Background history:

'Free Wheelin'' is a evergreen tetraploid introduced in 2004 by Patrick Stamile. Patrick and Grace Stamile's Daylily Garden website:
http://www.distinctly.on.ca/st...

More info about Patrick and Grace Stamile can be found on this thread by Char:
The thread "ATP Series: The Daylilies of Patrick and Grace Stamile" in Daylilies forum

Free Wheelin is a large spider bloom that is an extra early bloomer and is an early morning opener, with possible re-bloom. It has earned the following AHS awards: Award of Merit: 2013, Honorable Mention: 2010, HOS: 2011, and ESB: 2013. It is both pod and pollen fertile with 18 registered children:
http://garden.org/plants/paren...

This plant can be found in the ATP Plant Database at:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Free Wheelin'') .

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.





Also, please consider adding a "Local Report" to the ATP Plant Database! Thank you!

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Free Wheelin'')

I have had Free Wheelin for 7 years. It has been very variable in its growth habits in my climate. The first 6 years it bloomed fairly good. This past summer the plant seemed stunted and did not bloom at all. Our last 2 winters were bad. Increase has been very slow. I think I only have about 4 fans. I don't know if it is weather related (had an unusually cool summer). We did have ample amounts of rain though and it did receive fertilizer like all of my other daylilies. I still will keep it because I love the large flower. If we ever move to our place farther north, I probably would not chance bringing this one with us.

I bought a single fan from Wild's 3 years ago. It was very small and I had little growth until this year after I moved it to a new location. It has yet to bloom. I received 2 more fans which are blooming size in a trade late last summer. I really do hope to see a bloom next summer.

This DAYLILY has been in my yard since 2009, also started with a single fan, had 9 fans this past summer, so ii's not a fast increaser. But the blooms are huge. I grew it all these years in a large pot, it got rust in 2012, cut the foliage down to stubs, it's been rust free since then.

I've grown Free Wheelin' for about six years, and it is an impressive flower and plant. Even small divisions will throw large blooms, and they tend to open well and symmetrically, a trait which can be rare in my cooler, less humid climate. On an established plant, it's one of the biggest attention-getters the garden, making it one of my favorites to share as someone's "first daylily". With adequate culture, it multiplies well, and is vigorous enough to show off in a 5 gallon nursery can, although the branching and bud-count won't match the hybridizer's description.

I have seen a bit of rust on it, but since the climate is dry here, it doesn't get that serious, and it's not affected every year.

As a breeder, the pollen works well, but pods are few and precious, despite my pod-friendly climate.

Ken

Those bud count and branching numbers by the hybridizer are pretty impressive, wonder if anyone gets near that from this plant?

It is one of the biggest and brightest of the spider types I own It behaves like it is registered here in my zone 6 garden

Free Wheelin' was planted here in 2015. This is the best bloom I have gotten from this plant and that was 2016. Not impressive!! No blooms in 2017 and no increase so I moved it to prime space in 2018. No blooms that year either and still only a weak double fan. I fear it does not like my freeze/thaw climate. As it is an evergreen, I will not be surprised if I need to move it out of the garden in 2019. Edit: So this is 2021 and it is blooming the largest blooms I have ever seen. However, only one at a time. It has increased to 6 fans and has 8 buds on two way branching. Height is about 30".