I understand what you are talking about. In our garden Lava Flow and Buddy's Betsy are two of our first bloomers. Yet Lava Flow is registered as early-mid and Buddy's Betsy is registered as early. In our late blooming group, Last Snowflake and Eyes of Faith are both registered as late bloomer, but they bloom earlier than the rest of the late bloomers.

As a hybridizer, I know it is difficult to pin blooming season down. A few years ago, I saw a list of "markers" for each bloom season. Stella De Oro was the marker for extra early and Sandra Elizabeth was the marker for very late. I don't remember what the others were. I wish I had saved that list--I can't find it now.

Nancy

Fascinating!

I found the same thing, Dave. Many don't bloom when registered for. Over the years I altered my list of daylilies to reflect their actual bloom season here in central KY. And oddly enough, sometimes some of mine have changed seasons during the course of many years. And that has nothing to do with its registered season.

Another thing I noticed: if a daylily one year sends up scapes at the wrong season for what is normal here, it will be a bad blooming season. This doesn't happen often.

I would assume that the hybridizer registers bloom season for what it does in their own gardens . They cannot predict what the plant will do in other regions or zones. Some hybridizers do have plants sent to other zones to test for hardiness but I dont think I have ever read or heard about them checking for bloom times in other zones. There are so many things that can affect both bloom time , and bloom color ; bud counts .

I have read that 5 buds are lost for every zone below the zone a plant was hybridized in so that in and of itself would affect a person's experience with a plant . So if I buy a Florida plant with 40 buds per scape ( zone 8 , 9 or 10) and import it to my gardens in zone 6 I would possibly only see anywhere from 30 buds (if from zone 8) 25 buds ( if from zone 9) or 20 buds per scape for a daylily from zone 10.

Many people report problems with blooms opening in the early morning or even different times in the plants season. Daylily are probably affected by number of light hours too . Temps are different in different zones at different times . Given those kind of changes, I would also assume that bloom times would also be affected.

Sometimes where a daylily is planted can change it's bloom time. Those planted in more sheltered places may bloom earlier than what is registered.

I'm with Brad. I have been keeping statistics for a number of years now so when the first scape appears, I know pretty well which plants will start next.

For the past three years or so I counted the number of blooms on each plant and put the counts into a spread sheet. I have so many cultivars now that doing that has become overwhelming. I will however, record the day I first spotted a scape, then the first bloom and last bloom dates.

Seems like a lot of work to me . I plunk them in , and when they bloom they bloom and when they stop they stop and in the interim I glory in the beauty.