Background history:

'Grape Velvet' is a dormant introduced in 1978 by Wild.

It has earned the following AHS awards:
Honorable Mention: 1981
JC: 1977

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

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 'Grape Velvet')

I received a good-sized clump of Grape Velvet as a bonus (at my request) in one of my orders of fall 2021. I had seen in the database that someone on the West Coast in my zone had had good luck with it. Brian Reeder also carried it for awhile, and it got good rust-resistance ratings from him.

The plant has not bloomed yet, so I don't have much to say except that it has grown well, has healthy foliage, and has sent up a couple of scapes. I will add a picture when it blooms and will report back if anything changes in this positive review.

Edited to add a bloom picture:


I am editing this to add that Grape Velvet is one of the last of my dormants to reappear each spring.

Some years ago I was looking for the most fragrant daylilies I could find and someone told me that Grape Velvet is very fragrant even if not mentioned in the registration data. That someone is completely right - it is really fragrant, it has a sweet scent a little bit different from the yellow ones.
This is the reason I will always keep this a little bit old fashioned one - despite the color which can be look great in our climate.
I'm a big fan of plantings with complementary colors and the combination of bright orange and bluish purple is the theme in one bed (beside this an orange climbing rose and a purple clematis grow on a rose arche with a grid inside).
Here are some pics:

typical color


clump shot


Grape Velvet is combined with Early Fragrance and Primal Scream - unfortunately I have no picture of all three blooming prolific because of the slightly different bloom times: