Thanks, Ed! The only one you list that I'm familiar with is Joan Senior. I might have had her years ago but I don't remember what happened to her. I'll check the others out :)

My primary passion has always been for roses and I've grown hundreds of them. Then the daylily bug bit me 10 years ago. Daylilies really do not enjoy the same culture as roses. Roses like moisture, daylilies deal better with drier soils. Just looking at some of the roots on daylilies shows you that they have enlarged almost tuberous roots which hold moisture much longer then do roses. .....Of the two Ed mentioned I have grown and still grow Sherry Lane Carr and Joan Senior. You can count on both. Along with those two I might also suggest the landscape varieties that have done well for me in less then wonderful soil, Pandora's Box and Happy Returns........Maryl

Thanks, Maryl! I do have Pandora's Box and it has done well. What started my question is that I was scanning a list of available varieties from an online nursery and it struck me how many varieties I was familiar with, having purchased them over the many years that have simply disappeared; not all due to crown rot, of course. I do feel that I adhere to all cultural practices suggested, having read extensive material throughout the years and yet success with this "carefree, easy plant" is very hit or miss. Of course, this is the time of year that "hope springs eternal" and, along, with ordering more roses that I didn't need, I'm in the hopeful mood of getting a few more daylilies, lol.

I'm in the DFW area.

Some of mine last several years, then I lose them. I don't know if it's root rot or something else. They just disappear.

I bought Sherry Lane Carr twice and it disappeared both times. Lasted thru one bloom season.

I've had Winter Treasure a long time and it's one of my best blooming ones, until recently. It's just gone now. Not sure when, but sometime in fall or winter.

So far I haven't seen any signs of Primal Scream this year. Maybe another one I've lost.

I could give you a list of the ones I've lost, but would hesitate to recommend others as I seem to lose some all the time.

This year I plan to separate the ones I really love in hopes if I lose them in one spot, the ones in the other location will survive.

I've got relatives in the D/FW area and used to visit there on a regular basis, which is why I know about the area. As to the problem of daylilies disappearing, I wonder if it could be due to the winter chill? I have heard people talk about some daylilies disappearing over time because they need more winter chill. Don't know how that would apply to just a zone 8 (your zone I presume) as it usually was a problem mostly for the deep south......... Also the part of Dallas I was in had black clay soil and daylilies really appreciate a better draining soil then that. In my experience with my own heavy clay soil, the roses tolerate it much better then the daylilies. Which is why I ended up with daylilies in pots. Why fight it? ........As to roses Lynn, RRV (I assume you are familiar with that) has swept through our area so roses are an endangered species around here............Maryl

Ah, the mystery of the disappearing daylily! Who hasn't been a victim of that cruel prank? You eagerly open the mail order box of daylilies and pull them out, one by one.......each fan as big as a tree!!! You lovingly plant them in the ground, visualizing a few years from then when you'll have a huuuge clump - like the grower's picture - and wait. In vain, because at some point in time, you will realize that, not only are those giant fans you planted just sitting there, but slowly shriveling away until you have just a single teeny little fan, which goes under in the dark of one night. Maybe they all go where the disappearing socks go?

"Years of carefree maintenance!!!" is always promised. Yeah RIGHT. "Carefree" because they no longer exist! Lol. As I stated earlier, I love daylilies but don't particularly think they're as easy as always claimed to be.

Maryl, I'm somewhat familiar with the RRV problem, but fortunately haven't experienced it personally. Is it really rampant up there? Is it "contagious" so to speak? Ugh.

The Tulsa rose garden was at one time the 2nd largest in the country. 2 years ago RRV wiped out 90% of their roses. I read not too long ago that the roses at the Ft. Worth Garden have also been hit. Some think it is the fault of the Knock Out roses, and in a way they are right. Those roses are so disease resistant that every commercial landscape it seems has them (let alone residential growers). Where roses used to be confined to a relatively few rosarians, now they are everywhere and the commercial tenants are not usually even aware of the plants surrounding their businesses let alone signs of a species specific virus. Unfortunately there is little to be done other then to pull the rose once the infection has spread. If the infected rose is not pulled the virus then will spread all over town - miles away from the original source of infection ( it's spread by air borne mites). All I can say about your roses is stay vigilant. RRV is in Texas. I'm glad I found a passion for daylilies just as RRV started to eliminate my own roses...........Maryl

I have seen massive clumps of the older daylilies that have grown in the same spot for years. If you travel to the northeast, you will see the fulva daylilies in the wild, brought here from Europe with the early settlers. It wasn't until man started making the daylily prettier that rot became a problem. When I first started growing daylilies, there were stories of disputes among hybridizers. Some saying someone else had introduced the rot gene, and apparently there were some pretty heated discussions. In Houston, we claimed to be the crown rot center and there are certain cultivars that are know to be rotters. It's dismaying that there is not enough concern among certain hybridizers not to use those plants in their lines, but I have seen it many times that they do if the plants make it possible to introduce new traits that can be sold. Plants soaked in fungicides and grown in water never experience the real world. I personally don't think a plant less than 5 years old should be introduced.

Anyway, to prevent rot, I routinely would redo my beds every 3 to 5 years to keep the soil open and retain moisture. In the summer months I always watered early in the mornings. Watering in the heat of the day was risky. Those plants I knew to be rotters, I tried to give afternoon shade. Rot season was primarily August to October. Planting cultivars in different spots is a good idea. I have done it. Keeping some plants in pots is also a good idea. You can move the plant around to suit the weather, and some plants will set pods best in shade, especially those late bloomers.

If you want to avoid rot, select older varieties, before diploids were converted to tets. Induced tets tend to be very hardy. Anything from Virginia Peck, Marsh's Prairie and Chicago series would be good choices. Probably anything older than 'Ida's Magic' would be good, except I would avoid anything from Louisiana. I never planted any bare-root daylilies in my beds after April. Start them off in pots in the shade. After they are growing well they can be moved into the beds; try not to disturb the root ball. Good luck!

I'm glad you are still on this thread Ed. Since you used to live in Houston (?) and now in a cooler zone (relatively speaking) do you have any thoughts on some daylilies requiring more cold then others to prosper? I've had daylilies, even in pots, grow "backwards" so to speak, and I've heard about how some cold hardy daylilies don't do well in warmer climates..............Maryl

Yes Maryl, from Houston, zone 9a. Yes, dormants did not as a rule do well in Houston. Most of the Siloam series did not do well for me and most of the earlier Carpenter dormants didn't as well. I grew mostly evergreen there. I haven't been here long enough to say much, but I have stopped buying evergreens. I have been selecting semi and dormants here. It has taken 2 years to get beds built here, soil located and obtained, but as of November, all my plants are in the ground! And I'm happy to say that all the plants made it through the winter with no losses. I did lose around 25% of the plants I brought up here, but can't say it was due to habit conflict. Maybe in a couple of years I can give you my opinion on how tender evergreens do here.