My intent is to use this page to share observations on the 2021 daylily season I'll start out with two charts. The first shows when the the 94 daylily varieties (or should I say Cultivars) that bloomed in 2021 by first bloom date detailing first & last bloom date and how many days they had flowers. It helps if you have more than one plant of course as to the number of days with blooms. So to have 49 days with blooms on just one plant such as Key to My Heart is absolutely amazing!
First observation concerns reblooming daylilies ... perhaps a bit (though not totally) overrated in my book ... about half my cultivars rebloomed in 2020, maybe a quarter rebloomed in 2021 (but we had many new varieties planted, none of which rebloomed) Earlybird Cardinal is the most prolific reblooming daylily (aside from Stella De Oro, a dwarf variety which seems to reblooms constantly until done for the season). South Seas reblooms but only 1/2 of my South Seas plants will do so. The same can be said for most of the other reblooming varieties. And the rebloom generally consists of just one scape (bloom stalk), sometimes two scapes. Daylilies during their initial 2-3 week blooming period normally have two to four scapes. Also, if it is 95 degrees plus as it normally is in Houston during June-August the flowers can be much smaller and there will be fewer buds per scape due to the extreme heat.
An exception to this rule is Spacecoast Sweetness that produced 2 strong scapes on rebloom where the flowers were actually hindered from fully opening due to the plethora of buds on the scapes. Candlelight Dinner also had 8 plus buds on its reblooming scape.
First observation concerns reblooming daylilies ... perhaps a bit (though not totally) overrated in my book ... about half my cultivars rebloomed in 2020, maybe a quarter rebloomed in 2021 (but we had many new varieties planted, none of which rebloomed) Earlybird Cardinal is the most prolific reblooming daylily (aside from Stella De Oro, a dwarf variety which seems to reblooms constantly until done for the season). South Seas reblooms but only 1/2 of my South Seas plants will do so. The same can be said for most of the other reblooming varieties. And the rebloom generally consists of just one scape (bloom stalk), sometimes two scapes. Daylilies during their initial 2-3 week blooming period normally have two to four scapes. Also, if it is 95 degrees plus as it normally is in Houston during June-August the flowers can be much smaller and there will be fewer buds per scape due to the extreme heat.
An exception to this rule is Spacecoast Sweetness that produced 2 strong scapes on rebloom where the flowers were actually hindered from fully opening due to the plethora of buds on the scapes. Candlelight Dinner also had 8 plus buds on its reblooming scape.
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Another exception is Passion for Red. I have three plants that have rebloomed so far and have produced multiple strong scapes on rebloom. Early Snow also reblooming.
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In terms of stunning rebloomers, how about Stolen Treasure (note the 4 pedals ... not the usual 3) on 08-05 or Candlelight Dinner on 08-06 during a week of 95-97 degrees highs!
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The chart below compares the number of days with flowers for each daylily variety between 2021 versus 2020. The 2021 daylily season is not over so it isn't exactly fair to compare an incomplete 2021 to a complete 2020. Also, daylilies began blooming in 2021 about 20 days later than 2020 due to the 13 degree record freeze on 02-15-21. I've also more than doubled the number of daylily varieties from 50 in 2020 to 104 in 2021. It's not fair to expect very many days of flowers in the first year of newly purchased daylilies. We'll know a lot more how well these new varieties will perform in the next two years (2022 & 2023).
The last chart below shows the number of daylily varieties blooming by day and the number of blooms (flowers) for the last 3 years. It would appear that the peak daylily 3 week blooming period (see green highlighted flowers blooming) was as follows:
2021 - May 25 to June 14
2020 - May 7 to May 27
2019 - May 17 to Jun 6
The later peak period in 2021 can be attributed to the Feb 15 record 13 degree temps in Houston. It would be interesting to compare low temps for the winter of 2019-2020 to 2018-2019 to see if this explains the 10 day earlier start date to the "peak bloom period" in 2020 versus 2019. The month of May is typically peak daylily bloom season in Houston. Perhaps 2020 is a typical year and 2019 & 2021 reflect later than the average peak bloom periods.
2021 - May 25 to June 14
2020 - May 7 to May 27
2019 - May 17 to Jun 6
The later peak period in 2021 can be attributed to the Feb 15 record 13 degree temps in Houston. It would be interesting to compare low temps for the winter of 2019-2020 to 2018-2019 to see if this explains the 10 day earlier start date to the "peak bloom period" in 2020 versus 2019. The month of May is typically peak daylily bloom season in Houston. Perhaps 2020 is a typical year and 2019 & 2021 reflect later than the average peak bloom periods.
