I live in Reno, Nv, and I order plants every year from people here. They come nice and healthy, I get them in the ground, and they seem fine. Come the next spring, I've lost at least half (they are brown and dead). They are interspersed with the plants that made it.
Do evergreen or dormant do better here? I'm not sure what I should be looking for. I will go through and see if I can find out what I have ordered ( I just bought for the colors), and see if there is a pattern.
TIA

I am zone 6b in Ky, but a different environment I am sure. I rarely lose plants over winter, mind tend to decline after bloom and the heat of summer hits. I have found I do best with dormants. I think you are righ t to see if there is a pattern.

Hi Darcy. Are you living in the outskirts of Reno ? I see it listed as zone seven, but I know that it also depends on your zip code. You are on the cusps of both worlds in terms of plant zones. In all honesty, some plants just die due to no fault of our own. I'm in zone:5. I grow everything. Some do better than others. Those with a similar zone and conditions will chime in soon. A good source to find out what does well in your zone is the https://daylilies.org/daylilie...
Popularity poll for your area.

Hey Darcy, I am in USDA Zone 7a/b. Dormants definitely do better here. In the hard Winters the EVR do poorly, and some die. Late season freezes/Frosts wreak havoc with them, too. Sev's do good if they lean more to the Dor side of the scale. Any Evr you got grow next to your house on the South, East, or West side. The heat radiating from the house will help protect them from Winter damage. Sir Francis Drake #1 I planted out in a bed. It was reduced to mush at ground level the first Winter. It never recovered. I decided to give it one more try:
Sir Francis Drake next to my house (East Side) the season after it's first Winter here which was harder than the one that wiped-out the first one.

I am in springfield MO zone 6b and I lose things over the winter, and lose to moles, and crown rot. I lose more now than I did in the years past, the only pattern I see is that the more I pay for something, the faster it will die. But in all seriousness, I have found that to be true. Those old cheap oldies I rarely lose.

I think in general, the old cheap oldies are a pretty vigorous lot, at least the ones that are still around. They're still around for a reason, they've been time tested.

There's also the water and soil issue. My version of zone 6a/b living near Boston, is not your version of 6a/b. We get a lot of moisture here, usually, all year long. I think the annual average rainfall here is 47 inches. We also get another average of 48 inches of snow too. Daylilies respond differently to that than to dry conditions.

I agree that the best thing to do would be to find clubs or growers in Arizona. That's where other folks who have been at it for a while can point you at successful plants. I do believe you can find Daylilies for every climate, you just have to hunt around.

Hi Hazelcrestmikeb,
I am on the cusp, so if they are good in zone 6 they should be good in zone 7. Thank you for the suggestion, but I'm not sure the poll on the daylily page is much help - I have snow and am arid. They include California, which is a lot more mild.

You might want to figure out why they are dying. I have years when several plants die and I've had a few that have done well for years & then struggle for several years for unknown reasons.

My biggest issue is crown rot due to snow melt & heavy Spring rains. But yours could be dying from lack of water, animals (skunks will dig up my plants looking for worms) or something else I never see in NY.

I also make it a habit to only plant early in the year to give plants the longest possible time to get established before winter.

I try to only plant in the spring as well after losing many to heave/thaw and wet cold springs that bring crown rot.

My portion of Reno is zone 6 too. In my experience, dormant do better here but the biggest killer for shallow rooted plants like daylilies is lack of water over the winter. We didn't get very much snow, did you water during this winter?

I'm in Zone 4 and I grow all daylily foliage types. A bigger factor for cold hardiness may be where they are hybridized or already successfully grown. If "dormants" do better it could be more that they were hybridized in colder zones than simply because of their foliage habit, with the opposite being the case for evergreens.

When you say they are brown and dead, I assume that you give them time to sprout before digging them out? Dead foliage doesn't necessarily mean a dead plant.

As an additional note, I have a couple of daylilies right now that are barely up, so don't give up. And when I said dormants do vest for me, I have a few evergreens that are among my best growers. Before I get a new daylily I try to see how it does for others in my zone. I think that has helped me more than anything. Unfortunately, I am often enticed by a pretty daylily anyway.

I also live in Reno, elevation 5000 ft. with Sumire. My low temperature this year was 10 but rainfall total is .25 inches (that's 1/4 of an inch in 6 months) since the big rainstorm at the end October. I water every couple weeks all winter. Reno sand is not very moisture retentive - shallow rooted plants suffer the most but even the trees need a drink. Have you noticed how many dead pines we have this spring?

As for evergreen vs dormant type, it doesn't matter, they all die right down to the ground anyway.

Thanks everyone!
I appreciate all the feedback.