Background history:

'Web of Illusion' is a evergreen introduced in 2011 by Stamile-Pierce.

This plant can be found in our Plant Database at:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Web of Illusion') .

Please join in, if you own this plant! We would love to know more! I award an acorn for performance information posted to this thread.



Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Web of Illusion')

Web of Illusion has acted like you would expect an Evergreen to act in the North.

I bought this plant from Tim Bell in June 2021, no blooms and by October it was up to three fans.
In 2022, it came back in April with two fans. No bloom that season and it contracted rust on the same two fans by October.
This April it was still two fans and squeezed out 6 blooms between July 13-21. By October it was still two fans.

Quite frankly, I'm not expecting much from this plant here. I will probably decide I need its spot for something more successful. The flowers are pretty but not so wow that I couldn't live without it.

Sometimes it is very difficult to understand daylilies.

'Web of Illusion' is sold by at least two daylily suppliers in Canada, Vivaces Nordiques and Fairyscape Daylilies.
Below is a figure showing the climate of their locations.



Below is a figure showing the climate of Stoneham, MA.



I assume (perhaps not a safe assumption) that 'Web of Illusion' grows reasonably well in the two Canadian locations since they grow and sell it. What causes a daylily to grow well in one location and not very well in a reasonably similar different location?

I have had daylily cultivars that did not grow well when I first purchased them. However, sometimes, when I purchased them again, usually from a different supplier, they grew well. Might different (but apparently similar) planting locations in the same garden make such important (large) differences in the growing ability of some daylilies? Why?

There is also the possibility that they grow their plants in greenhouses, as many Northern suppliers do, in order to have the Evergreen genetics available for crosses.

@Zoia, One of them specifically states that they do not have a greenhouse. The other one indicates "All our plants are grown in our gardens and shipped freshly lifted" and "All the plants we offer are grown in our garden, located in zone 4, if we have a normal spring, they start growing by the beginning of May, and they are ready to be shipped by the end of May or beginning of June.

- Since our products are living plants we have to work according to the weather, when the plants are ready,"
I assume from those descriptions that they also do not grow their daylilies in greenhouses.

When evergreens don't thrive, it doesn't necessarily mean that they die. Sometimes, they just languish, failing to multiply or multiplying very slowly, and have little flower production. Sometimes, they do well for a couple of years, but eventually go into decline. Sometimes, they multiply but just don't produce well, with stunted scapes or very low bud count. There are a lot of sellers in the North that list plants that are "iffy" performers in many northern gardens.

Yes, different winters and different locations in a garden can certainly make a difference. I have two different locations, one of which is more protected. It is hard to describe "climate" simply in regard to area temperatures. In this recent cold wave, northerners who have a lot of snow cover can be thankful for the insulation. Last year, I think that the most damage done to plants was in the late winter/spring cycle, in which a very warm February was followed by a cold March.

Different locations in a garden can have different amounts of winter protection and can also have different growing environments. The situation where I grow my daylilies is somewhat different from that possibly present in some gardens. I grow my daylilies in a level field. Twenty odd years ago it was cleared of all growth and ploughed. It was then planted with hundreds of daylily clumps moved from our previous home. There is little possibility that any location is more or less protected in the field. There are no obvious differences visible on the soil surface of the field. The differences that have affected different clumps of some cultivars are similar to those you have suggested but there is no obvious reason for them. As an example, I purchased 'Summer Dragon' (SD) many years ago and planted it at the end of one of the rows of daylilies in the field. I planted several other cultivars at the same time nearby. SD was registered as "semi-evergreen" and was hybridized in Florida. It has never grown well in its location. It has not increased much over the many years and it nearly ever flowers. A couple of years ago I decided to test my idea that purchasing a new plant of SD and planting it in a different row in the field would make a noticeable difference to SD. So I did purchase it again from a different supplier than the first plant. It was extremely small when it arrived so I potted it and grew it inside under lights its first winter here. I then planted it in the field the next year. That second plant of SD grows many times better than the first plant. It has flowered every year (after the first year outdoors). It does not appear to have problems surviving winter. So far it has also rebloomed every year. The obvious second part to the test is to move the first plant to near where I planted the second one. Then there is 'Bats in Belfry' (BiB) which was registered as "evergreen". I have grown it for many years. It hardly ever flowers or increases in its location. Planted beside it is a plant of 'Lavender Blue Baby' which has increased and flowered as expected. BiB is a handful of tiny fans. The year before last I decided to try to "pump" it up, so in the autumn I dug up two of the small fans and potted them. They were grown inside under lights over winter. They rapidly increased enormously in size and one of them flowered last summer after I put them back outside in their pots. The plants outside in the ground do not seem to be able to increase in size over the growing season. There is no obvious reason why that should be the case from how they are treated and where they are located. The two plants that were grown inside over winter were in their own 4" pots, packed pot to pot without any spacing between pots under the lights. There would have been high "competition" between all the different plants for light but no root competition between plants. This year I will replant the two BiB fans in a different location in the field. The BiB plants in the field do not grow very much in a growing season. In comparison, the two plants that were over-wintered inside grew an enormous amount in not much more than an equivalent amount of time. Both the amount of light and the temperatures inside were lower than those outside during summer although they were for much longer. One possible explanation for the different growth under the two conditions is that BiB might be very strongly affected by root competition - that is, it might suffer much more strongly from root competition from other daylilies than other daylilies do (on average). That would mean that in the field the daylilies planted nearby to BiB outcompete it underground and that affects its growth.
Interestingly, now that I think about it, that might also explain the differences in growth and flowering of the two plantings of SD. The first SD was planted at the end of an established row of daylilies. The second SD was planted in a new bed in which all of the daylilies were planted at the same time. The daylilies that were planted in that bed were about the same size as they had all been grown inside over winter (they were all quite small when they arrived).

In fact the loss of competitive ability might explain much about problems growing some daylily cultivars. Daylilies that are hybridized and grown under conditions of little or no competition between plants (and under optimum conditions of water and fertilizer, etc.) will, by the lack of natural selection for competitive ability, lose their ability to compete well over the generations. That would affect all daylilies, depending on how they are grown, but it would be much more prevalent in daylilies hybridized where there are long growing seasons, high rates of increase and they are divided frequently - which might be correlated to locations where more daylilies registered as "evergreen" and "semi-evergreen" are hybridized.

Some daylilies may not thrive because they are poor at competing with their neighbours in the particular location. Those plants may do much better when they are moved to different locations since their new neighbours are likely to be different cultivars than their previous neighbours, may be further away than their previous neighbours, may be smaller than their previous neighbours or may be less well established than their previous neighbours, etc.

I should emphasize that many daylilies that are registered as "evergreen" are not in fact "evergreen" when they are grown here. The same applies to those registered as "semi-evergreen". I would guess that the distinction between "robust" daylilies (good garden plants) and others is less about their registered "foliage" designation and more about where they were hybridized.

admmad said:

I assume (perhaps not a safe assumption) that 'Web of Illusion' grows reasonably well in the two Canadian locations since they grow and sell it. What causes a daylily to grow well in one location and not very well in a reasonably similar different location?

I have had daylily cultivars that did not grow well when I first purchased them. However, sometimes, when I purchased them again, usually from a different supplier, they grew well. Might different (but apparently similar) planting locations in the same garden make such important (large) differences in the growing ability of some daylilies? Why?

Maurice, I have been putting notes together trying to figure out the "why". Almost missed this thread but in trying to figure this all out, I've been reading some Daylily of the Day threads that have many responses trying to figure out the similarities in the daylilies that do well in different areas of the country. The "why" I started trying to figure out was based initially on my observations in my garden. Most of the daylilies here are new. Some seemed to take off soon after planting, other's lagged. Most of the newly planted daylilies flowered and held pods, some alot of pods. Some seemed totally unaffected by this, while others stayed the small size they were at the beginning of the season. I compared two that were striking to me in terms of growth differences noted on August 2nd. The lagered is dormant hybridized in the North, planted small double fan, two scapes, one pod on each scape. The contrast a single fan semi-evergreen hybridized in the North, held many pods and a new fan started to grow. This will be the first winter here for both. I started looking into the parent plants but haven't gotten that far yet.

I also noticed that some daylilies planted in August 2022 purchased from one place seem to be struggling after their first winter and may not make it. The contrast, a group of others purchased by a different grower planted in September 2022 not only survived but are thriving. Both suppliers are reputable highly regarded places. The struggling ones planted in August were from a place South of me, the thriving ones, northern climate. I just started looking up the individual daylilies for more information.

I've gone down a rabbit hole to say the least looking into locations hybridized, conditions grown, location purchased, parent plants (frustrating unknown x unknown or seedling) and so forth. Your post here has redirected me as to whether or not root growth is the common link between daylilies that do well despite stresses (dividing, moving, pods, climate, competition etc. ). Whether these daylilies have the ability to continue their root growth despite these stresses and are the ones we consider "good garden plants" and can be grown in many or most locations. If so are these limited to fast growers (one's that need to be divided alot) and/or is the key whether that they have the ability to grow despite stresses, I'll call that strong growers? Whether strong growers always equate fast growers I don't know. Just wondering outloud if there is a common link. Could be just another rabbit hole.

This is one that did not do well here. It lingered for 3 or 4 yr but I was not sorry when it disappeared. Pretty flower, but not enough show. I have had some plants not do well here that grow well for someone else in my area. Other plants that do not do well for others in my area do quite well for me.

2024 update

Web of Illusion stayed exactly the same this season, still at two fans, still only 8 blooms between July 4-27. This one is pretty pathetic, overall.