Please be patient with me.. I need to learn!!
What is happening here? I have it on several plants, but of this one in particular have a shot from some day ago to show the difference!

Central leaves get floppy:


This is about ten days ago

All of my daylilies do that on the new growth. Especially the spring growth. They grow out of it. I think it may be due to rapid growth. So that could probably be caused by getting a dose of fertilizer and/or lots of water when the growing temperatures are right for maximum growth. I do tend to throw some fertilizer on my daylilies from time to time and they are grown in large containers where initially part of the mix consists of purchased potting soil which contains fertilizer. And I do water those containers. I try to never let them get very dry because it can be difficult to get re-establish the moisture in the growing medium. All the other plants I grow are really jealous of the daylilies because they get meals on a very irregular basis - if at all .

Sabrina, I have some that are doing the same thing right now as well. I received a few orders from the Lily Auction, and the long center leaves have flopped over on a few of the plants. I assumed it was due to the adjustment period after shipping and replanting. I put most in large pots and fertilized with alfalfa and Milorganite. I may have a added Plantone to a few. I thought about cutting them back a bit but if it's a growth spurt I will leave them alone and see what happens.

Thank you, so it's somehow normal. The plants are in the ground, it's their third year there. I gave them a bit of granular fertilizer two days ago, then yesterday til this morning it rained a lot.

I will see what they do.

I have another one that has not any new growth instead. The last leaves seems strands of paper totally wet and the plant isn't growing. Same treatment for it than for any other

I thought mine had some type of mineral deficiency or lack of water. I was about to throw a bit of iron in the pots, but I will wait and see. We've gotten rain over the last week and a nice shower last night. More rain expected today and Friday. Hopefully they will perk up within the next week. I will keep you posted.

I know mine have some deficiency, because I see many have interveinal chlorosis. The man who sold me the plants (an italian hybridizer) suggested me to use a mix of chelated micronutrients because the soil here is almost basic and it's like mud so according to his and many of people on here advices I'm searching for the product he named.

I thought that was just how daylilies grew? All of mine do it, whether they have good color or not. Established clumps do it. They look wilted. It really bothered me at first, but I've sort of adjusted to seeing it since they eventually straighten up and have done well in terms of bloom and increase. It's just the new center leaf growth that do it. The older outer leaves have straightened up and feel more fibrous rather than the softer, wilted feel of those floppy centers.

I really don't know, it's my third year with them, the past years they were smaller. I showed the pics to the grower who sent them to me, he says it's not enough water... I watered by hand then it rained for a whole night.

Mine do it when it's warm with plenty of water during the early, faster growth stage in the life of the plant. My brother-in-law who grows some in the Houston area in the ground where it's warm and wet naturally says his clumps do it as well. I can't say I like it, but I don't worry about it anymore. Today and yesterday we've had rain and cool weather, so they aren't doing it much. If the sun comes out and it warms up this afternoon, I'm sure I'll be seeing the new center growth fall over and maybe a wilted look to some entire clumps. Mine just do that.

He keeps on saying it's lack of water. So, if he's right, and as he said daylilies absorb water slowly, tomorrow the floppy leaves should be up and steady...

He says they absorb water slowly? That could explain why I see it, then. It's not that they don't have enough water (mine will do it when I have the pot sitting in a tub with water), but that when it gets too warm, they transpire moisture they've taken up faster than they can replace it. So the new softer growth loses turgidity and flops, then stands back up when it cools off and they can take up water as fast as they transpire it. That would fit exactly with what I've observed in my plants. As the growth slows and the leaves themselves get more fiber as they age, they don't fall because they are more rigid with mature growth than the new leaves in the center. In a hot area with low humidity, I don't see any way to avoid that and it doesn't seem to harm the plants in any significant way. All my speculation, of course - where's the 'take it with a grain of salt' icon?

Let us know what happens.

Technically, drooping of foliage in any plant could be attributed to lack of water, but I think this is a little different. In every other plant I have seen wilt, the soil is obviously dry, and even a light watering perks the plant up in a matter of hours. My droopy daylilies never do this, and in fact, as you noted, in this case, the soil is not dry at all.

Here, I see this "floppage" in periods of warm, wet weather, or when there is an excess of nitrogen. I think it's a case of the daylily using its energy stores in response to various growth triggers, and the leaves are simply soft and new. Since the soil is still cool, it may be because the plant is outrunning the capabilities of its root system, much in the same way as spring chlorosis tends to show up when the soil is too cool for sufficient extraction of micronutrients. Rainfall is a fantastic growth activator, and, in a garden regularly watered with high-pH tap water, will lower the pH and release a lot of locked-up nutrients.

Either way, as several others have already said, this is nothing at all to worry about, unless you happen to have been feeding a little too much, or a bit prematurely, and in that case it's a signal to hold back on the nitrogen.

Now, I'm not an expert, but I've grown daylilies for over 40 yr. I think that center fold-over is just a problem with excessive growth that isn't strong enough to stand up straight. A month ago, no fold overs. Now, maybe 20 out of 80 plants. They grow aggressively, and those last 4" of growth ... will soon stand up too, just let me discover their inner strength.

Sabrina, I owe you an email. I even got my husband in the garden to dig out a plant that was to aggressive. It's unheard of for me to do that. I'll contact you probably this evening or tomorrow morning.

Ken, thank you for your post. I did give a bit of granular fertilizer, half dose than what the producer says. But it begun some day before of it. It's bad to see all that beautiful foliage that wilt in few days.

Here it's warm by day and slightly fresh at night, it's humid too. The soil keeps well moisture except for the firts centimeter that gets dry quickly.

The man I'm talking about it's an italian grower and started hybridizing and registering his daylilies two years ago, he lives in center/south and he has warmer temps than me. If someone wants to check his registration these can be found under the name of E. Rossi.

Arlene, good to know it's a common "symptom". and don't worry about the email, there's no rush!

I noticed this happened even with daylilies growing indoors on a windowsill. I wonder if it has to do with the development of the bulliform cells. Quoting from the AHS 2002 Handbook: "Of considerable interest are the "bulliform" (large, thin-walled) cells, located on the upper side of the leaf in the midrib region of Hemerocallis (Fig. 9). As the bulliform cells enlarge, it is believed the two halves of the leaf change from V-shaped to flat. This change occurs gradually as the young leaf emerges between older ones. Bulliform cells also store water."

I doubt it is related to water shortage or uptake because a daylily that is short of water, in my experience anyway, loses height and also colour in all the leaves not just the middle ones. Daylilies don't wilt at the drop of a hat like some plants, e.g. impatiens, do. If it was a less than critical shortage of water the bent over leaves would be upright in the mornings, but I don't recall that they are. I used to wonder about this but now have also accepted it as normal.

Given that I'm having hard time trying to figuring out what those bulliform cells are, I agree on water.
I knew the soil wasn't dry. This soil has a lot of defect but it keeps moisture well. Then, as you say, I know that when plants are thirsty and you give them water the foliage suddenly gets up. Those leaves are still floppy, and the soil is really wet.

It maybe normal on some kind of foliage, because I don't see anything similar on DLs like Stella de Oro or Litlle Show Stopper. I have a neighbour that had Hemerocallis Fulva sp. in her garden, I will check how that foliage behaves. If she still has it because I didn't notice for now. I will say to the hybridizer that water didn't change a bit in those leaves.

Sabrina, I think you are comparing small flowering daylilies (hence short foliage) with large flowering daylilies with much taller foliage. The little short ones don't show that same issue. For me, the tall daylilies flopped over when they really started to put on a lot of new growth. I've never had one that stayed that way.

I'm noticing the same floppy foliage here. However, we are having warm temps
in the 70s, then colder days with night temps below freezing (lower 20s). A roller coaster ride
of temps as is usual in this garden for most years during spring.

We brought new potted arrivals inside during cold and freezing temps, and they were flopping
also, but most of these fans are normal now. Think this may have been due to shipping trauma.
I see this with all new arrivals each year, even when they arrive later in the season.

All of the field grown plants have floppy center foliage, but this only began with the colder temps. Before that, the foliage looked just fine, except for some pale veining on some which occurs until the soil warms up. Evidently, the plants need warm soil to take up nutrients. Noticed today that some are greening up and losing the pale veining with the rain and warming trend. This also
happens each year in the same areas of the beds which might have something to do with soil type as well. We have a wide range of soil types, and some may unlock nutrients better than others.

I just look at the floppy foliage and sigh, saying they are not happy. Same thing happens every year,
and when the soil warms, they go back to normal growth.

Many plants are sensitive to the environment. Ever notice beans or tomatoes folding down
during the night, and then spreading out in the morning? I just say they are sleeping.

Shirlee, quite likely the areas where you get interveinal chlorosis have a higher soil pH than the other areas (I'm assuming that's what you mean by pale veining, the spaces between the veins are pale but the veins themselves are still green). Some daylilies appear to need a more acidic soil than others in order to be able to take up manganese and/or iron. This would be made worse by a cold soil.

I agree, Sue. Years ago when I added lime in one seedling bed that
had originally been a wooded area, mostly mature oaks, with years of natural
acidic leaf mulch, I noticed some spots of interveinal chlorosis the next
two years. This was before I had a pH meter, and had assumed the soil
to be overly acidic for these plants. Well, we all know about the risks with "assume".

Even though I now use a meter to check pH, which mostly reads slightly acidic, the seedling
beds are ever changing with new seedlings and added composted amendments.
These changes make it rather difficult for making adjustments in spots as the spots are not static.

In the beds containing parent plants used for crossing, and are not subject to so many changes, the spots of interveinal chlorosis occur in the same places each year which indicates possibly soil type involvement and/or a particular plant's natural need for higher pH, just as you
indicated, Sue. The beds are quite long, and the soil type can vary. The pH meter also shows these beds to be slightly acidic.

So, after several years of observation, rather than making adjustments with the pH,
I simply let nature take its course, and the warming soil takes care of the problem.
However, should I see an overall type of problem in beds, that would require diagnosis and
a viable solution such as in the case of rust.

Plants are such amazing things, and daylilies are such a joy, though they at times increase
my googling process.