Background history:

'Primal Scream' is a dormant tetraploid introduced in 1994 by Hanson-C..

It has earned the following AHS awards:
Stout Silver Medal: 2003
PC: 2013
Award of Merit: 2000
Honorable Mention: 1997
L/W: 2001

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

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Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Primal Scream')

I have joked that 'Primal Scream' got its medal for the foliage more than the bloom. Along with all but one daylily, it had its second year here. I consider it to be one of the top four plants at this point. The foliage is the best of any daylily and has looked good for the entire growing season. I keep bloom dates from beginning to end, but don't count buds. In 2014 with three stalks it had first bloom on June 07 and the last on June 25; in 2015 with four stalks it started May 31 with the last bloom on June 25. No rebloom. It has great garden presence, especially in sunlight. With the large, vivid blooms it doesn't require too many to have an effect. Like all my plants, it's in a container. In this case a really large, heavy clay container. It's not increasing as fast as others, but the foliage is so full and sturdy it still makes a full clump. Here's a photo taken from a distance showing some of the foliage characteristics with the bright bloom in sunlight.

I've had Primal Scream only since 2014 so it isn't too impressive (in my garden) YET. Give it a year or two yet and I'm sure it will be spectacular. I think bright orange daylilies just glow and draw your attention. Mine hasn't gotten a tall as the data base states (34") but the flowers are full size. Here is a picture from 2014 when I purchased it.

I have had Primal Scream for l0 years. It is not a super fast increaser because in those l0 years I have only sold 6 fans. I love the color of this flower and I never really cared for orange. It is a very hardy plant in my zone and is pollen fertile. I have never had a pod to set. Not even the bees have set a pod. It is a real standout in the garden and I will always have this one.

I love Primal Scream. That searing hot orange just glows almost florescent. It performs well in zone 6b southern Kentucky.
It is a little bit slow to increase, it will not make a pod, the pollen will work but is difficult. I have a very few seeds to try and grow this year. Not a good daylily for hybridizing for me. Perhaps others have had better luck. I will always grow it because of its unmatched color and beauty.

When I planted Primal Scream orange was not really a color that was in my garden. While PS does not increase real fast that is fine with me as I don't have to divide it very often. Meanwhile the color has won me over and now there are other orange shades in the garden. This is a daylily has been in my garden for many years and will stay.

Primal Scream is a real stand out when it is blooming, which is for most of the summer. Since I have planted PS it has increased nicely. Primal Scream is a Stout Medal winner and performs by the standards I have found.

I planted 'Primal Scream' back in April 2015, so it is really too new to make any meaningful observations. I was told that the plant would be one of the slowest to multiply out of the 20 + plants I bought at the time. It bloomed for me in late May, but still it is just two fans. It has a rust resistant rating of 2.0, and it did develop rust this fall, but I have several 1.0 rated plants that did as well. I was a little disappointed in the blooms this first year, I was hoping the blooms would be larger. But, being this is the first year, I won't hold that against it yet.
This is what it looked like in my garden this year when it bloomed:

Have grown PRIMAL SCREAM for years and years. Like most of CURT'S plants, it will stay as long as I do.

I think I have only one seedling from PS. It was not an improvement, but I've kept it just the same.

Primal Scream, absolutely love the name, the color...that bold, glowing, intense orange, form and plant. Still remember the first time I saw Primal Scream. Years ago while on a regional tour the bus pulled up to a tour garden and there it was...a huge blazing orange clump of Primal Scream. I remember thinking how striking it was growing with the dark purple perennial in the bed, to bad it was orange. At that time I had filled my garden with pinks, purples, eyed cultivars, a few near whites and yellows trying to get away from ...orange. Orange reminded me of the ditch lilies growing on the bank down front and we already had more than enough of those. The memory of seeing that clump didn't fade, thankfully my dislike for orange did and I found myself the proud owner of a double fan in 2004.
Primal Scream is one daylily I have never worried about here in zone 4. Comes up in the spring, puts on a spectacular show in July and then settles down for a winter nap. It does increase slowly, but once you see a clump of it blooming you will never forget it!
Single bloom image from July 2015

needrain said:I have joked that 'Primal Scream' got its medal for the foliage more than the bloom. Along with all but one daylily, it had its second year here. I consider it to be one of the top four plants at this point. The foliage is the best of any daylily and has looked good for the entire growing season.

needrain said:
but the foliage is so full and sturdy it still makes a full clump. Here's a photo taken from a distance showing some of the foliage characteristics with the bright bloom in sunlight.

Thank you for speaking about the foliage, that is information that I find really useful, both in general and for hybridizing. It's a shame so many people are reporting this to be unusable as a pod parent and a difficult pollen parent, but it might be worth a shot anyway considering it's foliage sounds as good as its beauty.

Primal Scream is listed as the pod parent for 11 registered daylilies. Don't know how it can be pod fertile, if it was the pod parent!

It's a new addition to my yard, having received it in a trade this year. Can't wait to see it bloom in person! It settled in very quickly, and got busy growing new foliage in no time!

Primal Scream was the first " expensive" daylily I purchased. I spent that entire first winter worrying about it surviving.

It increased slowly in the first bed I had it planted in (new raised bed with great drainage and fantastic soil) and I couple of years ago, I moved it about 50 feet south, and it has gone absolutely bezerk! This year was the best year yet I even gave half of it to. Coworker for a birthday gift early this fall.

I have set one pod on it, and have a baby that is reddish orange and glows like PS does. Haven't gotten much on statistics, yet, it is increasing slowly ( like its parent I guess) and I am just leaving it alone for now. Haven't a clue who the pollen parent is, I was just messing around and crossing e erything on it!

PS is one of my garden favorites, I too, will always try to keep this daylily around. ~ Jan

This was one I just had to have once I saw photos of it! I love its bright color!

I bought my first 2 fans in 2009. After 2 years I still had no increase so bought 2 more from another source in 2011. It has been very slow to increase but I did have enough to share a couple of fans this year. I did move one part of mine just slightly and was sure to add compost and fertilized it a few times this year with lawn food. I will see if this helps it do better. If not, I may consider moving it to another bed.

I never see me getting rid of Primal Scream!

I have not had this get it's registered height for me. It stays shorter. Blooms alot, and the color is glowing. The substance is nice and it seems to keep it through the day, not melting.
I ordered mine from Homestead Farms in MO and it settled right in, increased and bloomed the following year really nicely. I had it in full sun mostly. (some early evening shade and on)
Mauna Loa is very close in color and stands out from a distance, but it didn't always open well,parted w it. It did increase faster than PS.
I now grow Carrick Wildon and the color and substance is really similar and it gets tall and large. I love it also. Seems Primal Scream is still very much in demand and depending on where you get it can still be a little pricey or hard to find.

Primal Scream has been a mainstay in my garden for 20 years. It has a combination of form and poise that makes practically every bloom unique and interesting. The other thing which sets Primal Scream apart from the sea of orange daylilies is its finish—a smooth, wax-like substance which gives the bloom the ability to hold up throughout the day, in practically any weather. The color is not only saturated and intense, but uniform with no veining - a characteristic which I think came from Kirchhoff's Tangerine Parfait. It wouldn't surprise me to find that Ming Porcelain was involved in Tangerine Parfait's background.

Then there's that foliage. Nicely proportioned, clean and dark green, narrow, arching and deeply keeled. I think it's one of the most deserving of the Stout Medal winners in at least the past decade. Not bad, considering that Curt never really thought much of it.

Primal Scream will set a few long-lasting teaser pods, however viable seeds are few and far between, even here, where seed-set is generally easy. I'm certain that those cultivars with Primal Scream as a pod parent were hard-won. One clump is holding a late-emerging scape (I hesitate to call it rebloom) with 2 pods, but it's getting cool now and I don't know if they will have time to mature.

Ken

What can I say that hasn't already been said about Primal Scream?

I bought a double-fan in 2009 and then the following year gave a fan to a friend, so it took a setback. Still, even after 5 years since then, it doesn't seem to have increased much at all.

It is registered as a mid to late season bloomer. Here in my zone 6b garden, it usually blooms about three weeks between mid-June to early July.

This is as close as I could get to showing branching and bud count. It doesn't appear to be too high on either, but the picture could be misleading.


Even with the slow increase, it is a show-stopper and will stay in my garden!

This is one of my favourite daylilies of one of my earliest to start to grow. I have always been pleased with the large bright orange flowers and bright green foliage.

year one


year two

Beautiful photos, my camera can't capture that orange color very well

Ditto to a lot of comments on here already: PRIMAL SCREAM is a beautiful daylily that I will always have in my garden. It's totally hardy here in Zone 4. It does not increase fast, and is a very difficult pod parent. I set a dozen pods on it this year, for some reason they were taking better than normal, but all but 1 or 2 aborted. I have only a handful of seedlings out of it. One I like (below) but I can't say it's an improvement over PS. Funny this is Curt's Stout, because orange isn't his major interest - he works primarily with other colors and has come up with so many breathtaking flowers in the lav/purple/red/pink spectrum.