when does a daylily's propensity to produce irregular blooms (polys and the like) go from being fun / intriguing... to just plain having a daylily that is inconsistent and just doesn't perform
@adknative
The answer to your question is complicated by the biology of the characteristics that are inconsistent in daylilies. Polymerous flowers, crested flowers, and double flowers are characteristics that genetically suffer from two "problems". One is that plants that genetically should show the characteristic may never do so. Geneticists call this "incomplete penetrance". The other problem is that if the plant does show the characteristic sometimes, then each of those times the characteristic may not be the same as in the other times. Geneticists call that "variable expressivity".
Daylily hybridizers can select for increased consistency in both situations but they presumably do so only under their own growing conditions and in their own location.
Unfortunately the environment is very important for both those genetic problems and that usually differs between that of the hybridizers and that of the buyers.
Of course, we do not know what parts of the growing environments are important for those characteristics.
'Entwined in the Vine' has inherited the ability to produce polymerous flowers. As can be seen from some of the photos in the database that also may appear as flowers with crested petals. I suspect that there is only one mutation that produces the two characteristics - one or more environmental factors probably determines which characteristic appears in a flower, if either. A mutation is an error as far as the plant's development is concerned. I expect that the gene (or possibly genes) that are involved can cause the flowers of 'Entwined in the Vine' to be more likely to be abnormal in ways other than polymery or cresting, depending on the growing environment and location, etc.
In some cases, with perennial plants there can be what are known as carry-over effects. These are effects of things like growing conditions, location, some aspect of how the plants were treated that can appear the year after the plant's experienced them. It may be possible for such effects to linger for more than a year later - I don't know if daylilies can suffer from any carry-over effects.
It is always possible, but should be quite rare, that a specific plant is a "rogue" and differs from the other clones of the cultivar in some visible way. I would consider that possibility to be less likely than other ones that might involve how the plant is treated in the garden, where it is specifically grown in the garden, etc.
