Interested in this... DRAGON KING did the same thing here. In fact I have a picture of DRAGON KING and SEMINOLE BLOOD in the same frame, DK looks awful and SB is fabulous! Maybe it's just certain 1st year plants, dunno.

I've had same problem. I was told it is thrips.
It may just be new plants.

Nancy

Rita, I have had several to look like that. I think it's thrips so next spring ( early ) I will spray for them. Good luck and if you find what it is, olease let us know...Ellie

When Rita says it's not thrips, I for one believe her -- we've seen for ourselves that she is an awesome, experienced gardener. Besides, would thrips attack one daylily and leave others in the bed strictly alone? I've heard the theory that they favor the darker colors, but in my garden I have cultivars that seem frequently to blotch (like TAKEN BY STORM and COLLECTOR'S CHOICE) while their neighbors (like BELA LUGOSI. STRUTTER'S BALL, and GRAND MASTERPIECE) have never shown the slightest blemish.

Well, thank you for the compliment about being a great gardener. However, I don't know everything and like most of us, can always learn something new.

I based the no thrips diagonsis on the fact that I have 180 roses and if I had thrips they would surely would be in those roses or some of them I would think. So I am sure that the roses have no thrips.

None of my other daylilies look like that and I do have deep purples very close to that one. Its up in the daylily plateau and that garden is very closely (too closely) planted with all daylilies.

If you look at my post also yesterday -Purples in my garden- you can see pictures of INCENDIARY and ASTHETIC BALLET, both perfect flowers, both very close to that splotchy mess.

Still, it really does look like the type of damage thrips could do now that everyone mentions it and I looked really closely and could see some bumps on the unopened blooms which I believe I had read could be signs of thrip damage. I am going to do out and spray this daylily and just the surrounding area with one of my rose products that I have for problems and see if that helps.

I sprayed it. Drentched it really so we will see if that helps.

There are many different species of thrips. The specific "daylily thrips" wouldn't attack roses therefore you can have thrips on daylilies without having them on roses.

You sprayed for thrips? After I leaped to your defense? Rita, how could you do this to me! :-)

I still greatly enjoy your posts.

Ah, ha. See, I didn't know I could have a different type of thrips that would attack daylilies and not roses.

I sprayed because I want to see if it helps. I an not convinced it is thrips, only that it might be.

Hope you don't mind my 2 cents worth. We have several daylilies that exhibit that when the morning dew is heavy. I think it is some type of water scarring from the dew.

The thrips in my garden are very selective -- yes, they can infest one plant and leave the one right next to it alone.

I've also noticed that some of my new daylilies will look really crummy when they first bloom, but they improve with each succeeding blossom. So it could be either.... or !

Nancy

I had afew more blooms open up on it. Either the blooms are getting alittle better or I am just getting used to the awefull things. Can't make up my mind which it is.

Todays pictures. So very much better than before, even on the worst looking of the two blooms.

I had already decided I was going to dig it and move it as soon as the blooms were done. I just had not yet decided on whether it was going to move to the front yard relocation garden or the garbage can. I wanted to wait and see if there was improvement in the blooms.

I now have decided that this is just a bad spot for JUNE HUDSON, No matter that its surrounded by other daylilies doing just fine. Going to move it to the relocation garden as soon as the flowers finish as I woulkd like to see if they continue to improve.

Things are looking up for JUNE HUDSON. This is todays bloom.

Quite a difference from the first shot at the begining of this thread, don't you think?

Amazing...she is a beauty now..must have bee thrips, ya think? I had a dark spider that was like that this year. The surrounding ones were fine. I broke of the damaged buds an lo and behold, she has bloomed her head off. Still blooming too!! Rose spray is very handy to have around...Ellie

Rita, the white spots at the edges of your flowers (on your July 4th and July 11th photos) look like damage from grasshoppers. I have sat and watch them scrape the top layer of the flower petals and eat it. BUGGERS!

The blotchiness - I just can't nail it down in my yard. Glad yours are looking better. I have noticed a correlation between when a bud is open on the top a day or two before it actually blooms and increased blotchiness - I don't know if water (aka humidity/sprinkler spray/rain) gets in there and causes it... It happened a lot this year to my Velvet Eyes - and there were no thrips on this plant (I inspected daily, plus I sprayed it just in case - heck, I was spraying some others anyway).

She does look so much better, but there still seems to be a little damage to the flowers. I've been having trouble with some of my daylilies being eaten by slugs (I can see the slime trails they leave behind.) I also recently found an earwig eating one of my daylily flowers. The damage looks a lot like that in your two last photos.

Juliet

I don't think I have many grasshoppers, at least not so I can see but I do have lots of slugs.

I almost never ever stray for insects. I sometimes spray plain old soapy water at the aphids if they get too bad in the spring but thats it. I only spray my roses with fungicide but I did have something handy for the roses just in case I had an emergency on one or something. Thats why I dosed JUNE HUDSON, I couldn't figgure out what it was.

Another thing is that JUNE HUDSON starts opening two days before open bloom and the buds open just alittle and alittle more the second day before popping on the third being the real day of bloom. So I think she is especially prone to whatever damage being insect or water damage or what.

I am going to move her after bloom to another spot and see how she does next year. I do like the blooms when I see them as they should be.

That is a beautiful flower. I would give it a chance.