This weekend there are a lot of shows listing the top 10 of this and that for 2017 and I got to thinking what were my top 10 daylilies for the 2017 season? It was a pretty good year for the daylilies with a lot of spring rain and plenty of sun during bloom. The downside was the colder than normal temps which caused opening problems for some taking them off my top 10 list. So here are the top 10 picks from my garden for 2017.

Alone Again, this has been a winner since it's first bloom in 2014. Blooms are saturated and vibrant with a super nice plant and great branching.


Cloud Rider, I first saw this one at Rich Howards and knew I had to have it. Love the color, green throat and watermark.


There's a Place, saw this one at Curt's the year before he registered it. One of my favorites from Curt and a great parent for adding blue to eyes and watermarks.


Crystal Castles, nicely watermarked and incredible branching with loads of buds made this an easy pick. The color was much deeper than normal with our cold mornings, but it opened perfectly every day.


Through a Glass Darkly, I added some of Karol's newer intro's last spring and this one blew me away with it's beautiful color.


Painted on Jeans, just a super nice garden plant, pretty blooms, great branching, lots of buds, opens well, what more can you ask for in a dayliliy? Fertile both ways, awesome parent? Does that too.


Malala, my absolute favorite of the appliqued daylilies I've grown. Tall, well branched and a beautiful bloom.


New Paradigm, this one is a close second to Malala. I love the bright color and super wide petals and sepals...just wish those sepals opened flat instead of being bug baths, as a friend of mine calls them.


Swallow Tail Kite, what a show this one put on this year! Of course it helps when you have a lazy gardener that waits until the clump gets so big she needs a backhoe to dig it out. The plus side is lots...and lots of scapes.



Cozy Fanny, wasn't to sure about this one when Curt sent it, and it's first year blooming wasn't all that impressive. I do know that waiting until year 2 or 3 for northern plants to get settled in can make a huge difference and it did. The blooms and plant habit were much better this year

There's a Place and Through a Glass Darkly and your appliqued daylilies are my favorites. Do There's a Place and Through a Glass Darkly get splotchy? Splotchiness was a big negative for me this year so my top ones are those daylilies that consistently produce flowers that are not splotchy. Here are my top 5.

Sharyn Lianne - all blooms opened perfectly with clear color and pattern.


Seedling (Carolina Cool Down x (Tet RFK x Victoria Josephine Seedling) - no splotchiness in all the flowers that bloomed this past summer


Arctic Lace was a bloom machine in spite of producing tons of seeds the previous season


Great White Dove - no hangups or bad blooms


Bill Norris had a great season being the first to bloom and continued blooming through Sept. with rebloom.


Will follow up later with the next 5 runner ups.

Far and away number one in my garden this year was first year bloomer
Ocean Spirit- eye catching, an impressive enough bud count, pollen fertile


Erin Farmer- really like the sunrise/sunset colors, pod fertile


Lighthouse Neon Galaxy- vibrant colors- rebloom on a first year plant!


Heavenly Angel Ice x Unknown- good bud count, pod and pollen fertile, good scape strength


Jessica Lynn Bell- liked the edge pattern more than I thought I would (DH picked this one). Pod and pollen fertile. Small bud count this year, each flower opened well...


This NOID that I was drawn to- the chalky watermark and the color and the bloom size 6+ in. *happy sigh*


Other good ones include:
Lava Flow- really fertile- huge number of seeds from selfed pods (nothing else was blooming that early) and rebloomed...


Edge Ahead- pod fertile little hussy!

I just looked through all my 2017 pictures to refresh my memory, and amazingly enough eight of my top ten picks are Floyd Cove introductions! I really love each one of these, and my very favorite is the first one. But then I don't think I could pick my next favorite between the other nine -- they were all really wonderful and such a treat to enjoy!

GUY'S OUTRAGEOUS - Every bloom was absolutely breathtaking to me!


SHARYN LIANNE


VERDANT GLOW


BUMBLE BEE BLUES - A little one


PINK EXTRAORDINAIRE


DANCING FLAMINGO


LITTLE MUCHA MINTO - Another little guy


VIOLET HORIZONS - I purchased this one through their summer sale and couldn't believe how gorgeous the blooms were!



And the last two are from Dan Trimmer:

QUEEN OF GREEN


GREEN EMPEROR


You can tell just by looking at these what my favorite type of bloom is -- huge green throats, unless they're blue blending to green!

Thank you, Char. I great thread and a great way to end the year. Reviewing my notes from last season produces these top vote winners from me:

Alpha and Omega from Karol Emmerich - 30 buds and 4 or more branches, with up to 3 sets of bloom scapes and sometimes extremely fragrant.


Ida's Magic - Always beautiful; never fails to please.


Midsummer Tranquility - Sorry, it's mine and it's not the best performer. I just love how it looks.


Morning Sky - Another of mine and no apologies. It is very fragrant, with a good bud count and branching, rebloom and very fast increase.


No Ordinary Child - Karol Emmerich. Love the looks of this one though I've not had it long enough to make a judgement on its performance.


Small World Christie Dawn Robinson - It took a few years, but it has been stunning and a great performer since it's third year in my garden.


Spacecoast Francis Busby - Kinnebrew - I like the look of it and have had some kids out of it that I love a lot.


Thistles and Thorns - Emmerich (yes, a definite trend here) - pretty, reblooms, produces kids with beautiful teeth (Note, my own Beebleberry Pie - below)




Wine With Everything - Cochenour (We miss you Pat) - Seriously, look at that scape!

Karen, I've never noticed any splotchiness on There's a Place. Even though many of my darker flowers tend to have trouble with tarnish plant bugs I don't recall seeing any trouble with Through a Glass Darkly either. Parent Vanishing Mist did spot a little, TPB, dew or rain I can't remember for certain.

Sharyn Lianne always looks so nice in everyone's images. I'm just not sure how well it would do this far north, anyone growing it in z4?
I've read a lot of nice comments about Guy's Outrageous, I can see why it's a favorite Betty.
Ocean Spirit looks like one that would catch your eye across the garden, nice color and pattern. Also like the clean delicate colors of Jessica Lynn Bell.

daylilly99, I love love love your Midsummer Tranquility and Beebleberry Pie! Absolutely gorgeous -- especially that green one -- to die for!!!

Sharyn Lianne really caught my eye too. The two photos show some variation on color intensity. I also wonder how it would look inmy climate and my soil. Maybe when the price comes down some, I could try it here.

What a nice idea. Frozen here!

Love everybody's top ten! Here are a few that come to mind for me here.

Love seeing all these pictures!!

My bloom season wasn't very long and wasn't prolific. I blame Hurricane Matthew in October 2016. Hundred mph circular winds will do that. I was able to get the daylilies pretty well recovered during the summer and then another hurricane, Irma in Sept. 2016. Again, I'm trying to make my daylilies happy--new soil, new fertilizer and such. Hope 2018 is a much better year!!

daylilly99 I've added several of Karol Emmerich daylilies this summer and more on the way in the spring. Gorgeous and I love your Beebleberry Pie
Steve I don't think I can pick a favorite of yours but Quoting Hemmingway is one I drool over on the LA

White Perfection has become my favorite white this summer



Tequila and Lime has been in my garden for probably 15 years and has been one of my absolute favorites.



Limonero Squeeze is fast becoming one of my favorite yellows. Never fails to thrill when the blooms open and the backdrop is a Summer Wine Ninebark and really sets off the color


You and Eye has been a great bloomer and I've had it two summers now. Love the color on this one.


Keep on Looking didn't bloom at first but I am now totally in love with the blooms It has become of my my favorite blooms


Vatican City was new to my Prayer Garden this summer and absolutely gorgeous bloom. One of my favorite wine colors. Pics don't do it justice



Moses Fire was also new to my Prayer Garden had amazing blooms. I love the way the yellow and red double reminds me of fire



I can't say enough about Karol Emmerich's Child of Bethlehem





Autumn Jewels was an awesome late bloomer. Huge beautiful blooms!



And last but not least is Big Smile that I've also had for many years and reblooms beautifully with huge soft blooms

daylilly99 said:Sharyn Lianne really caught my eye too. The two photos show some variation on color intensity. I also wonder how it would look in my climate and my soil. Maybe when the price comes down some, I could try it here.

I think it would do just fine for you, unless there are some extenuating circumstances specific to your microclimate. The warm, humid climate of what I refer to as "daylily country" is what makes the color "pop" in cultivars such as Sharyn Lianne and Guy's Outrageous. Betty grows in the warm-night, hot day, low humidity California central valley, which causes the disparity you're seeing. I'm further north and closer to the coast, (cooler overall, particularly the evenings) and I didn't even bother taking any pictures of Guy's Outrageous this summer. It wasn't a disaster, but you wouldn't be able to ID it from looking at the Floyd Cove pictures. If GO had done as well here as it did for Betty, I'd have bought more of the Pierce tet. RFK things this fall. There were definitely a couple on that list that looked amazing.

Regarding price, there are so many introductions coming out from tet. Rose F. Kennedy and tet. Emerald Starburst that the 2017s should come down in price pretty quickly.

It is hard to pick 10, but here goes.

I will start with Blue Venom. This was so pretty this summer. The eye was very blue, and it bloomed late in the summer and kept going into fall.

Blue Venom

This year, Eye Declare was an older cultivar that I really enjoyed. It looked so fresh and perfect everyday, and it bloomed so nicely with the perennials that surrounded it.

Eye Declare

New to the garden this year is Blue Alert. It was such a lovely mini, and it was one of my favourite new ones.

Blue Alert

Caline de Blues is also new to the garden. This unregistered daylily was smothered in bloom, even though it was moved as a clump in full bloom. I love the eye on this one.

Caline de Blues

Marseilles Watercolor really performed its first year in the garden, and the eye showed some patterning that I did not expect.

Marseilles Watercolor

Janice Brown is another older cultivar that always performs and looks perfect with multiple blooms open every day.

Janice Brown

Peggy Jeffcoat reminds me or porcelain, just gorgeous. My favourite double in the garden

Peggy Jeffcoat

Another favourite mini is Dragon Dreams. Such a pretty little flower.

Dragon Dreams

Grace Like Rain is new to me this year, and from her first bloom, she became a favourite.

Grace Like Rain

I have to include a Siloam. I just love these little daylilies and try and collect them when I see them. Here is Siloam Tiny Tim.

Siloam Tiny Tim

So many gorgeous daylilies! I really like Ocean Spirit, Child of Bethlehem and Marseilles Watercolor. Every pic of these daylilies are beautiful. May have to add these on my wishlist!

Betty, I added Guy's Outrageous and Dancing Flamingo this fall after seeing your pics of them in previous threads. Can't wait to get them this spring.

Wow Steve! Garden Princess and Quoting Hemingway are incredibly beautiful! Like Ginny, i can't stop for them.

I have only nine favorites this year; next year I hope to have more because I planted a lot of new daylily cultivars in August 2017:

Green Flutter: love its bright greenish yellow flowers and excellent foliage:


Persian Ruby (first year bloom; planted September 2016); love the deep, rich wine color and contrasting yellow eyes of its blooms):


Red Volunteer (first year bloom; planted September 2016); love its cheerful red flowers and nicely increasing clump size):


Regal Finale (first year bloom; three double fans planted September 2016 each produced three scapes in 2017); love its gorgeous deep wine-colored bloom and contrasting greenish yellow eyes):


Royal Occasion (first year bloom; planted July 2016); a very generous bloomer, although the flowers do not have the pretty sheen of some other darker flowers:


Ruby Spider (long-time favorite); love its huge, cheerful blooms with their contrasting yellow eyes:


Scarlet Romance (unregistered but a long-time favorite); good clumps with generous and cheerful blooms:



Strawberry Candy (long-time favorite) I wish I could grow better clumps; I have seen Strawberry Candy looking much prettier in other people's gardens:


Third Witch (first year blooms; planted September 2016); love its deep wine-red blooms and contrasting yellow eyes:

Beautiful Carol Green Flutter and Regal Finale were both new bloomers for me too this year and I loved them but I could only pick 10 I also added Persian Ruby this summer but no blooms yet.

Legalily said:Beautiful Carol Green Flutter and Regal Finale were both new bloomers for me too this year and I loved them but I could only pick 10 I also added Persian Ruby this summer but no blooms yet.

Ginny,
Based on your gorgeous photo and glowing review of Vatican City, I added that to my must-have list (not that I have any room for it without digging out a lot of rocks to add another garden---a bad idea)!

It was one of my favorites this summer. The throat was vibrant.