Hi Johnnieb,

I know what you mean about the foliage! The best in my garden (I'm in the United Kingdom, but approximates to Zone 7 or 8 in the US I believe) are definitely CRIMSON PIRATE, CHICAGO KNOCKOUT and ALWAYS AFTERNOON. Nice and strong leaves, dark green with hint of blue and not a brown or streaky leaf in sight.

The following do not look so good now (still flowering but more or less over) - STRAWBERRY CANDY, CATHERINE WOODBERY, PANDORA'S BOX.

Hope this helps!

Leah

The only plant in the yard that hasn't required any type of clean-up is Janice Brown. All the leaves look perfect.

JoAnn

Thanks, this is the kind of information I was looking for. I'm sorry to hear about Pandora's Box as I just planted this one in my garden this year.

Hmmmmmm... from the paucity of responses, I'm beginning to think that daylily foliage is even more hopeless than I thought!

'Self' is used to describe the singular color of many living things including goldfish, puppies, and cats.

Mini Pearl has shiny dark foliage -- never has a problem in my garden.

Well, my Pandora's Box has great foliage right now. All of mine are new this year so I don't know how they will look when they get established.

Give me until Monday to get back to you on this. I'll have you a good list of the best of field foliage. Your comments are well founded. There are a few in the field that I've noticed that have wonderful flowers and absolutely the most hideous foliage that you could ever hope to see.

I do think that hybridizers are listening to these concerns. Most of the bad foliage that I'm seeing is coming from older plants. The newer ones are, for the most part, much more attractive. New introductions need to be well rounded plants that look good for the majority of the season, whether in bloom or not.

Janet

I find my tetraploids have nicer foliage in general than my diploids: wider, thicker, and most of them darker. I think the stronger leaves make them more able to withstand stress. I noticed this morning that the dark purple tets have darker leaves too.

Drought will also affect foliage - if it is extremely dry, foliage will wither or have heavy brown tips because it is the plants defense mechanism to not have to support all the green foliage. They keep enough to supply food, but not suck excess moisture out of the soil except enough to feed themselves. Did you ever notice a tree will drop leaves during a drought? Mother Nature is very smart.

Brooke

What a surprise to return to this forum after a long absence and find that one of my old threads has just come back up!

Mother Nature may be smart, but since we're mostly growing hybrids it's the breeders we have to blame for releasing cultivars with poor foliage! Since posting my original comments, I have only become more discouraged. The majority that I have grown have had crummy foliage. I long ago banished 'Happy Returns' (known in my garden as 'Unhappy Reruns') for its poor foliage: the early foliage was good, but after blooming the foliage really declined, and cutting it back to get fresh foliage sacrificed the rebloom. Among those whose foliage may get them banished next year if they don't shape up: 'Autumn Accent', 'Pandora's Box', 'Hyperion', 'Black Eyed Susan', and 'Moonlit Masquerade'. It's a shame because all of these have lovely flowers. I guess one solution would be to interplant them with grasses or other foliage plants that will help camouflage them.

One bright spot is 'Kindly Light'--this is one of my favorites for its unusual and exotic-looking flowers, and I've been pleased to discover that although it is not a vigorous grower its foliage is generally much better than that of the other daylilies in my garden.

My suggestion for you would be to do what those who love tulips do - plant something in front of it so that the foliage is hidden but the bloom is seen.

Here we are just over a year later and the only other plant that looks good with no cleanup is Little Show Stopper which is not perfect because it is a double but only when the weather is warm enough. There are very few perfect plants out there.

JoAnn

Here is a link that might be useful: Little Show Stopper

I too think foliage is really important which is why a chance discovery of a variegated fan prompted my interest in dl collection for breeding.
Variegated leaf:

If I had only opened my eyes to dls before this discovery I would have been hooked anyway.

For some more interesting foliage check out Virgo's recent "I can't believe my eyes" post. Have you ever seen petaloid foliage?

After my established once-bloomers are done for the year, my husband weed-whacks all the foliage down to the ground (or mows it down). It grows back fresh & beautiful until frost.
My plan for the others is to plant peonies in front. Peony foliage looks good all summer & I LOVE their spring bloom & fragrance!
IMHO, daylilies look best at a distance (unless you have the time to constantly deadhead). Therefore, most of my daylilies were banished from the front-yard to the rear fence (100 feet away from the patio) so the dead blooms are not noticeable now.

I checked this thread a year ago and was dismayed by the lack of responses. In the end, I tried to buy varieties where the foliage was pictured (very few growers give a description of foliage), but that wasn't too useful. Miniature varieties, such as Pixie Parasol, Double Cutie, and yes, even old Stella D'Oro, tend to have the best leaves, looking lush and grasslike all season. Those tets with thick dull, strappy leaves are hard to hide but I have some cranesbill geranium that has grown through mine and the combination is really stunning.

I was researching daylilies on the web and guess what popped up from a Google search! So here we go again, another year of daylilies blooming with great flowers but not-so-great foliage. I haven't banished a single daylily from my garden yet, but this may be the year as I need to make room for new plants.

For the third year in a row, 'Kindly Light' is the hands-down winner for foliage. I have it growing in two different spots, one with more sun than the other, and it's the same in both places, and loaded with buds. I love the spider form so this one stays! 'Autumn Accent' is doing reasonably well, especially considering it had an awful aphid infestation this spring, and it looks like it's going to bloom well this year (this is the third or "leap" year for most of my daylilies). All the rest are budding up heavily but their foliage is pretty awful.

Here's 'Kindly Light':

Victorian Lace has been a good garden plant for me. Pretty flowers, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Victorian Lace from Hortiplex Plant Database

I think the foliage on Black Eyed Stella looks great when not in bloom. Very clean looking. Also my Pandoras Box foliage does not look bad. That was another one I was going to suggest along with Holy Spirit.