Background history:

'Emperor Butterfly' is a evergreen tetraploid introduced in 1986 by R.W. Munson (known as "Bill"). You can view a photo of Bill by clicking on this link: http://www.daylilydiary.com/Me...

A tribute to Bill is listed on this web page: http://www.daylilydiary.com/Me...

Emperor Butterfly is an early to mid-season bloomer with possible rebloom. It earned the Honorable Mention: 1993 AHS award. It has a rust resistant rating of 1.7. It is both pod and pollen fertile with 13 registered children: http://garden.org/plants/paren...

This plant can be found in the ATP Plant Database at:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Emperor Butterfly') .

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.





Also, please consider adding a "Local Report" to the ATP Plant Database! Thank you!

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Emperor Butterfly')

Due to downsizing over the years, I no longer grow this one but it performed well in my zone 5a garden.

I bought Emperor Butterflymthis Spring.
It had 25+ buds on each scape and the scapes were very sturdy!
I set lots of pods, but all aborted.
I did use its pollen though.
The foliage is very big and dark green.

I planted 'Emperor Butterfly' on June 17th 2015, it did not bloom this year, so not much to comment about it yet.
Like so many of my new plants this year, it was chosen for rust resistance (1.7) and also like so many of my plants it did show signs of rust this fall as the weather started to cool.
This is what it looks like today, showing some rust, but also still growing and I feel sure it will bloom next spring.

I have emperor butterfly in my zone 4 garden. It moved with me from zone 7. It made the transition well and continues to multiply. It is one of the daylilies that look best in the morning. Last year we had a lot of rain and the blooms didn't look as nice. Fingers crossed this year is better!

I acquired a small clump of 5 fans at the end of July 2015. They were transplanted into a new raised bed in October 2015. It did not bloom for me this year (2016) and it has decreased by 1 fan. I now have 4 fans with skinny leaves that are currently showing some thrip damage at the tips of the leaves. I hope it will bloom for me next year. I am disappointed that it has not done better, but perhaps the fact that this bed only gets sun for part of the day is the reason for a less than stellar performance.

I obtained the plant back in April 2015, it looked very good then. Early in the spring it was looking great. Had a first scape appear on 04-26-2016, then we were gone for the month of May. So I never got to actually see a bloom on the plant, if it actually bloomed.

Now the plant is one of a small hand full that have either completely disappeared or is down to a very small fan or two.
This is what 'Emperor Butterfly' looked like this morning.

Is this summer dormancy? I don't know, but I suspect it is more than that. Today is the first fall like day we have had, so it will be interesting to see if it and the others suffering from the same symptoms improve or continue to degrade.

Larry - That is VERY interesting. We are both in warm southern zones. Mine has 4 small fans. Quite disappointing. I am at the point, like you, of wondering if it is going to disappear altogether. If so, I'll just replace it with a cultivar that does better.

Mine has disappeared altogether, I dug around some looking for roots and found nothing.