It will be a very long winter if I answer this question :) I like them all (almost). The bigger the flower, the better I like it. I'm very fond of purple, this year at least. I've been wanting a good purple with cream/white edging. I would say I don't like orange or gold daylilies, but those are also the ones that catch my eye when they are in bloom. I like the large spiders, especially the long curly ones. I love the form & look of Trahlyta. One of my favorites is Destined to see

I love clear colors, don't much care which color. Also, I
have learned to like spiders, it took a long time. I like
lots of color in spiders.

Bright, bright red spiders--ahhhhh.

Pale pink with a round shape. Purple is beautiful but I
don't have more than one or two. Have to fix that.

And finally - if it is blooming, it's my favorite.

Kay/phal

I really like the look of the first pic you posted, it is really pretty. I prefer really tall plants, huge flowers are nice too but i love my minis also. Highland Pinched Fingers is exceptionally beautiful.

Although I love the tall plants i wouldn't give up some of my short favorites like Century Club and Marmalade something?? can't think of the full name right now.

I seem to go for solid colors, not crazy about the contrasting eyes and don't like bitones either.

I'm particularly fond of spiders/ufos. I really like cascading twisting forms, the bigger the better.
I also like the simple round lightly ruffled form too.

I find I'm not into chicken fat at all, but am very intrigued by teeth.

As to color the brighter the better. Give me hot glowing orange and good clear reds. Yet I do have several pinks I like too. Also if it's got a bright green glowing throat I seem to gravitate to it.

Examples of my favs : Sergeant Major( Spider bright clear red), French Twist( twisting large red spider), Startling Creation( bright clear orange bitone with teeth), Parrot Jungle(green throat, tropical colors), Liliian's Womans Touch( clear intense lemon yellow with huge green throat).

Despite my prefrences i still have loads of little flowers, tall and short flowers in every shape and color you can imagine.I'm not fond of doubles yet a few found their way into my garden, and I like them there.

Rarely do I find a daylily I don't like, but i don't like washed out muddy colors.

Kim

I agree with Kay - clear color is most important to me. I love the huge blooms, and double blooms. I like most any color except mauve - but if it's a clear, bright mauve, that would be fine. I also like lots of blooms on each plant!!

I like large blooms. I also love the ones with dramatic eyes and colors. I would love purple, but mine are generally more of a red color than purple.
kay

I like my spider/ufs 36-50 inches tall. Examples are Cloud Forest, Heavenly Angel Ice, North Wind Dancer, and Thorhalla.

The round and ruffled should be between 24 and 36 inches tall. My favorites are 30 inches but you need all of them for a balanced garden. Examples are Victorian Lace, Belle Cook, Belle of Ashwood, Gentleman's Lady, and No More Tears.

Eyes and edges belong on smaller, shorter daylilies in my opinion. They should be 3 to 5 inch blooms on 20 to 24 inch scapes. These should also have ultra high budcounts. Examples are the Candies, and Faithful and True.

Edward

Well, I love them all...but I guess my preference would be the solid colors like Seminole Wind, Elizabeth Salter Corinthian Pink. I am partial to peachy pinks. I love all the doubles like
Scatterbrain, Big Kiss, Vanilla Fluff, Snow Blizzard, Country Music Queen. I like them about 24" to 27" Sarah.

Since I like sooo many of all different colors, forms & scape height, it's easier to say what I don't like ;)

Non-EMO or CMO
canoeing tepals
White midribs for the most part...some are spectacular
dormant foliage

I guess the rest depends on a cultivar basis. Flower size should compliment scape height & foliage size...as long as it's proportionate & doesn't look abnormal, it's all good with me.

That said, when I look at my inventory, I'm a sucker for watermarks, teeth, appliques, bi-colors, green, neon pink, bright tangerine orange with purple edge or eye...see it's just easier to list what I don't like, lol.

What a loaded question!:) I just went through my pictures and found what I think represent my favorite types of daylilies.

Since I just added a lot of new ones to my garden this year, more than likely my favorites will change next year. Really getting to like the light colored ones with dark eyes and edges.

Mostly, I like the ones in the 30-36" height range and between 5-7" bloom size. Colors are so varied that I had a hard time choosing on that quality. Usually gravitate toward the peachy pinks, but have found that my tastes change with each bloom...

Although I have my share of spiders, yellows, small, short, and doubles, these are not among what I would call my very favorites. Although I like the ones with chicken fat and teeth, they don't yank my chain as much as a plain old flat daylily with a little ruffle.

Here are just a couple of my favorites:

JAMAICAN MUSIC

APPLE TART

BORDER MUSIC

Vickie

Since many of our daylilies were new this year, I can't comment on some aspects like bud count (although we bought plants thare supposed to have good bud counts) or height (although we bought many plants that are supposed to have good-sized scapes). However, from what did bloom this year, I would have to say that the following characteristics stood out for me.
1. Eyes - I am partial to beautiful eyes. My wife's in particular, but daylily eyes will do...
2. Good openers in poor weather. On days when many of our daylilies looked like tulips, Mystical Rainbow opened up perfectly.

Whatever is in bloom on a particular day. as long as:
1) it doesn't bloom down in the foliage
2) the color isn't muddy
3) the bloom has opened properly and is not distorted

In general ( although I like a few) I don't care much for brownish colored blooms or peach colored blooms.

Otherwise, the sky's the limit!

I'm with lalalandwi, it is easier to say what I don't like than what I do....I like most daylilies. What I don't like is more about garden habits than anything else.

-I don't like flowers that melt or fade severely in the sun/heat.
-I don't like them if they have to have humidity to produce color.
-I don't like them if they are all blotchy like thrips damage, water spots, or uneven overlay (unless it is stippling or broken color evenly distributed & that is part of the cultivars natural coloration and not damage)
-I don't like flowers that won't open properly, whether that is canoed sepals, tangled ruffles, mangled edges, 3 days to open so the edges are melted, etc
-I don't like flowers that don't produce bloom..a sea of grass with a couple specs of color is not my idea of a good garden plant. Low bud count is OK so long as it is accompanied by tons of scapes. That is sometimes just a fact of this climate.
-I don't like flowers on scapes that fall on their faces
-I don't like doubles that only partially double or are unevenly doubled, as in one stamen turns into a petaloid but none of the others do leaving a lopsided flower
-I don't like flowers that hide in the foliage
-I don't like huge flowers on short, bity scapes or tiny flowers on super tall scapes- the scape & flower need to match each other in proportion
-I don't like stuff that blooms and then immediately goes dormant, loosing all foliage until late summer, like blooming took every ounce of effort the plant could muster
-I don't like yellow, weak, spindly foliage, even if it is intolerance to our alkaline soil. I will tolerate some (read moderate) leaf streak since hail and/or late frost damage is so frequent here and that is a inducer that can't be avoided.
-I don't like a plant that rots fans following transplant. They need to tolerate division & replanting like champs.
-I don't like plants that aren't hardy in arid, windy, freeze/thaw, z5 conditions

Other than that, I like them ALL.

What do you mean by chicken fat?(Kimkats) I am newer to daylilies but this year the Spiders have caught my eye-last year I thought they were well... ugly.
I like all daylilies because each is like a snowflake-different even if it is a slight difference.I especially like the ones that are vibrant and have huge blooms and of course the re-bloomers too.Eyes are a must,but I have some that don't have any and a ruffled edge is a plus.
:P

Wishn

Chicken fat is a very heavy yellow edge resembling the fat on a piece of chicken. Somefolks are really fond of it I just find it to be overdone. To each his own. Who knows I might start to like it in a few years, I didn't like eyed daylilies years ago, now I wouldn't know what to do without them, LOL.

Kim

berrytea4me- You are too funny! You remind me of my Mom sort of. She has her best daydlilies next to her house, and if they don't "work it out", they go to a field about a hundred feet away to improve. I like to think they are in a daylily boot camp where they have to think about how they should improve so they can come back to the house! I tease her about it all the time..."Daylily, if you don't quadruple in size THIS YEAR, out to the field you go! Hahaha...she does have the best performers for her soil by the house though. Works for her pretty well. I want to see the list of your best daylilies...I bet they are perfect. *smile*

You know, I thought I'd see more people who like the really expensive frilly thick ones. Maybe they are hiding (come out, come out wherever you are!). I was thinking how the people who sell daylilies to make some cash determine what they are going to try to cross/hybridize to sell. Do they just cross what they want to get something they like (and hopefully others) or cross to make "up and coming" strides (green edges, stripes, etc) for big/small time hybridizers to breed with or just enjoy? I mean, if you are going to sell daylilies, do you try and feel out the market (more like predict)? I guess it all depends on how much money you want to make. I would just cross what I like to make something that pleases me and then go from there. In the end if it never sells, I have to like it and look at it!

YOu know, I've caught myself liking teeth lately, too. Has to be cartain color combos (purple w/white teeth) or solids, though. I'm really not fond of the red with yellow teeth. Reminds me of Mc Donalds.

Dani

I love Spiders, U F'S, Bagels and what not! I like all colors but my favorites are in the pink class. I like edges, non edges, eyes and no eyes. I like 26" to 32" and don't especially like mini's even though I have a few. I do NOT like Stellas. I prefer large blooms and do like a lot of doubles but not all of them. Hehehe!! Is that what you wanted to know?....Ellie

Ha! LOL, Dani, I sound a lot strickter than I really am.

When it comes down to it I'm an old softy and can't bring myself to get rid of a daylily no matter how naughty it is behaving :)..sooner or later I'm going to have to cross that bridge...I might eventually start banishing them like your mom does. That's a great idea.

But for now, if it is naughty I probably just won't use it in my hybridizing.

• Fine, dense foliage

• Fragrance

• Short to med height.

• Clear (Can't believe I'm saying this since I don't like pastels in the house or on me) pastel colours with edging

• Either large flowers or lots of small ones.

• Regular (normal?) shape. I don't know what a 'bagel' or some of the other descriptions mean. But since I am fairly new, I'm still entranced with the basic shape.

• I actually like the look of the flowers when they're nestled in the foliage. From what I've read here, it seems that it is desirable to have the scapes stick out. It looks sort of unbalanced to me.

The fancy daylilies that I can't afford I'd have to see in real life to really make a judgement on whether or not I like them.
Characteristics that . . let's not say "dislike", but that hasn't grown on me yet:

• Large dominant eyes

• Watermark (?)

• Really really frilly or toothy

• Quilled

• Doubles

• Orange

I haven't grown daylilies other than Stella long enough to know which ones that I've bought will do well for me or not but just looking at pictures I like:

Eyes, watermarks, green throats

Bright colors other than red and orange, not a fan of peach either, several that I bought were labeled pink but were peach/flesh tone for me. yuck.

All shapes and sizes, I like diversity in my garden. I saw a Barbary Corsair at a nursery and didn't buy it because I thought it was out of proportion to the plant. Scapes too tall on a short plant. I bought some that have 3-4" blooms and some that are twice that size.

I do not like chicken fat or teeth

I tried to buy good garden performers but only time will tell if they turn out that way here. I've never seen daylilies with as many scapes or buds as many of you have posted.