Background history:

'Startle' is a dormant tetraploid introduced in 1988 by Belden.

It has earned the following AHS awards:
Honorable Mention: 1999

This plant can be found in the ATP Plant Database at:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Startle') .

Please join in, if you own this plant! We would love to know more! I award an acorn for performance information posted to this thread.



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Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Startle')

I was given Startle by a cousin two years ago. I was told by the cousin that its blooms never looked like the picture. It has not increased for me and no, the bloom doesn't have the ruffles as intense as the pictures. The coloring is okay except the intensity of coloring of the ruffles.

I like Startle but don't love it as a garden plant. Has good years and not so good years on bloom- tends to blotch for me. I keep Startle because it is the genetic base for so many great cultivars. It has 58 registered children!

Sea dragon , one I love and grow, has startle as a maternal grandfather


Dragon hunter (one I would love to have) has a double dose of Startle in its genetics
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Dragon Hunter')

Like Lisa said, Startle has good years and bad years of bloom. The good years are very nice and I have had numerous scapes have flowers open at the same time, making for a lovely clump. The first 2 years that I had this plant it would not set pods and its pollen didn't seem to work either. As it matured, it became easier to set pods on. It is a very hardy plant in our cold winters and I definitely plan to keep it. I didn't happen to get bud count on it this year. It is not a super fast increaser in my zone.

I owned this one very briefly. It's blooms were very unattractive. It was then that someone, do not remember who, told me that Startle is a great plant for breeding but is not a good garden plant. Since I never had an interest in hybridizing I got rid of it.

This was Startle's ' first year for growing in Maine. It was a transplant from Massachusetts.
It was very prolific with flowers but disappointing for flower structure. I am more then willing to give it more time to show it's stuff.

It will get better, give it some time. Some cultivars can take 3 years to settle in.

I had it and it died. I got another one from a friend and it is doing much better. I had 30 blooms this year. So slow grower but I think that the flowers are quite dynamic. I am sure glad my friend gave it to me.

This is my Startle.


I have had this for 9 years now. It has heavy substance but is slow to increase. My biggest complaint is how blotchy it's blooms are. This picture is not the average. It does not put on a good show. This is my last year to keep this. I kept thinking every year would be better but 9 is enough.

I very seldom get blotchy blooms on Startle. Blotchy blooms can be the result of having thripes.

Startle was a slow starter for me but every year has been a little better. I agree with Cindy that it has some years that are better than others. Some years the edges are a lot more toothy than others and the color is more intense. For me, in zone 3, it is a late bloomer and sometimes it is still blooming when we have a hard frost so doesn't have time here to get seed ripe. It does get blotchy when we have very cool mornings and heavy dew as do many of my daylilies.
More teeth year.


Blotchy from heavy dew.



This year.