In August, 2016, I planted three fans of Royal Celebration purchased from a seller I found through garden.org. The scapes and buds of these plants have all progressed through the same stages, as shown below:

1. Small buds develop (much smaller than all other daylilies in my garden)

2. Buds shrink and develop into small, strange-shapes

3. Death spiral begins

4. Death spiral continues to completion, including buds and scape

I have 84 different daylily cultivars in my garden, most represented by multiple clumps, and Royal Celebration is the only one that has not done well.

There are pretty images of Royal Celebration in the garden.org plant database, and it won an AHS HM award, so I am very confused as to what is going on with my plants.

My thoughts have run the gamut from "How could anyone actually register this plant?" to "Why am I a total failure at growing this plant, which others can grow and photograph beautifully and which won an AHS HM award?"

Would appreciate the wisdom and perspective of orher daylily growers!

I don't have the cultivar but have seen several reports of its doing something like that, including here on NGA. Not sure if this link will go directly to the page but let's see:

The thread "What are you adding for 2016?" in Daylilies forum

It looks like the link goes to the page after the discussion, maybe try going back one.

IMHO, there is a genetic defect that sometimes shows up with this one. It causes the stunted buds. I got rid of it years ago. Several hybridizers told me they got rid of seedlings using this one. It used to have 1 or 2 pretty blooms each year - certainly not enough to warrant taking up garden space. Just saying.

Royal Celebration, was a Royal let down. It has far more ugly blooms, than pretty blooms. It is not worth wasting space on. MHO. The nice pictures you see of RC, are probably the only decent blooms RC produced that year, for the gardener who took them.
Indigo Dragon is a much better, big dark bloomed daylily.

Royal Celebration won an Honorable Mention award from the American Hemerocallis Society (AHS). How on earth could that have happened? I have always considered AHS awards to indicate superior plants. Now I am seriously questioning that conclusion. I can't even imagine that it qualified for registration with AHS, assuming that there ARE qualifying criteria for registration!

AHS does NOT qualify critera for registration in the way you are suggesting. The society IS the official registering body for the ICNCP/ISHS and as such, must adhere to the rules set by the governing bodies for ALL species of cultivated plants that are named and registered. This is most noticeable in the naming rules. The society does qualify that bloom size, color, scape height, form, etc. must be listed and now, there is a requirement that an accurate picture must be submitted at the time of registration. All of this data was not required in earlier years.

The HM is a relatively MINOR award that requires the votes of only 20 garden judges out of over 500 ( I don't keep up with the numbers now that I am PAST President and PAST Awards chair. ) At the time RC won the HM, it only took 15 votes to win. I Imagine the plant would have looked good in the hybridizers garden back then and with the numbers of people who used to attend Florida Mecca, it would have been easy for it to get this award. However, as more people began to grow it, this defect became more noticeable. I've heard MANY Daylily growers mention this problem.

csandt said: I can't even imagine that it qualified for registration with AHS, assuming that there ARE qualifying criteria for registration!

Just to add to what Julie said, the main purpose of registration under the international code of nomenclature is to prevent duplication of names so that when you buy a cultivar with a specific name you should get the exact plant that you want. It's up to the hybridizer to decide if a plant is worth registration (i.e. unique enough in some way).

With a problem as widely known as that of Royal Celebration, is there a mechanism for AHS to de-register or at least note the problem in the description posted in the AHS database? Does a hybridizer have any moral obligation in this regard once wide-spread problems become apparent? What could/would ICNCP/ISHS (new to me) do in such situations?

The ICNCP has nothing to do with the worthiness of a plant, and the AHS can not de-register based on problems with a plant's performance. The description is provided by the hybridizer, there wouldn't be a mechanism for adding something like that to the hybridizer's description in the database. The ICRAs (International Cultivar Registration Authorities) like AHS do not police the quality/performance of the plants, it's just a registry to prevent name duplication. You can always leave a comment for a cultivar in the NGA database.

sooby said:The ICNCP has nothing to do with the worthiness of a plant, and the AHS can not de-register based on problems with a plant's performance. The description is provided by the hybridizer, there wouldn't be a mechanism for adding something like that to the hybridizer's description in the database. The ICRAs (International Cultivar Registration Authorities) like AHS do not police the quality/performance of the plants, it's just a registry to prevent name duplication. You can always leave a comment for a cultivar in the NGA database.

Thank you for the additional information, sooby. I did leave a comment on Royal Celebration. With all that seems to be known about problems with it, it surprises me that mine is the ONLY comment. Yes, the threads in which it has been mentioned are listed, but finding the relevant posting within a thread is too tedious to be practical.

Hopefully 'Royal Celebration' rather than 'Royal Occasion' I sooo know what you mean about finding the relevant post within a thread on a search, especially those that go on for tens of pages.

Thanks for the heads up, @sooby. I edited the posting to say Royal Celebration instead of Royal Occasion.

I got rid of that DUD also. What a waste of space it was here. Probably got a couple good pics in three years approximately that it has been here. I ranted in one of the past forum a couple years ago about it.

@csant You have a good point, I never thought about leaving comments on the duds. I will try to start doing so, and hope others will too. It might help someone save money for a better cultivar.
Luckily, CS has been the only dud, I I've experienced, other than some of my seedlings.