I am unsure what defines a re-blooming daylily. Is it is single fan that produces another scape or different fans of the same plant that produce scapes and blooms at different times?

Something interesting that I noticed in my garden.... I separated fans in various clumps of seedlings this year and replanted them in different beds. I noticed that they all started producing scapes and blooms about the same time. They definitely have a set time frame to bloom!

Here group A plants started a blooming session beginning in April and then took a break after setting pods and proliferations.

Then, group B plants started a blooming session about mid May, and after 6 weeks or more of setting pods and proliferations, look like they are getting ready to take a break.

Meanwhile, some of the group A plants have started to bloom again, and I expect all of them will re-bloom.

Having plants with different blooming cycles and re-bloomers insures having flowers for months at a time. Pretty neat!

I agree, Pat.

So the re-bloomers produce another round of scapes and flowers after a rest? The later blooms are not coming from "additional" fans of a particular cultivar, but instead from the same plant that bloomed earlier in the season?

And another question ....

Do fans typically only produce one scape per each fan for blooms (except if it reblooms later)? One fan, one bloom scape?

Rebloom should mean a fan that produces one scape and then later produces another scape during the same year. That is slightly tricky to determine sometimes because after a fan has started to make a scape that part (growing point or the shoot apical meristem) can no longer make any new leaves. Then a bud in between the leaf and the crown usually starts to develop to produce the next set of leaves - it becomes the replacement fan. Sometimes buds on both sides of the scape start to develop more or less at the same time and there are two replacement fans for the original fan. Rebloom should mean when one or more of those two replacement fans produces a scape in the same year or growing season as the original fan produced its own scape.

Rebloom in daylilies should be a little like flowering in tomato plants. Frist the fan grows leaves until it becomes larger enough or adult or mature. then it produces a scape and a replacement set of leaves or fan develops beside the scape and produces a set of leaves. When that set of leaves (or fan) becomes mature it produces a scape and the process repeats. A tomato plant does more or less the same thing. It produces eight or more leaves and then a truss of flowers and then it grows several more new leaves and it then produces another truss of flowers and then it grows a few more leaves and another truss of flowers and so on. A tomato plant does it much quicker than most daylilies.

The secret to reblooming is water, and more water.

For me the secret to reblooming seems to be nitrogen and more nitrogen - but of course the fertilizer is given in water so they are getting that as well. Water by itself has never seemed to give me any extra rebloom but nitrogen fertilizing has. However, my plants usually need to grow for a year before they start to give me rebloom due to the nitrogen fertilizer.

Maurice - Thanks for that detailed explanation! Makes sense .... I think. (lol)

Now do the original fans typically die to make new fans or do they remain to re-bloom again that year or the next year? Are old fans replaced with new fans each year as the daylilies multiply? Or do they remain and the clump gets bigger and bigger each year?

I do a LOT of fertilizing with alfalfa tea, miraclegro, and water! And organic compost. I was thinking that if I continue to "feed" my plants, they might re-bloom for me.

Glen - And I do try to water them regularly, too! I know that water also helps them to produce nice, healthy blooms.

Also ...

When the daylilies re-bloom, do they just re-bloom once more or can they re-bloom more than 2 times in a year?

They can rebloom many times.

Glen - Thanks for answering my question! That's good news! I hope I see some re-bloomers here. I need to add some late blooming daylilies to my garden too. You are so fortunate to have had daylilies blooming for a year! Wow! Can't beat that with a stick if you tried!

beckygardener said:Maurice - Thanks for that detailed explanation!

You're welcome.

Now do the original fans typically die to make new fans or do they remain to re-bloom again that year or the next year?

They do not die but the original growing point is used up in creating the scape so the fan can no longer grow new leaves. When the scape and the leaves finally die then the original fan of leaves no longer exists but the crown remains. The original fans are replaced by one or more new fans of leaves (and by new growing points).

Are old fans replaced with new fans each year as the daylilies multiply?

Old fans are replaced by new fans after each scape is produced, but the crown keeps getting bigger.

Or do they remain and the clump gets bigger and bigger each year?

Old fans do not remain; they are replaced by new fans but sometimes a fan is replaced by two new fans or even more than two fans (and sometimes in some cultivars new fans are created without a scape being produced). That makes the crown and clump become larger with time.

I do a LOT of fertilizing with alfalfa tea, miraclegro, and water! And organic compost. I was thinking that if I continue to "feed" my plants, they might re-bloom for me.

They should; Florida hybridizers have found that nearly all cultivars will rebloom under their growing conditions in their locations and that has been the case since at least the 1940s. However, they do fertilize and water heavily and some divide their clumps every year.

There is also instant re-bloom, some plants will send up one scape, then another and then another. I Don't know the "record or limit" for the number of scapes growing at one time on a single plant, but have heard of plants with three scapes showing at once. That way you have plants with a quick succession of blooms.

Seedfork said:There is also instant re-bloom, some plants will send up one scape, then another and then another. I Don't know the "record or limit" for the number of scapes growing at one time on a single plant, but have heard of plants with three scapes showing at once.

Very surprisingly, because I am in zone 4, I have several cultivars or seedlings that are showing that this year. When I examined what the plants are doing it does not seem any different than the normal description of rebloom except that the new replacement fans grew so quickly that they produced their own scapes while the initial scape has not opened any flowers yet. In some cases there is only one replacement fan so there are two scapes inside the "one" fan (one scape produced by the original growing point and a second scape produced by the growing point of the replacement fan); in other cases there are two replacement fans but only one has produced a scape so there are two scapes inside the original fan but one of the scapes may look like it is outside of a fan (at least at first glance). And in a couple of plants there are two replacement fans and both have produced scapes so that there are three scapes inside "one" fan.

I will try to take pictures later although the plants are in clumps and it may not be easy to see the situations or I can diagram the situations (I think I may have done so previously and posted diagrams on ATP).

There are other situations where a fan may be able to produce two scapes without having produced a replacement fan but that would probably require that the growing point divide into two before producing scapes. That should look like L L L L L L S S R R R R R where L represents a lef facing leaf, S is a scape and R is a right facing leaf.

Typical bloom, one original fan - L L L L L S R R R R R - growth stopped once the scape was produced, no new leaves for some time.

Typical bloom, one original fan with one replacement fan - L1 L1 L1 L1 L1 L2 L2 L2 R2 R2 R2 S1 R1 R1 R1 R1 where L1 are left facing leaves from the original fan, L2 are left facing leaves of the replacement fan, S1 is the scape of the original fan, R2 are right facing leaves of the replacement fan and R1 are right facing leaves of the original fan.

Typical bloom one original fan with two replacement fans - L1 L1 L1 L2 L2 L2 R2 R2 R2 S1 L L L R R R R1 R1 R1 where L1 and R1 are leaves of the original fan, L2 and R2 are leaves of one of the replacement fans and L and R are leaves of the other replacement fan, S1 is a scape produced by the initial original fan (or growing point).

Now either one of the two replacement fans can produce a scape -
L1 L1 L1 L2 L2 L2 S2 R2 R2 R2 S1 L L L R R R R1 R1 R1 - the replacement fan on the left produced a scape so the whole compound fan has two scapes but is actually three fans and each scape was produced by a different fan or growing point.
L1 L1 L1 L2 L2 L2 R2 R2 R2 S1 L L L S R R R R1 R1 R1 - the replacement fan on the right produced the scape in this example. The whole compound fan has two scapes but each scape was produced by a different fan.
Or both replacement fans can produce scapes.
L1 L1 L1 L2 L2 L2 S2 R2 R2 R2 S1 L L L S R R R R1 R1 R1 The compound fan has three scapes but each was produced by one (different) fan or growing point.

Normal rebloom in which the initial scape stops blooming before a rebloom scape starts blooming (or starts tro grow and appears) happens when the replacement fans grow slowly enough. If they grow very quickly then the replacement fans can produce their own scapes before the initial fan finishes blooming or even sometimes before it starts blooming.

I have tried to take a photograph of Spindazzle which is showing three scapes within "one" fan (actually three fans, one original and two replacements) but there are two many other fans growing in the clump and obscuring the situation. Perhaps this photo of two scapes within "one" fan (actually two fans, one original and one replacement) might be able to represent both situations.

In the photo L1 is one of the leaves of the original fan and R1 is one of the leaves of the original fan. Those leaves enclose the entire compound fan. S1 is the scape of the original fan. No buds have opened on it yet and it may be a couple of weeks yet before even the first bud opens on that initial scape. L2 and R2 are left and right leaves of the replacement fan that has grown to the right of the initial scape. S2 is the scape that belongs to the replacement fan. The replacement fan developed from an axillary bud found in the corner of the crown probably between the original scape and the last original leaf (an R1 category leaf) on the right of S1. It can be a little difficult to distinguish R2 from R1 category leaves but in this case (and perhaps usually) at least some of the older R1 leaves are shorter but wider than R2 leaves. It is usually easy to distinguish L2 from L1 leaves since the L2 category leaves will be to the right of the S1 scape (but left of the S2 scape). By counting the number of L2 leaves we get an estimate of approximately how many leaves to the right of the S2 scape are R2 leaves - the rest would be R1 leaves. That estimate is the same number of R2 leaves as there are L2 leaves say plus or minus one leaf.

So perhaps what I am seeing on my own plants is actually two fans that appear to be one large fan? Great photo and labeling! I am starting to understand how daylilies actually grow. Thanks so much Maurice for taking the time to post and provide a labeled photo to help answer my questions! I learn something new every day here on this forum!

beckygardener said:So perhaps what I am seeing on my own plants is actually two fans that appear to be one large fan?

Perhaps. It is easiest to tell if one watches the fans grow from the end of winter, say by looking at them every couple of weeks. Then one would be able to see the fan slowly produce one or more replacement fans (or not if it is actually two separate original fans).

Maurice - Well ... at least I am getting a bit of clue now. Daylilies are very interesting plants! I don't think there is any other plant species quite like them .... If there is .... I've never seen it!

Today, I found a scape on a proliferation that is still attached to the original scape that bloomed weeks ago. Or is this consider a branch on the scape which just happens to be forming a proliferation on this branch at the same time?



Here is a cropped close-up of the prolif and scape coming out of it. I had already cut the original scape off as you can see by the hole in it. There is a gray tag still attached to the old scape right below the cut mark. How weird is that to have a prolif with a scape coming out of it?

beckygardener said:Today, I found a scape on a proliferation that is still attached to the original scape that bloomed weeks ago. Or is this consider a branch on the scape which just happens to be forming a proliferation on this branch at the same time?

I suspect that the biology is closer to a branch on a scape that also formed a proliferation.

What may happen is an unusual accident of development (the reason is not known). Normally, it should have been a branch but because of the accident it temporarily 'forgot' and turned back into a fan of leaves and then after a little time 'remembered' it was supposed to be a branch and turned back into the branch it should have been.

I would agree with Maurice on yours as the prolif is really small to be developing a scape especially that tall. But I do have prolifs here that after being on the scape and developing roots and is pretty much the size of a mature fan will start scaping