I have 84 different daylily cultivars in my garden, most represented by multiple clumps, and Royal Celebration is the only one that has not done well. When it formed flower buds, they started out as unusually small structures and then shrank into deformed shapes and dried up. Finally, the entire spike dried up. Photographs can be seen here:

The thread "Royal Celebration: Need advice" in Daylilies forum

I was very confused as to what was going on with my plants, so I asked the daylily experts at garden.org. I learned from their responses that there is a genetic defect in Royal Celebration that causes stunted buds. Several people who tried to grow it reported getting rid of it because of their experience with its stunted buds.

I wonder how Royal Celebration could have won an Honorable Mention award from the American Hemerocallis Society when it has these problems.

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I received Royal Celebration in 2015 and after seven years finally gave up on seeing decent blooms and pitched it. Very few blooms opened correctly, were splotchy, misshapen, or the buds just dried up and dropped off.

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