I think the only diploid that reblooms reliably for me is Big Snowbird. Are there other reblooming diploids out there?

OK, I just found out that Indian Giver and Heavenly Angel Ice also rebloom. But my plants are too new in my garden (planted last year) so I did not see any rebloom. Just wondering if others had witnessed reblooms with these 2 daylilies in their gardens?

Indian Giver reblooms some years here, Going Bananas reblooms, and actually rebloomed two times last year, though only 2 scapes the last time.

Gale

Lillian's Vapor Trail and Galaxy Explosion have both rebloomed here for two consecutive years.

Galaxy Explosion and Pastel Classic have both rebloomed for me.
Forgot Indian Giver, Xia Xiang and Thomas Lee. Thomas Lee reblooms consistently every year.

Heavenly Angel Ice will likely rebloom for you. I bought mine last year during it's rebloom period and it was my latest blooming daylily.


I got rebloom out of Penny's Worth (mini yellow)...


instant rebloom out of my Olallie Keith Stone's Sunset (that one will be hard for you to get your hands on though, unfortunately)...


and Thanks Two Friends (purple double).


I also had Lake's Swan Dance try to re-bloom...

but it was so late in the season that the frost killed it just a few days before it would have bloomed. I tried saving it by putting a Zip-loc bag over the buds at night to stave off the frost, but the baggy blew away one night and the scape had broken off/blown away. (We get high winds here at times.) It was disappointing and I felt guilty that my plastic bag was floating around somewhere, but live and learn, I suppose. On Lake's Swan Dance, you'll probably get much luckier with the rebloom in your yard if you have it somewhere where it can have full sun even in the fall. My house shades that area as summer moves into fall, so the scape and buds took a lot longer than normal to form, which is likely what delayed the bloom long enough for the frost to get it.

I think that was all of the diploid rebloomers in my yard last year, but since all of my daylilies were transplanted last year, it's tough to say whether or not I have others that just didn't do it because they were moved around.

Stella's Ruffled Fingers reblooms reliably here. It's a petite one though!

To get rebloom from a daylily one needs to supply that daylily with growing conditions that support strong growth. I have found that I can have a diploid daylily growing in average garden conditions and it never reblooms (not once in 10 years). And then I start to give it fertilizer (high nitrogen number) in liquid form (so it is also watered), keep it weed-free and once it has put on a substantial amount of good growth (about a year's worth) it will rebloom. I am in zone 4. If I stop giving it good growing conditions rebloom will dwindle and then disappear. Every plant I have tried this with (diploid & tetraploid) has rebloomed. I expect that there will be some that do not but information from both California and Florida even from the 1940s indicates that probably all daylilies can rebloom given the appropriate growing conditions and a long growing season is not by any means always needed but good growing conditions that foster strong growth (that do not limit the plant's ability to grow) are needed usually.

Maurice, I think you're probably right. I imagine that might be the difference between what someone calls a 'rebloomer' and a non-rebloomer is probably the touchiness of the plant. Some probably do better with competition that others, or they may make slightly better use of their growing conditions, or they might process nutrients slightly more efficiently than the daylily next to it...hard to say. Either way, I noticed that in my garden, plants in similar growing conditions (i.e. in the same garden bed) performed differently.

My 'Thanks Two Friends' is right next to several other daylilies that did not rebloom--in fact, it was right next to my 'Jungle Beauty' which suffered and ended up losing half its buds/branches, yet 'Thanks Two Friends' had instant rebloom and flourished.


@kousa , you may also be interested in blooms that are bud builders, of which I had atleast two this year:



...not truly rebloomers, of course, but since they are bud-builders, it's not too unlike having a plant with instant rebloom...sort of.

Interesting information, Maurice!!! When I lived in Michigan, I noticed that I was getting better increase and plant performance after I started irrigating with lots of warm water from the lake. I don't think you can overwater daylilies!! So it makes sense to give daylilies what they need if you want to optimize their performance!!!

all for your lists and inputs. I have also heard that Stella Ruffled Fingers has very good rebloom. I have to look into all the other ones listed. This is so exciting! I think 90% of my daylilies do not rebloom.

Maurice, that is very interesting! I did not know that growing conditions can affect the reblooms of daylilies. I have always thought that it is mostly genes that is responsible for rebloom. I have about 40 diploids growing around my garden. I will fertilize them next year after the initial bloom to see if that will help their rebloom.

Good growing conditions always maximize performance of any plant. There still could be a genetic component to rebloom. I would suspect a dosage effect at play in the trait. Combine that with good growing conditions and the one with the propensity for giving rebloom is going to do it better and more often than others given the same growing conditions.

I agree with Maurice. Nearly 100% of my daylilies rebloom. Give them lots of water and urea and no weeds.

Wow, this is incredible! Oh how wrong of me to assume that daylilies bloom only once and that rebloom is due to its genetic makeup. I had no idea how much growing conditions affect their rebloom! Thank you very much. I am so glad that I ask about this.

needrain said: There still could be a genetic component to rebloom. I would suspect a dosage effect at play in the trait.

I would agree, as long as there were daylily species that did not have the genetic ability to rebloom in the original mix from which modern cultivars have been derived. My search of the information available for those original plants suggests that probably all the species used had the genetic ability to rebloom.

What may vary is the time between rebloom scapes on the same single fan crown. That may depend on the size of the flowers, the number of buds, the height of the scape related to the number of leaves (their length and width), etc. In other words, how much resource is required for the rebloom and the capability to produce the necessary amount of resource. Water, nitrogen, fertilizer, lack of competition from weeds and reduced competition from other fans of the same cultivar (reduced self-competition) all may have an effect.

admmad said:
I would agree, as long as there were daylily species that did not have the genetic ability to rebloom in the original mix from which modern cultivars have been derived. My search of the information available for those original plants suggests that probably all the species used had the genetic ability to rebloom.

What may vary is the time between rebloom scapes on the same single fan crown. That may depend on the size of the flowers, the number of buds, the height of the scape related to the number of leaves (their length and width). In other words, how much resource is required for the rebloom and the capability to produce the necessary amount of resource. Water, nitrogen, fertilizer, lack of competition from weeds and reduced competition from other fans of the same cultivar (reduced self-competition) all may have an effect.

I agree there are lots of factors that come into play with a reblooming plant. I think any or all of the things covered in your post could affect it. But I would still guess there is a genetic component to plants that reliably bloom for a lot of people rather than just sporadic expression of the trait. Aren't there hybridizers selecting seedlings based on the ability and inclination to rebloom? I would suspect that in a large number of siblings all grown under the same conditions, there are those selected because they are more reliable about reblooming than other siblings. I would guess this has been going on for multiple generations, thus enhancing the likelihood of seeing rebloom. That would indicate a genetic component to me. What genes are working would be the big question. It might have to do with genes able to more efficiently utilize the conditions they are given in which to grow and not be directly part of the bloom process. I guess a lot about this sort of thing, and it just guessing and speculation on my part.

There are literally thousands of diploids that rebloom.

Do you know of any that has reliable instant or extended rebloom, Debra? I have about 40 diploids but only one reliably reblooms year after year. I do not fertilize my daylilies so I suppose some of them could not rebloom due to perhaps lack of soil nutrients.

I agree there are lots of factors that come into play with a reblooming plant. I think any or all of the things covered in your post could affect it. But I would still guess there is a genetic component to plants that reliably bloom for a lot of people rather than just sporadic expression of the trait

Let me take another crack at this and come from a different angle.

There are perennial plant species that cannot rebloom in the same growing season. Usually that means that there is something required for those species to flower that simply does not repeat in the same growing season. So some species must experience a certain period of cold before they can flower. Other species must experience a certain length of night or darkness before they can flower.

Some perennial species can rebloom in the same growing season because they have no particularly special requirements or signals that they must experience to flower. Daylilies are one of those species. They do not need to experience a cold period to flower nor do they need to experience a certain length of night to flower. They will flower once they get to a certain size and then they will repeatedly flower when they produce the necessary increase in growth. In that manner they are like the more tropical perennials - tomato plants and petunias.

In a plant species that can only flower once it has experienced a cold period there is likely to be one or more specific genes that when mutated cause that plant to no longer need to experience a cold period to flower. The mutant plants will flower whenever they reach the appropriate size and then rebloom when they grow the necessary increment in size.

In a plant species that can only flower after it has experienced a certain length of night or darkness there is likely to be one or more specific genes that when mutated cause that plant to no longer need to experience that period of darkness. The mutant plants will flower whenever they reach the appropriate size and then rebloom when they grow the necessary increment.

In both those types of species, once reblooming varieties have appeared, we can reasonably write about genes for reblooming. Those would be the genes that need to be changed to allow the plant to be able to rebloom in the same growing season. That is not the case for daylilies as they do not need to experience any special signals to be able to flower.

That does not mean that there are no genetic differences between daylilies that affect their ability to rebloom. All the factors that affect how a daylily grows and flowers are likely to affect their rebloom and may be genetically different between individuals. As an example, we might have two daylilies that are otherwise physically alike but one has ten buds and the other has 30 buds. The difference in bud count will be based on genetic differences. It is likely that the ten bud plant will rebloom more often and more reliably than the 30 bud plant given the same growing conditions. I would suggest that although the two plants rebloom differently and are genetically different that they are not genetically different for rebloom but more simply genetically different for all the aspects of growth that affect flowering.

Equally a grower will find it easier to have the 10 bud plant rebloom with poorer growing conditions than to have the 30 bud plant rebloom. The genes involved would be those that determine the difference between 10 buds and 30 buds rather than genes involved specifically in rebloom.

As you mentioned, there are a lot of factors that come into play; those factors will be at least partially genetically based and genetically variable between individuals. What I am suggesting is that none of those factors are specific to rebloom - they are common to growth and flowering in general. Once special requirements for the ability to flower at all are removed, flowering and reblooming become characteristics that are dependent on general aspects of growth and those are affected by many factors which themselves are at least partially genetically based and may differ between individuals.

I read Maurice's posts with interest. When I first started, what I heard was that JERSEY SPIDER was the only reliable rebloomed in Zone 4. It certainly is reliable - it has rebloomed every single year. However, 2014 was a long summer for us, with a lot more heat and sun than usual, and I had tons of plants rebloom. I do give nitrogen early, then in June organic chicken manure fertilizer, and I try to do a liquid kelp foliar spray (for minerals) two or three times a season. I'm also blessed with an inexhaustible well, so can leave the tower sprinkler on all night any time it gets hot and dry. So it does seem that, with these culture benefits and a long enough season, many many plants can rebloom even way up here. I have to say, though, that besides JERSEY SPIDER, the most outstanding dip rebloomer that year was ORANGE VELVET. It bloomed once in August, then a full rebloom - with five fully budded scapes, in October. Here is a picture of a scape taken on November 8, 2014 - still buds! That just NEVER happens here. So it was an usually long growing season, and these things seem to affect rebloom more than anything. This year was not as hot or sunny and there was nowhere near as much. 2014 was really a banner year.

A lot of Grace Stamiles early blooming diploid minis bloom reliably each year. I'll have to pull up my spread sheet when I'm back on computer to mention them all. As others have said, in this climate, optimum rebloom occurs when there is ample water, and rebloom happens more often with the early bloomers in this climate, because of the length of bloom season. Stella's Ruffled Fingers re blooms every year, along with Little Music Maker and Nano Probe, and there are others.