Just curious on some input as to how many seasons before you should really expect a cultivar to be growing/preforming, blooming at it best or close? I mean I know since most of my daylilies have just been planted this season any blooms I get are actually a bonus, I get that. But a couple years down the line, 5 years 10? I am really trying to learn how to look at the plants right and learn how to judge them some. How to achieve some of the beautiful looking plants like I see posted in so many threads here on ATP. Does that make any sense, lol? Thanks for any input!!

I'm sure that someone in your area/zone will chime in but I have found that plants really need at least 2 seasons here to see the true look. The first season blooms may be good and look the way they should but they really amaze me the second bloom season. Now in your area it may take a little longer but I don't know. But if you have to wait 5 years or 10 years for a plant to perform at it's best then I wouldn't have it.

That's about right Michele, with the exception being plants added in the fall. Those may take an additional year - so really the second bloom season.

My own twist to add is that if you have different areas it may be that what doesn't perform well in one area may just zing in another. I'm glad I planted Darker Shade in my deep-shade garden its first year ... gorgeous blooms that literally took my breath away. But, then I brought it to a partial-shade to full-sun area ... less lovely. Color, size, everything ... such a difference. So, for display-only purposes, if something doesn't grab you in one flower bed, maybe try another?

Yes Michele, I was hoping it would not really be that long. Just getting my point across, lol. I guess with seedlings it probably feels like 5 years. Thanks for the info!!

Chalyse makes a good point; where you put a daylily can affect its behavior, and sometimes moving a daylily will be to the detriment of its performance.

An example from my own garden...

A few years ago I found a seedling in my (raised) seedling bed which had about 25% poly buds on it. (* points to forum name, and avatar - that is the seedling *)

I dug it out of the bed (which had good irrigation and a fair amount of sun, but which was being given over to veggies) and potted it, and put it into a part shade situation.

The next year it produced a (very) few poly blooms, but not at 25%. It hasn't bloomed polymerous since then , which would ordinarily lead me to believe that it was just a fluke, just one of those plants that likes to opportunistically produce polymerous blooms when the conditions are just right. (I suspect that a high degree of soil moisture is at least one such condition affecting polymerous percentage in daylilies, though perhaps and even probably not the only one, besides whatever predisposing genes.)

In the sunnier bed with irrigation 25% poly;
In the shadier (but hotter root zone) pot with irregular water 0% poly...
Hmm.

I am going to have to find a spot where I can squeeze it into the ground in a part of the sunnier, irrigated ornamental garden, and see if that might restore some degree of polymerous behavior. (Fwiw, over the years about 95% of the pods on that seedling, all from 3x3 blooms and while the plant was in the pot, are 4 chambered. My belief is therefore that there is something genetic going on with that plant, but we (or at least, I) don't know enough about polymerous daylilys to know what.)

Would love to hear what you find if you get the chance to move it back into sunnier conditions. I have noticed things going both ways too, and was getting curious about one (Tooth) that is doing better on all points in a sunnier spot than its unimpressive performance last year in shade. And, it is surprising me with polys in the sun! A very interesting idea, and so far, the only polys I've gotten (on a number of cultivars) have been in the sunny beds. Hmm.

Wow! Very interesting information. I do have a partially shady spot that I can use if necessary. Will have to keep that in mind.

Chalyse, thanks for mentioning your poly performance in the sun; I am now inspired to make sure I move that one seedling (and also maybe some registered "polymerous" cultivars which aren't living up to their hype).

Sun is one of the things that I suspect might be a factor in poly percentage, though I do think water is very important. (Several years ago we had a fall and winter with very heavy rains and 100-year flooding in N. CA, and although we were nowhere near the flood zones, there was so much rain that parts of our yard were standing puddles or else sheer mud. That following bloom season there were poly blooms everywhere, including on daylilies that I had not seen poly blooms on either before or since.)

I have had 'Burmese Buddha' for many years, and it performed ~ 50% (if memory serves) polymerous at the old house, where although it had some shade, it overall got more sun than it does now. Here the poly % is much much lower. (The amount of water it gets might be lower too; that is hard to quantify.)

edited to thank Chalyse for inspiration

I'm the one to thank you - you've pointed out something that takes a lot of thought and observation to notice. I have been much better at watering so far this summer, so the combination of sun/extra water also adds up here. I also have seeds from a cultivar that poly'd all season last year in sun, while this year in shade has produced no polys. But, I never saw the possible pattern to it until you pointed it out! I will also make sure to re-arrange a few - like sending that last one back into sun with good watering - and follow up on what happens, though it may take another season to do so. Well worth finding out if background poly genetics may have some interaction with sun and level of hydration!