Are all your cultivars marked with garden markers? I once heard of a similar situation, but what was found to be happening was that none of the original cultivar clumps were marked with garden markers and the daylilies were cross pollenating and self seeding. So over a long period of time the newer seeded daylilies were crowding out and in the end out competing those that were originally planted, making it appear as though the original plants had reverted. I've been growing daylilies for about 9 years also and I've never seen any of mine revert.

Linda

Did you hsve any of the 'wild' ones growing in this area along with your other daylilies? The only thing I can think of is if you did, the 'wild' ones took over that bed and choked the other ones out. They'll do that.

Joy

I too, have been growing dl's for years and have never seen any of mine "revert" but the species dl which spreads by underground root systems will take over if planted with other dl's. They are very hardy and will choke out many other plants including hybrid dl's.
Jan

Oh no!
You probably got a rootlet of the orange variety in your soil and it has taken over. This happened to me with my irises- a prolific lavendar one crowded out all of my pretties and I was left with a huge ugly clump of lavendar irises.

The plants themselves can't change color because their genes determine color.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I would dig them all out and plant irises or something else there until all of the orange daylily rootlets have popped up and been dug out.

Renee

Yep, I agree with others above. It has not happened to me with daylilies, but with irises.

When we moved into our first home, my husband's family gave us some of his grandfather's irises. He didn't keep up with names, but he had all colors. They were gorgeous. We put them all in a bed together.

The second year, it looked like there were quite a few more white irises.

The third year, no colors left. Just white.

?!?!?!

I swore up and down for years that they had all reverted to white. I finally talked to someone at our local iris society, and they assured me that iris do not revert...I had just planted a really aggressive variety and it had taken over the bed.

I am really careful with those white irises now! :D

Thanks to all for your advice; there are NO wild ones in the vicinity, but I think it is correct, just l agressive shoot took over.

i have been growing daylilies in this particular spot for 13 years. about 3 years ago, i noticed that one wild one bloomed. last year, there were about 4 plants. each year i tag them and dig them out. this year about 10. never was there even a rhizome of the wild planted in that area to my knowledge. all were purchased and for years bloomed as they should have.

around the corner, probably 100 yards away, i have a strip of the original orange daylilies - hundreds of them. they are restricted by a strip of cement, asphalt driveway and cedar hedge. they are deadheaded daily and when completely finished blooming, are cut back to the ground, leaves as well.

so it is a real conundrum as to why this is happening. any thoughts other than those expressed?

same here quat a few have reverted to oranges with three fans 'dont know what to do .i did however dig them and put them in the trash

what should i do

all have tags i dead head daily if i see a seed pod i cut and put in trash

Several respondents gave the correct advice. All you can do is dig and destroy. The cultivars themselves do not revert, but stoloniferous wild ones or more aggressive cultivars can crowd out others.

I agree with those who say that the cultivars CANNOT revert. Impossible. Just keep digging them out. I just had another one this year pop up in the middle of one of mine. I've been doing this for 20 years in one particular bed that had the double orange ones when we moved here. If it aggravates you too much, dig up all the daylilies in the area and clean the roots, then dig out all the dirt and sift it thoroughly and then maybe you will be done with them. Even then one of the plants may be a spy! I can often spot the double orange ones as the foliage is thicker. Otherwise just keep at it.

Brad

Maybe 10-15 years ago, I bought a mix of 50 daylilies. For maybe 5 years, there were no oranges at all. Suddenly one season there were a handful of DOUBLE orange dl – not the native ones. Well, you'll never convince me that they lay dormant for 5 years. Nor that a bird dropped seeds from heaven. These were right in my daylily beds and nowhere else. Now, several years later the single orange "native strain" is popping up as well. Maybe "reverting" is technically impossible. (Does anyone note that domestic pigs will revert to the black, hairy native strain if released?) If my daylilies AREN'T reverting then the native orange ones must be an immaculate conception.

I just had an example of what you said cannot happen, HU. Suddenly an orange daylily popped up in one clump where there have been none for maybe 10 years in my main garden. It was obviously dormant all that time. One piece of a root can regenerate into a plant. It may take time, but it happens.

One other idea occurs to me. You never know what you will get from the seeds of the hybids. If your hybrid had a seed pod from a bee pollinated daylily, it is possible to get one that looks like the wild ones, but isn't. An example for me: About 3 years ago a daylily popped up next to my Bali Watercolor that was extra extra late. Bali does have seed pods [not all do and wild ones don't]. It is ugly as can be and looks like a throwback to the copper color wild ones I see in daylily books. Genetics are unpredictable. Bali is tall, huge spidery form purple bloom,, mid and beautiful. This one is short, xtra late, coppery redish orange and ugly, small ordinary shape bloom. After that experience, I now throw away all seed pods from bees.

I don't know if I would call it dormancy because that tiny little left over piece of root is busy recreating the plant . If even a tiny piece of root of a stoloniferous daylily is left in the soil it takes a long time for it to grow enough to break ground . It is definitely a left over piece of root that has caused your problem . Dig it out carefully and dispose of the roots otherwise as said by those above it will come back !!!!!!!!!!!!!! like it or not .

Bees and such can fly a fairly long way, so not having any orange doesn't mean that you don't have their pollen around. Bird planted? No, not likely in daylilies of any type. Cross pollination and dropped by your daylilies in your daylily bed, much more likely.

Oh, I'd believe some of your mix took five years to flower ... those variety packs can sometimes take a bit to start flowering ... I have a group that took years before I found out what colors they were. (I was beginning to give up on them.) It's not uncommon for a daylily to take a few years before it blooms (same with iris), and then it sometimes will bloom in an unusual form the first year or so (frequently on shorter scapes with smaller blooms).

Now, when you mention having orange doubles, that would be my guess as to where your orange singles came from ... they just didn't get the doubling gene/mutation. I would guess different plant or child plant over reversion.

Here's an interesting discussion concerning unusual daylily coloration:

https://garden.org/thread/view/27440/Can-Daylily-revert-back/

One quick clarification ... daylilies are all from asia, so no daylily is native to North America. Hemercallis fulva is what often gets called a ditch lily ... there are a few varieties of the species, one of which might by a triploid (generally infertile by seed), I'm fairly certain there's a diploid (no idea if there's a tet), and I think there might be a double, too. Wild is a good term for them, since many have a free life; other good terms might be: colonizing, naturalizing, side-of-the-road flower, or in many gardens (not mine): weed.

It’s the bees. The pollen from the orange daylilies gets inserted into the different colors DL & all become tall & orange. Even the dwarf DL like Stella D’oro become full-size & orange..

A flower being pollenated by another flower is not going tochange the pollenated plant, only the child plant that forms from the seeds of said pollenated flower. We're not talking about an infectious disease that can be transmitted; they are different species that can cross breed. What can happen, though, if cross breeding or interplanting and out competition ... so you end up with orange daylily plants mixed amongst whatever the other plants were, and then the two species both grow compete with one another, hich can result in one out blooming the other. If you go dig up the bed and separate and divide, youshould be able to recoup whatever daylily went missing ... unless something has eaten those, but that's a whole different issue.

Your not the only one. I didn't plant any quanza Orange or the old yellow ne, don't know name. I have them now.

I too planted yellow but now have yellow, orange orange, & red! how does that happen? im thrilled

You have seedlings, or you might have had some extras mixed in.

Seedlings would mean that yours got pollenated then dropped seeds ... seedlings came out a different color. If you bought it as a plant, depending on the source, you may have had some extras that was hiding in your yellow ones; I have a blackberry lily that either hitchhiked with a daylily I got from a local plant sale or was bird planted.

Also, I've had daylilies that I got as assorted crowns that took years before they bloomed, so even if your daylilies aren't newly planted, the other color could have been hiding in there.

Totally agree with bluelberrybuntcake. Read those replies carefully. It fits the science and facts. It makes no sense that the original will change.

Most of my Daylilies have reverted back to the wild roadside orange Daylily color. i inves alot of money in them

WhaWhat do you think causes this

Kwanso is an old double orange ditch lily. The deer seldom eat mine (while they eat everything else) and it blooms for quite a while after the typical orange single ditch daylily so I appreciate it for that but it is a beast and will crowd out most other plants. By the way both are pretty much sterile so they are not seeding. I find Kwanso is very aggressive and has spread into my beds. Mine started with less than a pinky tip of roots as an experiment. What I actually wanted was another orange double, Floro Pleno. Kwanso focuses on growing a nice plant before it blooms...it thus can "hide" for years. Its leaves are big and healthy. In poor conditions it just is a sea of green until it is happy. Its looks a bit beat and barely flowers then. I have found it spreading underground...its shoot's leaves actually green in the dirt without the sun. I suggest tracking your flowers as they bloom and dig out what you know you want and relocating it. If you only have that spot I suggest saving what you know you want and keeping them in definite clumps, aggressive pulling out anything that comes up in the middle between. If an orange pops up in a clump dig the clump and carefully tease out the orange plant while in bloom....it will only infiltrate worse later. I you are careful and water you will probably still get the rest of the plant to bloom. I think if you have it you may never get rid of it entirely. Finally, if you have a plant that is mostly smaller leaved but one piece of it is looks really healthy and grows better than the rest in the spring...it could be a seedling...but probably is Kwanso. Great plant but give it it's own piece of ground and never mix it in with other daylilies.

I think this thread needs deleted. It's 14 years old and full of false info in some posts. I hope no one dregs it up again.

My daylillies have also turned to the ”wild orange“ stock. I had a wide variety of colors in both my back and front beds...but, not any more. I guess the wild seed fairy must have flown over my rooftop to pollinate all my lillies! The only thing I can imagine is that after freezing back for the 3rd consecutive year, some transformation took place with the root stock. It’s so dissapointing.

As many have said on this post, daylilies do not revert to the 'wild orange stock', which is Fulva Europa. Additionally, Fulva Europa is sterile so it didn't pollinate your daylilies. It sounds to me like your other daylilies were tender and died in your freezes and the orange ones, being hardy and vigorous, spread into where the others were.

I wish the administration would just delete this dumb thread that keeps popping up

Brad, You are right in that administration should update postings more frequently; however, the issue is relevant for those of us just experiencing it. It's helpful to see how others handled the matter. Also, with technology developing so quickly, someone may have discovered a solution.

Solution to what? If you don't like the orange daylilies, then dig them out ... no technology required, just a trowel or shovel. The other colors are either dead or are blooming less because they are overcrowded and you missed the flowers the day they bloomed ... also solved with a shovel (and new plants in the former case).

Daylilies don't have rootstock and grafts, like tearoses; they grow on their own roots. If the daylily dies, it dies; there's no transformation ... unless dead is a transformation now.

One other thought on what happened to your other daylilies. The blooms may be being eaten by deer and rabbits. My experiences say that deer do have a preference of some plants over others ... The voles here preferred white tulip bulbs over red, and the deer seem to seek out my favorite daylilies (poor Peach Serenade only gets to bloom if I put up sticks and/or caging,)

Midesign, the whole post is so long no one reads the various posts. The problem is answered over and over but lost among the same question repeated.

this was posted 134 years ago. I have no clue why it keeps surfacing.

kay