This seems rather weird to start a bloom thread in FEBRUARY!!! But I have good reason to do so ....

Yesterday, on Thursday, February 23, I had 2 daylilies bloom. And I have another cultivar that will probably bloom for the first time before the end of this month.

Here is Beautiful Edgings:



Unknown. This was supposed to be "Frosted Vintage Ruffles", but it is clearly NOT! These fans came from a big box store that sells daylilies in a bag. The company is from the Netherlands and seems to have a reputation for selling named cultivars that are not true to name. So this first bloom proves that point to be true.

Too bad about Frosted Vintage Ruffles
When would your bloom season normally start?

Way to go Becky, sorry about the box store thing.

Due to no winter so far this year I have been cutting new scapes for several weeks just knowing we would get some cold weather, which has not happened, but we still have March. I now have five of Pat Stamiles 2017s scapeing again and will see the first one bloom this coming week, normally I would see the first registered bloom in mid April. Like a lot of others we have had the warmest winter on record.

Fred, newbie question--aside from preventing frozen blooms, what does cutting off the scapes accomplish? I mean, will the plants continue to put out new scapes, after you cut those off? I've got so much to learn about these plants.

Valerie - Last year I had early blooms in March. This year has been 2 months earlier. We haven't really even had a Winter at all here in Central Florida this year. Which is good .... and bad. If the Atlantic Ocean waters don't get cold during the winter, then it produces ripe conditions for some very strong hurricanes this season. The warmer the water, the stronger the hurricane. But I have sure been enjoying early blooms this year. I actually had my first bloom of the season last month in January: https://garden.org/thread/view...

Another cultivar has bloomed, today. This one is South Seas which had it's first bloom ever for me today:



Deebie - That is a good question! I'd like to know too.

Now the interesting thing about the January blooms (Bullfrog Kisses), and the two named cultivars blooming this month (Beautiful Edgings and South Seas) is that all 3 came from Natalie last Fall (2016). She is in zone 7a (North Central Idaho). So I am wondering if the temperature is what has prompted them to bloom so early? I have another planting of Beautiful Edgings that I purchased in summer of 2015. It bloomed last year in June (2016) and continued to bloom through July. I think that is the "normal" bloom time for that cultivar. So next year will probably result in these cultivars blooming more in sync with their typical bloom time in the south.

Also, I need to correct the info on Beautiful Edgings above in the first post. I now count 9 scapes. So each fan is producing a scape! Here is a photo of Beautiful Edgings bloom today next to South Seas bloom to compare the difference in size. They are growing right next to each other.

Beautiful Edgings and South Seas blooms:


I also want to note that I do not see scapes on any of my other daylilies at this time. So it appears that most of my daylilies are on their typical bloom schedule. I expect to see some more start scaping and possibly blooming next month (March) but it will be interesting to see how many actually do and how many wait until May - July to bloom (which is their normal bloom time).

Thanks for posting these Becky! It's so nice to see these early blooms.

*happy sigh* what a wonderful sight... Sure beats looking at the two inches of snow that fell yesterday...

I was out diddling with my daylilies this afternoon, and I discovered a scape almost a foot tall already on my MAJESTIC DESIGN -- in February no less!

Deborah ask
Fred, newbie question--aside from preventing frozen blooms, what does cutting off the scapes accomplish? I mean, will the plants continue to put out new scapes, after you cut those off? I've got so much to learn about these plants.

I can't answer this because I have never seen or done anything like this. My idea was to cut the scapes so the plants could save energy. Karol Emmerich called me Friday and I ask her about cutting scapes, her idea was they should continue to scape in my area. She has also had a milder winter than normal in Minnesota and will ship my plants this week. I will know after this bloom season if cutting the scapes did any good. I had mentioned before I had done the same thing to the Maryott daylilies, time will tell.

I have never cut scapes and many of my newly acquired daylilies arrived in the Fall. They scaped and bloomed late Fall into Winter. I have no reason to believe that hurt my plants by letting them bloom. I have not lost any plants (that I am aware of) for that reason. And I got to see blooms when typically I have none. The following year though many bloomed again during their normal bloom time. So they corrected themselves within a year or less to be on the normal bloom time schedule for Florida.

It would really bother me to cut scapes.

Becky we have different goals, I never thought the scapes would hurt the daylilies, I want them to be in sink with the rest of my daylilies the first year, not wait until the second year. I had never experienced anything like this until Pat and Grace moved from Florida to California.

This had two blooms yesterday and they received some frozen pollen, I also froze the pollen from the two blooms. They did not open well due to being 40* yesterday morning so this is Pats photo.

beckygardener said:
Unknown. This was supposed to be "Frosted Vintage Ruffles", but it is clearly NOT! These fans came from a big box store that sells daylilies in a bag. The company is from the Netherlands and seems to have a reputation for selling named cultivars that are not true to name. So this first bloom proves that point to be true.

Was afraid of that Becky. I hope the two I picked this year are what they're supposed to be.

A little late to the party here, but it seems so wrong to be seeing bloom so early. Nice looking blooms Becky and Fred.
I am seeing crazy growth on a lot of mine and with the milder temps, so I have started fertilizing already. No scapes, but happy to report that a few of my seedling from 2015 should produce a few this year. I also have lots of new CV's to view this year and my shutter button finger is twitching already.