Background history:

'Chicago Ruby' is a semi-evergreen introduced in 1977 by Marsh.

It has earned the following AHS awards:
Honorable Mention: 1984

This plant can be found in our Plant Database at:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Chicago Ruby') .

Please join in, if you own this plant! We would love to know more! I award an acorn for performance information posted to this thread.



Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Chicago Ruby')

This is an oldie but goodie. I've had this on Lower Daylily Hill for many years. This year it bloomed from July 20 to August 4, which is M/ML in my garden. It produced multiple blooms every day in that time period, putting on a nice show as it is a big clump. A good showy red, CR holds onto its color and substance in the hottest, sunniest, driest part of my yard. I have never divided it, yet it persists in doing a great job in a difficult unweeded location. An oldie with an iron constitution!

I thought I had this one, but I don't. I have Chicago Cherry, which was a bonus plant I received in the fall, so it hasn't bloomed yet. Same hybridizer, though.

I haven't grown 'Chicago Ruby' but we do grow 'Chicago Apache', a slightly brighter red that's a fairly reliable rebloomer here.

Marsh took on the challenge of specializing in tetraploids early on, when the forms, ruffling and color range were not even close to the diploids of the day. Many collectors considered tets inferior and some believed tets would never catch up,

Marsh worked extensively with red and purple tets especially. and produced many beautiful cultivars that were still not as round and ruffled as the best diploids, but they were vigorous and floriferous as garden and landscape plants. And that's why many are still grown today.

Thank you, Ann (or is it Pat? ) for that informative post. I also have Chicago Apache, and it is nice to have a little extra information about the origins of some of my plants. I learn so much from reading this board!

Hi Dewey @DeweyRooter

Thanks for the kind compliment! Out of curiosity, I looked up 'Chicago Apache' in the database and found it has already been a "Plant of the day" back in 1985. It was registered in 1981, versus 1977 for 'Chicago Ruby'. Both won HM awards. Apache has a fuller form and is noticeably more "ruffled", as good as it got back then. (That was about to change with the introduction of the then-sensationally ruffled 'Dance Ballerina Dance' registered by Virginia Peck in 1976). Apache is in the parentage of an impressive 86 child plants and is grown by 81 NGA members still! The numbers are lower for 'Chicago Ruby', 32 child plants, 12 members have it.

I said Marsh specialized in tetraploids. That is not quite right. He put a lot of emphasis on tets and was one of the first major tetraploid hybridizers. He also maintained a parallel diploid hybridizing program which was also popular. His tets were named with the prefix "Chicago". The diploids were given the prefix "Prairie". Probably the best known today is 'Prairie Blue Eyes' (1970), still bring grown by 77 members. It only has 74 registered child plants but it has many more descendants in later generations. Its "blue eye" is pallid compared to today's versions, but it still has its own charm.

These 52 years of progress have slowly produced incremental improvements and new variations that now add up to an explosion of choices that were not even imagined back then. I'm not old or anything 😉 but I bought my first collection of 22 daylilies from a local Iowa garden in 1976. 'Chicago Ruby' was not even registered then. When it was introduced, it was as unaffordable to me as the $250 introductions of today. Actually I could buy a few now. Back then I was on a newlywed budget. It's lovely having the luxury of doing that when I find a special one. In general , I prefer waiting 3-5 years to see which ones are found to be good performers. The database and forums here on NGA are wonderful assets for helping sift through the thousands!

My name. Yes, it's confusing even to me. I thought there were too many Pats already in the daylily forums but it's just odd trying to go by my middle name. So I think I'll drop it.

Pat

Thank you for the additional info! I also have Prairie Blue Eyes (a new plant to me). I am picking new plants based first of all on rust resistance, and a lot of these "oldies" are on my list for that reason. That is why I bought Chicago Apache. But I also happen to like the older-style blooms.

I got excited about the "Prairie" prefix because I thought I had two. But my "Prairie Blossoms" was hybridized by someone else.

And now I am more interested in my Chicago Cherry, which I knew nothing about but which came as a bonus plant in one of my orders last fall.

Again, thank you. And if anyone else has Chicago Ruby, please join in!

I do have 'Chicago Ruby' (and the aforementioned 'Chicago Apache'). Other than that it is a nice flower and has been very hardy here over many years, I don't have much to add to what has already been said.

Nan @DeweyRooter and Larry @seedfork, thank you very much for the acorns!

Nan, I don't know why 'Chicago Cherry' did not catch on as well as the other two. Like those, it won an Honorable Mention award. Pictures in the database seem to show white midribs? It might just be that look was not as favored then. Or maybe it was upstaged by the others which were registered later. (1975 for C. Cherry).

I love 'Prairie Blossoms'! Such a perky little flower that's extra welcome because it's so early. Like it, there were various other daylilies named with "Prairie" as the first word. Marsh didn't have exclusive rights to it. If he did (which would require a trademark) it couldn't be part of a registered cultivar name. That's why commercial daylilies sometimes have 2 names (unfortunately). For example "Passionate Returns" (TM) and 'Dynamite Returns' (AHS-registered name) are the same clone.

Pat

P. S. (Edit): I just changed my display nickname back to Pat. It changed the name on my old posts too!

2022 update…last September, a bunch of Lower Daylily Hill was dug out and I was afraid my Chicago Ruby went with it…not so! This summer, CR bloomed from July 15- August 2nd. Still looking good although a little frazzled by heat and drought.

2023 update… Chicago Ruby was moved to the front Egg Bed in June. It still bloomed very happily from July 11 to July 30.