It has been a harsh winter for us. Lots of freezes and snow and even dropped down to 7° one night with a wind chill of -2°. I think a lot of my plants went into shock! Has anyone ever heard of this before?

I grow several evergreens and I'm 5b - everything I have behaves as SEV at the most.

Most of mine have decided winter sucks and are hiding from the bad weather. Only a few are just begining to show some tentative green trying.

I hear ya, Susan. At least a few of my semi's and one evergreen went dormant, and they were all normal semi/ever's before. In my case, each of them had bloomed valiantly through last year's scorching summer, were moved to a new garden spot in late fall, and had gone at least one year without fertilizing, so I think mine did indeed get stressed and that resulted in their defensive action of going dormant.

It was alarming enough that I made notes in my records that "they might be dormants in my climate!" ... well, they might be ... but, now that the weather is warming up they are all coming back well. It was a bit alarming, though, for the months that their garden spots were bare!

Thanks everyone. I am fairly new to daylilies but I never expected the evergreens to go dormant. I would expect that from the sev or dormants. Plus I am in zone 8 and so that's a bigger shock, I could understand this happening in zone 5 or 6 and up. To me it is like a tropical plant behaving like a dormant, amazing. I also got a lot of rain but it looks like the dead ones are a result of root rot and probably not the cold. They are starting to sprout with beautiful new foliage, which is something I heard dormants would do.
Last year I made a list of 75 daylilies that had gone dormant and I just thought they were registered wrong. To me, if they go dormant in zone 8 then how could they be evergreen and if they really are, then who are they evergreen for? Maybe zone 9 & up?

@Tina, Whoa! your evergreens act like dormants in zone 9? I would have thought they were dead too!

@kim. ...(Most of mine have decided winter sucks)...They are right!!

@JWWC, after seeing the weather reports for IN, I am surprised any evergreens could live there. LOL. Some refer to them as "tender". Which adds to my confusion.

Susan, there is a mass of knowledgeable writing on this by Maurice in several threads (@admmad). Start here The thread "Foliage Discussion" in Daylilies forum

Thanks Glen! Great thread! and I want to read the whole thing through before I ask anymore questions. This thread has reminded me of some research and questions I had in the fall. Thanks for the link!

All of our daylilies acted like dormants this winter. We got colder than you here in NW GA. They are slowly recovering. I already know that we have lost some. I have not done a final count yet, but crown rot seems to have reared its ugly head.

Doris

Most of our snow has melted and I am looking at my daylily beds right now and I don't seen any green at all, so it looks like my evergreens went dormant this year as well. We had such a bad winter here that it doesn't surprise me one bit.

@Doris, What zone are you actually in? I need to do a count also.


@Cynthia,
It sure has been a bad winter.

Most of my evergreens went dormant too. I think most of mine, except for a few planted in the past year, should be fine. This has happened a few times in the past. When evergreens go dormant, they tend to take awhile emerging in the spring. Don't give up on them!

Thanks! They are slowly emerging and so are the weeds!

PERSISTENT BUTTERFLY went dormant on me last year. I thought it was a goner - took absolutely forever to show any growth. It's 4 fans growing indoors at the moment.

We are zone 7b.

JWWC said:PERSISTENT BUTTERFLY went dormant on me last year. I thought it was a goner - took absolutely forever to show any growth. It's 4 fans growing indoors at the moment.

That's a nice daylily, how do you grow them indoors? Do you have lights or just a sunny window.

Casshigh said:We are zone 7b.

That's good to know, you are about the same as me because we do dip down at times and the zone 8 plants will die, so I do not by any more tropicals. We use to be 7b as well, they might change us back after this winter. The coldest I have ever seen here and more snow than I have ever seen.

virginiarose said:

That's a nice daylily, how do you grow them indoors? Do you have lights or just a sunny window.

They are under lights. I had never tried to overwinter in pots so I brought some of the more precious ones inside. PB I just really like.

Great idea, I would love to see your set-up some time.

EVERY daylily I own is currently dormant. They are all brown and looking dead. It will be interesting to see what survived this winter, with the almost record breaking deep frost, frigid temps, and ice build up on top of snow. Not a bit of green anywhere - not even the grass, except for some hardy Forget Me Nots peeking up right against the east side of the house.

And even though I am in Wisconsin, I have almost an equal mixture of dormants, semi-evergreens and evergreens. Plus I have some seedlings I am trying to identify the foliage, and am still not sure what to call them. Perhaps I can call them "dormant when the winter is frigid"

Spring, if it ever arrives, will tell. ~Jan

@Jan, I figured yours would be, you had the coldest temps of anyone I saw, you and Indiana, I mean James.
It would be good to hear from everyone and find out what made it and what didn't. I do blame most of mine on root rot, I am working on a better mixture for potting soil also I found out the one gallon pots are a no no. Everything in a gallon pot has rotted, including my new Barbara Mandrell from Tink. For now on I will start off with two gallon pots. Live and learn...right?