look bare and empty until they get some warm weather . I sure hope all those tags are under there, and the missing ones will give you something to do trying to ID all those plants. I'll bet when the weather warms up and the daylilies start blooming it will be absolutely beautiful.

Wow, you have some pretty flowers that will be filling that garden soon!

Billie, good to see you back. You had us scared for awhile. oooooooooooooo
oooooooo

I know this is an old thread, but it came up when I was searching for something else, and I thought it was an interesting topic, so I read it through.

I was also puzzled as to what folks on the forum meant when they referred to a good "garden" daylily, but after reading here and participating for awhile, I absorbed a definition the way one does. To me a good garden daylily is one that has great growing habits: it's attractive, hardy, floriferous, unfussy, long-blooming, and clumps up quickly. Personally I would add "rust-resistant" to that list because where I live, that is a major factor in whether I enjoy a plant in my garden or not. So far, off the top of my head, good garden plants for me include Bitsy, Insider Trading, Going Bananas, Orange Velvet, Victorian Princess, Lemon Vista, Substantial Substance, Whatchamacallit, Chicago Apache, Caught Red-Handed, Reindeer Antlers, Cosmopolitan, Butterscotch Ruffles, Desert Flame, Dynamite Returns, Monica Marie, Frankly Scarlet, South Seas, Lullaby Baby, Novelty Number, Take Me Along, Willow Dean Smith. I am sure I will have more to add to this list after this season!

What a great thread to reboot, Nan!
Last year I kept a seedling as a "garden daylily". To me, it was plain but pretty. It had 10 fans, 4-5 made scapes, and was less than a year old post-germination! The scapes made many flowers through different weather conditions.

So, from a landscaping point of view it was a good garden daylily. Just there as a hard worker to fill a hole in my flowerbed to add a splash of color. Plopped it in a shady spot other daylilies have failed in.

But I had never considered what the words actually meant until you booted this thread to the top.
I will post a photo of it here just for reference:

I am also glad Nan rebooted this thread and I also read all the way through it. Like at least one of the members, all my daylilies are "garden" daylilies as I do no hybridizing. It was helpful to read everyone else's definitions and descriptions of what he or she looks for in a daylily. I've always opted for what attracts me in the moment - color, shape of the bloom - without much consideration given to strength of the scapes, longevity of bloom, height, hardiness, etc. Participating in these forums is educational and I now appreciate other characteristics of daylilies as well. I've begun to look for the same things as Larry and Nan; I want my gardens to be beautiful as well as interesting. I mix other plants with the daylilies; I hope to eventually reach a sort of "cottage" garden appearance, with the idea that the more plants, the fewer weeds.

Orion, that is a beautiful seedling!!

yes, orion--lovely seedling, and it sounds like a great garden daylily!

Thanks, it's OK
But I wanted stripes. I am learning to be tougher with rejects that are not part of the master plan. We will see how well it does in the new position for now.

Donna, I'm not hybridizing either so everything is a garden Daylily.

I love my mixed gardens but having "cottage garden" style with the Daylilies can be problematic. I spent a good chunk of time liberating Daylilies from overrun Perrenials that were squeezing them out of existence. So far, I've kept the new beds strictly Daylilies although I think aim going to add some long lasting geranium like Rozanne around. Rozanne blooms all season, into the Fall and makes a great backdrop for Daylilies. The bunnies don't seem interested in it either, a big factor in my yard

Zoia, I'm unfamiliar with that geranium; it's very pretty. I'm not planning on a "full-on cottage garden"; I know what that's like (been there, done that). The new bed is going to be mostly daylilies and enough perennials mixed in to provide other colors, heights, backdrop, etc. I have no doubt it will be work to keep it from becoming too crowded; at the moment there is a lot of space though I'm sure it will fill up quickly. My "old" daylily bed is going to become irises, and other fairly deer-resistant perennials - no more "deer salad". There are some daylilies which will stay in that area, though most of them are moving to the new bed.

I wonder if somehow this conversation was rooted in garden judges' training, where the importance of selecting plants based on the entire plant is emphasized. I can still recall my first experience walking through Iron Gate Gardens with our new daylily club's only garden judge at the time. As a relatively new AHS and club member, I'd only bought plants based on pretty pictures and what I figured were good bets back then ( AHS award winners) This was in the 1990's and I was enamored at the time with a Kate Carpenter cultivar called Sue Rothbauer. I knew Iron Gate carried it, and I was determined to purchase it. So as my mentor, the garden judge, looked at it with me, he explained that judges were taught to look at all aspects of the plant. he pointed out that while this had a beautiful large pink bloom, it had very short scapes, often bloomed low in the foliage, and that judges were taught that this was an undesirable trait. I was so intimidated that I didn't buy it then. ( but later ordered it and realized after just a couple years that this trait DID really bother me and I got rid of it. ) To this day, plants with huge blooms and really short scapes look out of proportion to me! Also took garden judges training and then became an instructor, and in the many years since then, have gotten rid of many daylilies that just weren't good garden plants. Some had terrible foliage that after awhile looked so distracting that it didn't make up for a pretty bloom. and so on……

Also, people rave about "bud count, " but I've found that bud placement is more important to me. What good is 30+ buds on a scape if they're placed so that blooms aren't able to open properly. This was illustrated to me with one of Steve Moldovan's big award winners, Vatican City. People talked about the great bud count but I started noticing how half the open blooms on a given day weren't open properly because they were obstructed by or hitting others. This old pic shows it a little bit. I've seen it much worse.
Vatican City

Well, on April 4 and 5, I'm taking the AHS garden and exhibition judge training courses part 1. I know for a fact that many of my older Daylilies don't make the cut and am expecting to be dumping them into the front of my yard over the next several years. Still, I enjoy many of them, despite their inferior characteristics.

Julie, I agree about the scape height to bloom size ratio when it applies to a large bloom on a short scape. But for some reason, a small bloom on a tall scape (like 'Ancient Elf' at 56" and a 4" bloom) doesn't bother me.

'Handsome Ross Carter' is registered at 14" tall with a 6" bloom and as pretty as the bloom was, I did not like it at all. My daughter loved it, so she took it. Oddly enough, it gets taller for her and it really looks nice in her flower bed.

I have a few like that: large blooms on short scapes. Joylene Nichole springs to mind. Pumpkin Kid was like that too when I had it. I like them anyway but probably would prefer to have them a little taller.

Very informative , Julie--thanks!

I don't mind Jolyene Nichole's short scapes. She shows up beautifully in the front of my flower bed.

Julie, thanks for the information. After reading I decided it was time I joined AHS. Wish there was a DL club in my area, closest is two hours away so far as I know.

One I particularly remember is Golden Hibiscus. I first saw it at an AHS Convention, maybe the first one I attended, Charlotte, NC, in 2003. It won a convention award because it was spectacular. No one had ever heard of it before. The hybridizer was from AL, and hadn't introduced many ( or any) others. So I bought it, loved the intense color, but eventually gave it up. It was registered with 14" scapes and ( I'm not looking, going only on memory, which may not be accurate. Luckily, scapes grew about 17-18" here, but blooms were large, close to 6", so they looked somewhat out of proportion. Still, a beautiful bloom.
Golden Hibiscus:

Another that I kept for longer than I should was Pat Stamile's Shimmering Elegance. It had the most beautiful pink blooms, but absolutely awful, sucky foliage, no matter what you did to remedy it. I've read and heard several comments that some plants in Pats " pink line" ( he had a lot) had bad foliage , a genetic problem going all the way back to Fairy Tale Pink, which I grew many years ago. the foliage on that one was bad, to the point that it always went summer dormant here.
Shimmering Elegance - beautiful bloom, awful foliage

I know Stuart Kendig has mentioned that whites often have poor foliage issues. In our quest for whiter dayliies and breeding white in some of the newer forms, we have to be cognizant that ultimately we want good garden plants, not just pretty faces.

As to the general issue of good garden plants, there are no rating systems for that although garden judges are supposed to note it.

Unfortunately, when we look at sites that sell plants, we see only the beautiful face - at its photogenic best - and rarely see what it looks like in a clump. We don't see the flower when it hangs on opening, when it doesn't double and the single flower looks kind of blah, or when there are so many buds open they crush each other and make deadheading a headache.

We never get a look at the plant when it is out of bloom unless we see it in someone's garden. Daylilies can start looking kind of ratty after bloom season when the old foliage dries out and turns brown. That look can turn off folks who may be contemplating starting a daylily garden.

@2Dogsmother, Donna, You won't be disappointed in joining the AHS! One of the benefits of being an AHS member is The Daylily Journal. Once you are a member, you can log into the website and access all of the Journals that were published all the way back to 1946. Great winter reading.

I miss my daylily clubs, both of which folded several years ago. The closest one is an hour away.

Plus, technically joining the ADS is free.
Sure, costs $25. But you get a $25 coupon for daylilies.

Which, I never used but that's just me. I am taking the two free classes though and I know that's pretty valuable. It would be interesting to get certified as a judge! Let's see how level 1 goes.

My Daylily club is also an hour away, but for me that's just business as usual. Everything I do is an hour away. Good thing I bought a Prius!