By the way, Kevin, I was going to say something in another thread but I like your 'tag line' ("SO MANY DAYLILIES, SO LITTLE LAND")...boy, can't we all relate? Certainly I can, that's for sure! Maybe in a future daylily raffle I will get lucky enough to win a coupon or gift card to use toward more raised garden beds for all of these daylilies I'm purchasing (and winning).
As for Mary's Gold...it sounds like that one is a winner. Trouble is, gold colored daylilies are sort of a dime a dozen, IMHO.
Although she DOES look gorgeous, I wasn't necessarily looking at her golden color as much as the bloom shape, plant habit, and reblooming tendencies. I feel that color is pretty easy to change/fix, but the other stuff is what's harder to achieve and what I want to really focus on. Once I get to where all of the genetics I'm working with in my hybridizing are pretty much thick-scaped, well-branched, high bud-count plants...then I imagine it will just be mostly about crossing for color (and/or patterns) at that point..
It's a little bit of a pity that I don't live close to Oakes' to where I could just go look at all of these, although I'm sure most are bloomed out. But then, whatever's blooming right now would just be all that more appealing because I need more blooms late in the season. The only thing I'm getting right now is my bud-building Royal Frosting, a bloom left on Lyonnesse, and some blooms on the rebloom scapes for Penny's Worth and Thanks Two Friends which have been holding out on me the last several days! A bloom or two a day is just not enough...I need more lates/reblooms!