The same thing happened to some of my daylilies this year. It might have been Spring sickness but I know that none of them died back. I was having a snail problem & once I controlled them the plants started to recover. But by then the surrounding daylilies had grown so much the poor plants were mostly in shade. I just thought they couldn't compete after their setback. Now I'm wondering if I should follow my plan of digging them up and putting them in pots by themselves. If it was Spring sickness I probably don't have to. Any thoughts, because a couple are irreplaceable (I can't find them for sale anywhere).