I
try to keep records of the following, and I keep them on the computer, having learned my lesson from lost or water damaged journals:
What daylilies are currently in the garden, and where
Where/Who I got the daylilies from, and when
What daylilies are no longer here, and why (MIA, rotted, rust, bad foliage, flowers don't open, given away, thrown out, didn't like, etc.)
What daylilies I gave to certain individuals
What the bloom time is, on a quarter month basis (1-7, 8-15, 16-23, 24-end of month)
I want to say that I have found this the quickest and easiest way to compare relative seasons of bloom, and it is also about the only amount of work that I want to put in, for tracking bloom. I do this in Excel, with one column for each quarter month, and one row (line) for each daylily or seedling. Registered tets are on one page, registered dips on another, "keeper" tet seedlings on a third page, "keeper" dip seedlings on a fourth. I
may enter FFO and LFO dates in the column, instead of just a "*" to indicate that the clump is in bloom during that quarter month.
To continue, I also try to keep records on:
What pollen parents (and clips) I used for any given year
What seeds got harvested from each parent, and how many per cross
What seeds got planted, and/or what seedlings got potted up
A map of this year's seedling locations (even though, having switched to copper labels, I don't anticipate more problems there)
At least images, and polymerous % stats (if applicable), on the keep-for-another-year seedlings (not necessarily all seedlings)
Overall notes on the seedlings that had maiden bloom (I don't take pictures of all of them, but I will write short comments on each seedling, such as "flower ugly, flower won't open, top-branched, sketchy foliage" and so on)
More data, for those few seedlings that persist here for more than two seasons of bloom
Lately, I have started keeping records on rust susceptibility. This includes data both from online sources (such as the ATP plant descriptions), my own observations, and my own half-baked estimates as to what I might expect for resistance/susceptibility, based on the parentage. I do not, however, go into rigorous scientific data recording of just how rusty something is (in terms of percentage of a leaf that is covered with rust); either a daylily has (at one time or another) exhibited very little or no rust here, moderate rust, or a lot of rust. (I should mention that what I consider to be very little or no rust doesn't necessarily match other people's ideas on that score; I do not consider 25% of a leaf surface being covered with rust pustules to indicate a resistant plant. I live in a climate where rust is normally not much of a problem, however; YMMV.)
I really don't bother with budcount, branching, flower size, or scape height unless it is maybe for the persistent or keeper seedlings (and not even then, if I don't ever envision registering them).
For the most part, I don't have much of my information in the ATP plant list. Not all of the daylilies (let alone other plants) are on my plant list, and the plant list isn't necessarily up to date (both for plants that have left the garden, and for those that have come in).
It is what it is; gardens are enough work, without the additional burden of being unnecessarily obsessive about record keeping. (This, from someone who can be plenty obsessive/compulsive about some things
...) Parentage of seed(ling)s
is important (I do try there but even still I have had failures), but is it
really necessary to keep track of budcount and branching for registered cultivars - at least, if you don't hybridize, and/or do hybridize, but aren't going to use those plants as parents?
