Saturday, January 3, 2009

Notes while picking scapes


I think choosing a daylily in fall, after the blooms are gone, is a great time to assess a lot of the criteria. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, may I comment that it is a fine time to assess what the plant did, while not distracted by the bloom. Assessing the age of the scapes as well as the number of bloom scars will tell so much about what that plant contributed that year - was it "worth weeding"?
Here are just a few of my favourites - in no particular order:
1. TURN THE OTHER CHEEK - 57 buds on one scape, and it put up four scapes on four fans.
2. ANGELS LANDING - 37 buds on the second (instant rebloom) scape on three fans.
3. THE FULL MONTY - bloomed constantly for 62 days with brilliant rich pink blooms on tree-trunk-like scapes. Really good value on this plant for sure.
4. TALL DARK AND HANDSOME - instant rebloom, nearly 8 inch blooms that lasted for 22 hours each, starting mid-late afternoon, so got a good two days enjoyment out of each bloom.
5. SHINING LIKE THE SON - bloomed and bloomed and bloomed - and rebloomed.
6. GERTRUDE CONDON - kept the front of the field in Brilliant yellow all late summer into fall. just kept going and going and going and glowing.
7. GUINIVERS GIFT - also kept blooming and reblooming and reblooming.

about that rebloom - the actual definition of rebloom is when a second scape is produced by the same fans as produced the first (not a second scape on different fans in the same clump);
not everything that is registered as rebloom, reblooms. depends on your zone and climate.
not everything that is not registered as a rebloomer, doesn't rebloom. Like the Korth plants. they are not registered as rebloomers, but they do.
Actually, in my opinion, rebloom per se is over-rated. I am more interested in the total number of blooms a plant produces for me in a season. I would rather have no rebloom on a plant that gives me 30 blooms than to have rebloom on one that gives me 3 blooms on each of three rebloom scapes.

comments and discussion are welcomed.

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