Cindy, daylily growth patterns are even more complex than what I have described above.
Plants cannot get up and move to better growing conditions - so they tend to adjust to the conditions in which they find themselves growing. That means they can change their growth patterns depending on their growing conditions. The technical term is 'phenotypic plasticity' and means that a daylily cultivar's characteristics may be quite different depending on where it is growing and the conditions in which it is growing.
Daylily species will have evolved to adapt to the growing conditions that are typically found in nature. Basically that would tend to mean water only from natural rain, snow, etc., fertilizer only rarely from dead organisms rotting nearby or animal waste products deposited nearby or what might be present in the rain or snow, competition from other plants growing closely nearby and shading from those other plants, etc.
A daylily cultivar may show dormancy under almost natural growing conditions. But, for example, if that same cultivar is divided, planted in freshly amended soil, watered and fertilized regularly, have developing pods removed, etc.. its growth pattern may change - under the different conditions (what I sometimes call luxuriant growing conditions) it may no longer show dormancy.
A daylily cultivar's growth patterns may be different from year to year, or from garden to garden or under different growing conditions.
And there is a third type of dormancy (paradormancy) that I have not discussed above that may be present in some daylily cultivars.
Overall it can be very complex.
