Thank you, Vickie. (I have a cousin named Vickie!) I am trying to keep the seedling alive, and I hope to make a few crosses with it, this coming season.

When I first started collecting daylilies (decades ago), I wasn't rigorous about recording purchases on the computer. I trusted to the labels in the pots (or ground), and I soon learned the folly of that. To this day I have a daylily which I am about 95-99% certain is 'Little Rainbow'. It is miniature daylily (I am not into minis, generally speaking) and it is a polychrome, and my memories are that I had read about 'Little Rainbow' in the Daylily Journal, and when I came upon it in the nursery, I leapt on it. It really is pretty, I would have had no other reason to get it other than the name/reputation/polychrome (remember, I don't care for minis), but there will always be some small amount of doubt... so much so, that I bought it again on the Lily Auction this last fall. (Alas, that df is still sitting in a soaking tub... I hope that I didn't kill it. )

At any event, I did try contacting the nursery (a couple of years after my purchase) to see if that was what the plant was, but I never got a response. So what I currently have may always be "possibly 'Little Rainbow'". (In other words, you were lucky that you were able to get your daylily names after the fact!)

I was very lucky indeed! When my neighbor bought some, I knew she wouldn't keep track of the names, so I asked the daylily farm to send me a list of what she had purchased also. Some were seedlings, but my neighbor did give me starts of some that I have names for.

I hope Little Rainbow survives so you can compare it to your proir purchase. It is a pretty thing. Reckamp introduced some wonderful polychromes, but like you, I'm not usually drawn to minis.

Your cousin and I share the less common spelling of our name. It gets misspelled a lot!

Ah, you just prompted me to check the spelling of my cousin's name. I have it in my address list as "Vicki", without the "e". Sorry about that.

Polychromes are beautiful, aren't they?

It just proves my point. We had three Vickie's in my 70's high school class, all with the 'e' on the end. But since then, without the 'e' has become more popular. But I really appreciate it when my name gets spelled correctly, so thank you!

And yes, polychromes are beautiful

I envy many of you with your room to expand.
My garden is limited in size (city lot) so no new beds for me In the past, I would move daylilies to the school garden if I had something else similar/better and/or needed the room for new ones. Now that most of the school gardens have been removed , I do not have that option and I will need to sell/give away daylilies if I want any new ones. With this in mind, I have only ordered one new one so far and will be looking hard at stats this year to make my decisions. I must admit, there are a few that are in still in my yard solely based on name or reputation/awards. They will need to earn their spot this year.

That is exactly where I am with my garden, Lisa, and why the decision was made. It did get easier after I got started. I almost got rid of all of Buttered Popcorn, but changed my mind at the last minute. I think I would have regretted that!

I couldn't have said it better... "They will need to earn their spot this year." If the stats don't stack up or if it doesn't extend the season (extra early/extra late), it may go to another home.

I remember the terrible story about the thieves at your school garden and what a difficult time that was for you. I hope things have gotten better.

Lisa, I think that we all have plants which we bought largely or solely on the basis of the name. Some of those do get punted, but a great many of them are still here, and more are incoming. (And it's not just the daylilies... Last fall I reacquired a daffodil because of the name (it's a nice one, though), and now it's the irises, too. )

The pocket gophers are making my choices for me. When we get back to New Mexico I'll see what they picked.

Charley

????

We have gophers aplenty here, but they leave the daylilies alone.

Irises and Shasta daisies, though....

Vickie, I had a tough decision too. The local orchid greenhouse told me that my phalaenopsis had a virus and there was no treatment available. I had to toss 9 of them--half of my collection. I had had one of those orchids for 15 yr. Man, that hurt!!!!

I feel for you!

That's terrible, Arlene! I bet it did hurt

We had to remove a rose bush that had rose rosette disease. That really hurt because it was a gift from my husband's uncle when we moved here. Luckily I had taken cuttings from it long before the disease, so I am hoping the other one survives.

florange said:Vickie, I had a tough decision too. The local orchid greenhouse told me that my phalaenopsis had a virus and there was no treatment available. I had to toss 9 of them--half of my collection. I had had one of those orchids for 15 yr. Man, that hurt!!!!

I feel for you!

Wow, that is really terrible. I am so sorry about its loss, Arlene. But I really admire your orchid cultivation skills in keeping one of the orchid alive for 15 years. That is so incredible. I think orchids are one of the hardest plants for me to grow well.

Karen, I live on a barrier island on FL's east coast. The plants stay outside unless there is a prediction that it will freeze.

On the other hand, probably the most often reason orchids fail is because they have been over watered. Some times it's not enough light, but over watering them is common.

I have composted daylilies for all the same reasons you all state. May I also add, I need to gradually and painfully make room for plants, grasses shrubs other than daylilies. The deadheading is now too much, so I am diversifying some. This is made worse by the fact I still add new daylilies, making my decisions more difficult every year. Sigh

That is a dilemna, frostycan. I have been eyeing some irises and have thought of downsizing my daylily inventory to make room for other plants. Not sure if I will or not though.

I wish I had more room and when we bought our last house my husband wanted an acre or more and I said it was too much land - I did not have the daylily obsession then and I really regret that decision. Oh well, I still have 8 daylily beds and I am making at least one more this spring and I have tossed several other plants that never did well to begin with in favor of more daylilies. I do have other flowers mixed in with the daylilies, but I have over 350 daylilies with over 100 more coming this year, so I have been making my list of keepers and tossers. I have a few that have never bloomed in 2-3 years - those are going. I have some that are similar to others - one is going except for my white frilly ones that are great bloomers as white is my favorite. I have Kennesaw Mountain Lemon Sorbet and that is a beauty, but after 2 years, I only get about 7 blooms - I will see after this year as it has a prime garden spot. The only other one like that that I have to keep is Webster's Pink Wonder - it only gets about 10 blooms, but they are spectacular so I will not part with that one. I have been buying every tall pink spider I can buy to see if I can find a replacement for it that has a lot of blooms, but none have 13" flowers. I have Scatterbrain and I like it and am keeping it, but I can see why someone would chose to let it go. I have to stop buying flowers from the south also because the daylilies that die on me are SE or Evergreens mainly from the south.

I can see the handwriting on the wall in this thread. This is only my second year with daylilies (and everything else), so most of what I have has not bloomed. I built four beds for them and, unfortunately, overstuffed them with daylilies. After bloom season this year, some will have to go that do NOT deserve leaving...but they won't be able to thrive so tight against their neighbors.

Barbalee I give them at least a couple years before passing judgment and getting rid of them because mine tend to be better the 2nd and 3rd years. Just a thought.

Barbalee, what's your daylily bed to grass ratio? Grass is overrated you know.

I fully agree, Stan! I have just enough grass for the dog to run...and that's not much! I must admit I do have space for one more small bed, and I'll try to get that done this summer.

I think I'll take that advice, Ginny, just because I couldn't bear what I was thinking.