Frillylily said:are these gall midges the same thing as thrip or different?

No, they're a different kind of insect and I would say a worse problem than thrips but not yet as common in North America. You can read more, and see pictures of the damage, in the AHS Daylily Dictionary:

http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_d...

I have a friend in Kent, SE England, who grows hundreds of daylilies to sell. She has had terrible problems with gall midge and keeps Outrageous as a trap plant. This year she is going to cut off all scapes except one from each plant which she will 'bag' in the hope of breaking the cycle. My garden is small (though I have squeezed in over 150 daylilies in my mixed borders) so I would rather keep plants that are not affected.

I will get rid of Outrageous, Edge of Darkness and Cosmic Hummingbird which have never bloomed properly unless they surprise me. I potted them last year to see if it would help (and I mulched the pots with stone chippings) so fingers crossed. I have put in mid-late season varieties instead.

I have just returned from a week away from home, but I am going to post a list of around twenty plants on my "Garden Daylily" list on my blog. So fell free to check it out, I would appreciate any feedback on any of the plants...good or bad! I was surprised to find most of them available at some really nice prices, none of them are expensive...just as you would expect a "Garden Daylily" to be.
They are normally the tried and proven ones.

Halfprice said:This year she is going to cut off all scapes except one from each plant which she will 'bag' in the hope of breaking the cycle.......

I potted them last year to see if it would help (and I mulched the pots with stone chippings) so fingers crossed.

Cutting off all the scapes for one season should, at least in theory, get rid of the midges from that particular garden unless someone close next door has them. But when I've suggested this to people in the past they were never too keen on the idea of not having daylily flowers for a whole season. Understandable, I guess. Interesting idea about the bags. If they are mesh bags then the female midges might still be able to deposit their eggs through it if it touches the buds anywhere, but then the bag should also catch the larvae as they try to get to the ground to overwinter.

Do please let us know what happens with the mulched ones in pots. I'd imagine that would work better if the pots had a fair bit of space between them. Are they far from the daylilies in the garden so that the flying adults from there aren't as likely to find them? I remember hearing about someone in the UK trying this but I'd have to look back through my correspondence to remind myself what the result was.

I will let you know what happens this year Sue. My pots are as far away as I can get in my little patch, I have seedlings in an area about 50 yards from my garden (a neighbour kindly shared her 'allotment' with me and my seedlings share the space with peas & runner beans which is all the veg I grow at the moment).

There's another G in there - Generous neighbour!