Laurel, I'm no pro by a long shot but you may have a rare bloom on some. I would keep them. I have some Spring sickness too!!...Ellie

I think most hybridizers tell you to evaluate for a minimum of 3 years but not more than 5 (if you have the room). For me, if the darn plant doesn't bloom by year 3 it will be moved to a location for "lost blooms" to make room for something that will bloom.

I've never had SS on SILOAM SUGAR TIME and this year, it got SS. I'm trying to figure out what changed last season that during the winter it emerged this way. It is pulling itself out of it. I didn't realize what was wrong and thought our unusally warm temps and then frosts damaged it but sure looks like SS to me.

Julia

Okay, thanks for the help - they get a reprieve for this year, at least until they bloom. I don't have much space set aside for seedlings yet, and the ones affected made the move from the old house, and I don't want to toss them prematurely. They survived the move last year, but didn't bloom. I guess, in the interest of having space for upcoming seedlings, I can only give them three years, then if I don't want them, they can go to the "Island of Misfit Daylilies," lol - a.k.a. the wilder parts of friends' yards.

I don't know what causes spring sickness, but we did have a run of warm temps, then a couple hard frosts on the young foliage. Funny how some plants just shrug that off, and others don't.

I have had something which I think is spring sickness affecting my second year seedlings this spring too. They have been very yellow and just not growing up. Many have been affected. My husband thinks I over fertilized them but I have 2 patches and one is worse than the other. One is mostly purchased seeds and the other is my own crosses. It looks much better. We had early warmth followed by several goods frosts and these seedlings definitely got frosted a few times.
It is so disappointing after seeing how good they grew the first year. They all looked awesome. I am certainly not impressed right now although most are growing out of it.I guess it could be that some of the seeds I purchased are from cultivars that just won't like our winter and didn't take the frosts well. Hopefully they bloom and then I can evaluate the foliage again next year with more info available. It really makes me wonder tough how some of these southern places ever evaluate seedlings in a year.

I did notice that the crosses that have the sickness have one southern-bred parent, and I wondered if that had something to do with their spring sickness susceptibility. There are huge differences in how plants perform north/south, and D/Sev/Ev really doesn't tell you how well adapted a plant may be to a particular part of the country.

I hope they bloom; I'm curious to see their "faces." If they don't bloom, they'll have to go this year - they've had their chance. I just planted about 60 new seedlings, with high hopes for the next couple years. Wish me luck!

Laurel

For some reason, I am having a lot of Spring sickness this season for both seedlings and established plants. Some of my two-year old seedlings did not bloom last year because of transplant stress and they are beginning to show scapes for the first time now.

It probably will take about 2 to 3 years for me to see blooms on most of my planted seeds. There is one seedling that I thought looked really washed out (Beside Still Waters x Captain Blue), but it is dormant and increases well. Will try to see if the bloom improves for the next 2 more years, before thinking of giving it away --being more inclined to wait for the older seedlings to bloom because, I guess, the wait will be less overall than waiting again for newly planted seedlings.

Good luck on your seedlings!

I had spring sickness on a couple of EV's that I planted before I knew better to get dormants. These looked great last year (planting year) but not so great this year. I'll give them this year to see if they bloom, but if not, then out they go! I've worked too darn hard on getting as far as I have in my small yard to wait for losers lol.

I have lost one seedling this year from Spring Sickness, but it was a tiny fan and not too strong anyway--may have been the one tet seedling I've ever grown. Some seedlings looked terrible last year,but snapped right out of it this Spring. I don't grow daylilies to sell and they are all either old historicals or my own seed grown plants so I never bother to cull, unless a plant gets too invasive somewhere, so I have seen plants that looked sad in their first years blossom out like a teenager when they are ten . One pale pinkish single fan started in 1999 now has over forty fans and I can't count the scapes, it's developed the habit of popping up two scapes from a fan and it's now bright red and been in bloom a week. I'm not at all sure what causes Spring Sickness---were I younger and better organized and not such a procrastinator I would like to try a few trials to see if I could learn something. For the last few years all of the plants that got Spring Sickness have been seedlings newly planted in cultivated soil--my established plants are not disturbed and naturally mulched by falling leaves and dead leaves and I'm wondering if bare disturbed soil splashing on plants doesn't cause some problems or if younger plants are more susceptible ?? Anyway I think some may grow out of it and be healthy adults just like bratty kids! -----------------Weedy