Lowes can be bad about that. I rarely buy daylilies there unless I can see them in bloom. I am often suckered in at the end of the season when they mark them down to .50 or so. By then the tags are missing, but they work as fillers & most have turned out to be quite good daylilies.

Given how inexpensive older -- but perfectly wonderful -- daylilies can be that one buys from daylily nurseries, why buy at a place like Lowes at all? I can't think of a single reason to do so. There are more daylilies out there than anyone could possibly grow, and so many are inexpensive. You can do very nicely at $10...$15...$20...and if you think that's too much, you can find very nice plants at $5 or $6, too.

I'm with you Mike...however I bought 3 daylilies at a nice Nursery in Baton Rouge. I was suppose to be getting 2 of ALL FIRED UP and 1 called CHARLES JOHNSTON....I ended up with 3 Charles Johnston daylilies. I was very disappointed since All Fired Up looked so nice (in the pic). I just kept them all since they are pretty anyway but it does get on ones nerve doesn't it?!!!

I have to echo what lynxe wrote. I know plenty of sellers who sell dls from $5 to $10 and you will get what you ask for. When we visit Lowes I typically am buying annuals or perennials but no daylilies. I saw they had pots upon pots of Stella de Oro last time I visited.

I would return them and take your $$'s and get dls you really want for the spot. A pain in the butt, I know, but at least you are getting what you really wanted.

Julia

I had the same problem with Lowe's in Grandville Michigan. Daylilies that are marked Uncharted Waters (supposed to be lavender/pink) bloomed yellow, and they are doubles.
They are very pretty, so I will keep them and they will be taged NOID.
However I have learned a lesson, I don't buy daylilies from Lowe's.
I did go to a plant sale today, put on by the Michigan extention office and got:

Tranquil Trail
Illini Pacesetter
David Kirchoff
Lake Norman Sunset
Indian Love call
Stand Up Double
Magic Lace

I paid 5.00 each and there is at least 3-4 fans in each pot. I feel like I hit the jackpot!

Nancy VB

I have never even seen anything but Stella at our Lowe's and Home Depot. Not much dl selection at local nurseries, either. They seem to stick to Stella and Happy Returns. Which are fine, but I really enjoy having something that's a little different. Sooo, I've had to mail order to find them.

I wish there was a good dl grower close to here. There's one about two hours away, but I keep looking at their catalog and not finding anything I'm falling in love with...

Connietn.Where is the dl grower that is 2hr away I'am in WMSON CO.

PAT

I learned my lesson last year. I bought Strawberry Candy and when it bloomed it wasn't. I won't buy any daylily at a roadside greenhouse or a big box store unless it is in bloom and I have to have it.

Connie you should make the drive to their gardens. Catalogs do not do the plants justice. I went to my first garden last year. I thought I was addicted before I went but nothing compared to the addiction I have suffered since I went and seen hundreds of DL's in bloom together.

One of my purchases was Tigger. I never would have bought this dl from pictures I have seen. But, man it really stands out and it called to me the whole time I was there.

Andrea

C'mon guys, we don't succumb to big box daylilies because they're cheap, but because they're *there*. This spring a local chain had stunning pots of Druid's Chant, huge blooms pumped on fertilizers, priced over $20. I passed on them, not because I know Druid's Chant is a $6 daylily now, but because they had rust.

ladydonna, I hope you'll seek out All Fired Up. Not only is it big and bright, but I just noticed a rebloom scape on mine.

Under no circumstances would I ever buy daylilies or hosta at Lowe's. Years ago when rust first reared its ugly head, the local Lowe's got an entire shipment of daylilies loaded w/ rust. At that time our state agricultural folks were closing down gardens w/ rust. I went to the manager and told him the plants were infected and he should pull them, but he refused to do so. I should have reported them. Found a hosta disease ( and right now I've forgotten) but it is also very contagious among plants. Infected plants should be destroyed. They were selling infected plants and again, they continued to sell them, saying their source was a nursery that had passed inspection. I do however buy other perennials from Lowe's, looking in particular for mis-marked plants. Sometimes they will put perennials in with annuals and get the prices mixed up. The other day they had reduced a whole bunch of big containers of heuchera ( coral bells) to $1.00. They were all marked 'Palace Purple' and just as green as they could be.I suspect the plants were something like 'Green Spice' or 'Bressingham Hybrids.' If I'd needed any heuchera, I'd have picked these mis-marked ones up - what a bargain!

I see mis-marked plants of all kinds at big box stores on a routine basis. It is a real problem and the employees don't care or don't have time to care which is another issue with big box stores.

Sometimes you can get a real bargain though and some of the new shrubs like those put out by Proven Winners are so much less expensive at the big boxes.

I no longer will buy bulbs at any of them after getting cream Asiatic lilies instead of Orientals at Costco, Wal*Mart and Home Depot a couple years ago.

I don't see daylilies other than Stella much here at all, in any nursery or even driving around. IF I had seen huge gorgeous colorful blooms like you all post here, I would have become interested in daylilies a lot sooner! I had no idea...

Pat, the dl grower is Wright's Daylilies. You can google them for address (I don't remember exactly. It's east, I think about halfway between here and Knoxville).

Andrea, I know you're right! You can tell just from googling pictures that you are never really going to know what it looks like until it blooms in your garden or you see it in person. That's part of the problem I'm having with Wright's...the pictures are just terrible! But last night I googled some of them and some of their daylilies are actually really gorgeous. Just bad photography. I do need to go up there sometime. Maybe my mom will road trip with me. :)

floota, the hosta disease you're thinking of is hosta virux X (usually referred to simply as HVX). It's too OT to discuss in great detail on a daylily forum; suffice to say that the odds are slim to none that I'll ever buy a hosta from a box store, nor will I buy from a general garden center. HVX is transmitted in sap from infected hostas to healthy ones, so, if you have one infected hosta, you run the risk of infecting your entire collection. Even assuming that you clean & disinfect your tools (and hands) properly after planting a virused hosta, there's always the chance that something -- an animal, hose, thrown ball, whatever -- could injure a virused leaf, thus enabling transmission.

As for a nursery passing inspection yet still selling virused hostas: that's quite possible. HVX may show up quickly; unfortunately, in may take years (and I mean that literally) to show up in certain ones. An example is Sum And Substance; some say it may take 10 years.

And there are lists of hostas known to be near-100%-certain infected. So, unless you have a reputable source or can buy an OS (originator stock) hosta rather than a TC (tissue-cultured) one, your best bet is to avoid those particular hostas altogether when shopping.