I wonder if somehow this conversation was rooted in garden judges' training, where the importance of selecting plants based on the entire plant is emphasized. I can still recall my first experience walking through Iron Gate Gardens with our new daylily club's only garden judge at the time. As a relatively new AHS and club member, I'd only bought plants based on pretty pictures and what I figured were good bets back then ( AHS award winners) This was in the 1990's and I was enamored at the time with a Kate Carpenter cultivar called Sue Rothbauer. I knew Iron Gate carried it, and I was determined to purchase it. So as my mentor, the garden judge, looked at it with me, he explained that judges were taught to look at all aspects of the plant. he pointed out that while this had a beautiful large pink bloom, it had very short scapes, often bloomed low in the foliage, and that judges were taught that this was an undesirable trait. I was so intimidated that I didn't buy it then. ( but later ordered it and realized after just a couple years that this trait DID really bother me and I got rid of it. ) To this day, plants with huge blooms and really short scapes look out of proportion to me! Also took garden judges training and then became an instructor, and in the many years since then, have gotten rid of many daylilies that just weren't good garden plants. Some had terrible foliage that after awhile looked so distracting that it didn't make up for a pretty bloom. and so on……
Also, people rave about "bud count, " but I've found that bud placement is more important to me. What good is 30+ buds on a scape if they're placed so that blooms aren't able to open properly. This was illustrated to me with one of Steve Moldovan's big award winners, Vatican City. People talked about the great bud count but I started noticing how half the open blooms on a given day weren't open properly because they were obstructed by or hitting others. This old pic shows it a little bit. I've seen it much worse.
Vatican City
