I almost never get the bud counts that most hybridizers claim for their plants. A few that I'm most happy with here are:

Alan Lane Agin with 16 buds
Heartbeat Of Heaven 16 buds
Ultimate Weapon 17 buds
Katherine Marin 16 Buds

On most of my other registered CV's I see 12 - 14 buds per scape on the average. Some like Wild Irish only ever produce 7-8 buds per scape, but since it increases fast here and sends up a lot of scapes, the low bud count doesn't bother me. I think it must have to do with the zone I'm in as my DL's get plenty of water and are fertilized with slow release fertilizer twice during the growing season. I'll divide Wild Irish this fall and see if that has any effect on the bud count next year.

Linda

Linda - It sounds like you're providing a good growing culture for your dayliies. It's too bad Wild Irish doesn't do better for you. This is the first year in a long time that I've had high bud counts. In the drought years, I was thrilled to get anything in the high teens. My high counts and all the rebloom this year are due to the flooding rains we got in early May.

Debra

Debra, this was quite a coincidence. I've been busy counting buds today and thought I'd have to search for your bud count survey and there was your update almost at the top.
Here's what I have--these are best bud counts not average.
1.Eau La La with 36 buds
2.is a two way tie at 34 buds
Brilliant Circle and Enchanting Esmerelda
3.Guiniver's Gift--33buds
4.3 way tie at 32 buds
Bahama Butterscotch, Forever Red, and Palladian Pink
(2 had fairly high average, but most scapes on Forever Red were in the 12-14 range with this one scape way higher)
5.Adam Pitkin Hurd--31 buds
6. Marmalade Skies--30 buds
Bud counts were all over the place. A few of these had similar budcounts last year, but most were lower last year. On the other hand I have some that had great budcounts last year that were much lower this year. Makes it hard to decide what goes.
Hope more people will post.
Val

What does "(bud builder)" mean?

Deanna

Val - I can see that I really need to get my Forever Red out of a pot and into the ground!

Deanna - Here's the AHS Dictionary's defnition of bud building:

Scientifically called "indeterminate inflorescence," it means "continuing to grow at the apex" or end of the scape. A pattern of growth on scapes in which buds continue to form as lower buds open. A scape showing this characteristic will get taller through the bloom season. It is a somewhat unreliable trait, dependent upon weather and growing conditions.

Debra

This has been such a strange year for daylily bloom. I didn't do many actual budcounts since we ran into that run of 6 weeks with no rain during the begining of bloom season and it made a big difference. I had noticed that budcounts on all the southern and warm western bred (like Maryotts intros) were way down from past years. So my plan to weed out any that had really low budcounts was put on hold for this year and I will just wait.

However other daylilies here just outdid themselves. Emmerich intro SHADOW OF HIS HAND bloomed and then double scaped so that it had lots of bloom each day and seemed to bloom forevever. The reblooms have about 15 buds per scape, I never counted the number on the original. No record breaker for number except when you had the two scapes together.

However to outdo it Noris intro NO BLUE OXFORDS tripple scaped. It is still blooming on the third set of scapes. About 21 buds per scape. It wins all out for all time champion in my garden this year.

SWEET ISABELLA is reblooming, never did that before. DOC WEBSTER, my favorite yellow and not listed as a rebloomer rebloomed on every fan and is still blooming.

Guess thats my report, such as it is, for this year.

Thanks for the definition of bud builder. My Final Touch did this last year and I was astounded. How could so many buds come from the same point on the scape? It's a pretty cool feature for a DL to have.

This year was great for some and disappointing for others. I don't have exact bud counts, but these were over 20 buds per scape:

Palladian Pink
Tangerine Horses
Arcadia Plantation - still going strong
Elegant Candy
Insider Trading - excellent for its' 1st year here
Pandora's Box
Royal Frosting - and still going
Agamemnon
Lady Liz

and these have many scapes which equals many blooms regardless of buds/scape

Pumpkin Kid - still going for 6 weeks now
Waiting For Peace
San Ignacio
Apache War Dance
Indian Giver

So far the top scape is Orchid Visitation with 36 buds. I have some bud builders and some lates so you never know what will happen.

Well,
I was doing bud counts, and the plants kept putting up instant rebloom scapes and doing that bud building thing that I just decided to count scapes instead. I have been blessed with such heavy bloom and for so long a time this year.
14 scapes - Intelligent Life ...it wouldn't surprise me too much if it decided to send up a scape again.
12 scapes - Citrix, Filled to Overflowing, Count it All Joy, Heaven's Edge,Remembering Elizabeth and North Wind Dancer
10 scapes - South Seas, Cinco de Mayo, All American Windmill and Palace Garden Beauty.

Citrix started with a pitiful bloom the 2nd of June. Every other bloom on it had been perfect. Today, it squeezed out one last bloom that was not perfect, but it had bloomed for so long, and almost always multiple blooms!

Filled to Overflowing started blooming the 4th of June. It still has quite a few blooms to open.

I had never had a day lily bloom for such a long period of time before. Three weeks was outstanding.

Next year will have to be a let down since this has been such a remarkable year for bloom, instant rebloom, and regular rebloom.

kay

Edward - I'm really impressed with the count on your Orchid Visitation. Mine doesn't do that well (20 buds), but it's still in a pot. That's another one I MUST get in the ground this fall.

Debra

Hi Debra, this is the first year that Orchid Visitation has bloomed for me. I got it as a small double fan from David Burris two years ago so this is its third summer here. On three scapes I got 36, 25, 20 buds with wide spread three way branching.

Lullaby Baby and Ah Youth have about 28 buds so far. Both tend to act as bud builders in my garden so I expect them both to be a fair bit above 30 buds. I will let you know when the season is done.

I don't usually do budcounts on registered cultivars unless they are obviously spectacular.

This year Mahieu's 'Volcan Fuego' outdid itself (and everything else in my garden). The best scape had 6 branches and a bud count of 50! That is unheard of in this climate where we average 14" of rain per year (yes I do supplemental water or would have only dried sticks for a garden).

It seems that most plants that have these super budcounts trade off having a super season followed by an average season with lower bc. We'll see next year whether VF holds up to this high bc. The exception to that for me is Stamile's 'Desperado Love' which consistently has scapes of over 30 buds.

It was a tough year down here in Central FL. The bloom season started a month late because of late cold weather (well into April). We had an unusual amount of rain in the winter and the spring had good rain too, but it stopped in it's tracks in late June. Most cultivars limped along, but there were a very few standouts!

Purple Grasshopper had a budcount of 82! On 3 different scapes
Laughing Feather had 46 bc
Missouri Memories, Spacecoast Cotton Candy and Spacecoast Jimbo Saddler had 34 bc
Christine Dixon 32 bc and and so did Licorice Twist (bud-builder)
All About Eve and Magnificent Hummingbird had 31 bc
Linda Lubitz and Ledgewood Silver Lining had 24 bc

I'm hoping this next season will be more representative. The foliage looks good even now!

I had 20 buds per scape on Brave World. It's a bud builder! Lot's of prolifs, too.

Dani

Beachlily - Wow! 82 buds is really impressive. Your Purple Grasshopper must have kept blooming for a long time. It's interesting to see Magnificent Hummingbird did so well for you. It never has more than 11-12 buds here. Maybe it needs to be in a different place.

Berrytea - Volcan Fuego really put on a show for you last season. I've noticed the trend of up and down bud counts on some cultivars, too.

Dani - Glad to hear what did well for you. Isn't Brave World a Maryott intro?

Debra

Dani

Dani - Brave World has great saturated colors! Thanks for posting the photo.

Debra

I didn't keep a record of the bud count but the ones that did really well for me were:
Aramis
Supreme Apricot Ruffles
Siloam Ury Winniford
Siloam Virginia Henson - I think thats who it is!
Swiss Mint

Marg