*****I know this is a little long, but please stick with me on this and read on, it could really help!*****

Okay, this is just a thought, but I'm trying so hard to research plants BEFORE I go to gardens because I have certain budding/branching goals, but most of the plants on ATP (and AHS) don't have that information listed. So then I think to myself that I'll just go to the garden and see for myself what the plant characteristics are like...but when I go to a garden to pick out the cultivars I want...

...I just see all of the beautiful flower faces smiling back at me!!! ...and I forget--or don't take the time--to look at the number of buds and branches!

Who's with me on this??? I can't be the only one that gets distracted by the flower and forgets to look at the foliage.

SO....

***************************************************************************************************

I propose that we have a couple of Bud and Branch update days (or weeks, or months...) on ATP where we all go into our gardens and record the number of buds and branches (terminal Y counting as 1) our plants have and start updating the database. There is so much good information in this database, but not enough information on buds and branching on a lot of the flowers. It would also be nice if we could comment on scapes (strong scapes, thin scapes, etc..), foliage (dk green, bright green, variegated, thick leaves, thin leaves), and even foliage height (actual height, height compared to bloom height...).

I'm not 100% certain what the best method for doing this would be because there are SO MANY flowers and if we all propose updates to the actual database entry on the same day, our moderators are going to go CRAZY, LoL! We would need another way to handle this. I'm open to suggestions, though. Starting a thread might work, but it will get long and a lot of threads get off-track with side-convos, which would make it even longer. Does anyone else have a suggestion as to how we could handle this? Maybe we could have a separate spot in the Daylily forums designated for "updates"? And maybe that could be separated alphabetically?

Essentially, I'd like everyone to comment on the budding/branching and foliage that they see on the established flowers they have owned for MORE than a year (which means I couldn't participate until next year, sadly, ...unless I record info at local gardens).

Thoughts???

Oh, a couple of additional notes:

I think if we were to do this via threads, there would need to be strict requirements that posts must be completely informational and to-the-point or else subject to deletion. Posts with too many words or side comments are hard to follow when recording numbers/data. Maybe there could even be a particular, standardized format that we all use when responding?


And some of you might scoff at the idea of recording actual foliage height because it probably seems very insignificant, especially for those that have very tall flowers and/or just care that the bloom is somewhere above the foliage. And I understand that. For me, though, foliage height is important for hybridizing, I think, because the foliage might be below the bloom on one cultivar but be too tall to cross with another, shorter cultivar whose bloom might not make it above the foliage. For example, I'm trying to cross for shorter varieties whose blooms are level with or just a tiny bit above the foliage. I purchased about 8 or so Pardon Me fans to cross with. On my Pardon Me plants, the foliage is really short compared to other plants, so the bloom actually rises a decent amount above the foliage; because of this, I would actually want to cross it with something that has taller foliage. I realize that it's not an exact science (yet), but the more data we have on foliage height, the more we might start seeing some trends and the more we might be able to track and learn about how foliage height is passed on, etc... (I love genetics!)

Does anyone else ever consider foliage height in the way that I do, too?

I like your idea to add more information to the Plant Database about the "other" characteristics of a particular cultivar. I think that is the place that this info should go so that it is easy to find by anyone searching for information about a cultivar.

I know the temps and water can have an impact on plant growth, so that should be noted as a comment. I think when a gardener/grower sees a great plant, they should add that info as a comment to the database and also state their current growing conditions in the comment.

I would like to know how a plant performs in optimum conditions as well as in challenging conditions, so all such comments added to the database are needed. Also conditions such as full sun, partial shade, full shade. That kind of info is very important to me. I would also love to read about any folks that have rust in their gardens as to whether or not a particular cultivar is exhibiting rust resistance or susceptibility.

Those are the comments and info I would like to see in the comments section for each cultivar. Is there a comments section for each cultivar or do the comments have to be made about a particular photo in that database cultivar file?

I just checked the Plant Database and there are options at the very bottom of each cultivar listing that includes the following options:

Adding Actions:

» Upload a photo
» Post a comment
» File a growers report

We just need more folks adding comments about each cultivar, IMHO. I will certainly start adding comments when I can. Unfortunately, I don't have that many cultivars, but will add info about the ones I have. Most likely next year, because mine are all new to my garden this year and are still adapting to their new home.

Becky, very true! I have been using those links, too, to add information here and there, but I was hoping that we could do the updates en masse. I thought an ATP 'event' might spur more participation. (Also, personally, while the notes at the bottom of the database entries are often very helpful, it's tough to read or sift through all of them to find bud/branch/foliage information. Additionally, when there are a bunch of comments, it pushes the "add a photo" and "add plant to list" links further down which can be mildly annoying.)

DogsNDaylilies said:...Additionally, when there are a bunch of comments, it pushes the "add a photo" and "add plant to list" links further down which can be mildly annoying.)

These links are also accessible on the left side of your screen, and there they remain in a static position.

There are places to note bud and branching info in each DB entry, and there is also an "other" space in the foliage category that could be used to add height/color information. Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I think it could work.

I think you have a good idea! I started out doing just that at the start of bloom season. But by peak season I stopped. Why? Because I'm too clumsy and kept knocking buds off of plants while trying to get measurements! It just got to be too stressful when so many plants were in flower & bud. Now that peak is over I can do some of the late bloomers but I still need to be careful not to knock off seed pods from crosses I've done. I've already knocked several small pods off & 1 big one that luckily had ripe seeds even though the pod was green.

I have a small yard so my plants are packed close together. If someone has a good way of taking measurements in confined places I'd love to know what it is!

I appreciate all of the notes about where there is currently available space to put these things, really, I do! ...but I still feel it would be fun, helpful, and more productive to have a special drive (whether it's a one-day drive a few times a season or a season-long endeavor) to encourage everyone's involvement in updating the bud/branch/foliage information for various plants.

Maybe we could even feature certain plants...maybe there are 20-40 plants each week that we 'feature' in a list where people can pipe up and submit their observations and, at the end of the week, those plants are updated with the general consensus of bud/branch/foliage info?

I'm trying to look at this from an angle of "What will encourage the most participation?" I'm a Marketing major, what can I say?

Well, I hear you, but not sure with the dog days of this hot summer, if folks are willing to participate. It's hard too because plants may grow differently in different parts of the country/world. How would you form a consensus of the information collected?

I have spent a lot of time lately thinking along the same lines, but I keep running into so many obstacles, I can't figure out how it could, or should be done. It has to be kept very simple, limited only to the most wanted data. It has to be kept private, I think many people don't post what they grow, because they don't want to be pestered by plant requests. That is one of the reasons I think we don't see more comments in the database, but that limits the credibility of the info. I think the goal is to gather zone based info from all gardens and zones instead of just in the hybridizers garden, how to do that eludes me.
I do like the idea of a featured daylily of the week, just for a trail to see how many people would respond with comments.
Oh yes, it would have to be limited to just factual info, all other discussion would have to take place in a separately started thread! But photos to instrate would be allowed.

I wonder how many people keep bud/branching data in their own records for each plant they own. Do you? (I have photos from this year to help me determine what has thick/thin scapes for hybridizing, but the bud/branching thing is hard for me to guage because this is year 1 for all of mine, so i don't trust the results until they are established next year.) If people record this kind of info, we could easily gather it and combine our results. If you think anonymously-submitted data would be better, I'll bet there's a way we could do that.

I'm open to suggestions, that's why I started this thread. Many heads are better than one, atleast in this instance.

I only have a small handful of named cultivars that are over two years old, 90 per cent of mine have been acquired in the last two years, the majority this year. I just noticed 'David Kirchhoff' is developing its first non terminal branch and it was planted last year. I have come to the conclusion in my garden it takes at least three years (not there yet) to get a "good feel" for the plant, seems it takes that long for most of them to mature. So I am not able to post many meaningful comments yet.

beckygardener said:Well, I hear you, but not sure with the dog days of this hot summer, if folks are willing to participate. It's hard too because plants may grow differently in different parts of the country/world. How would you form a consensus of the information collected?

Agreed on this but then i always take stats with a grain of salt. No doubt most have better prepared beds than i do and some worse off. The same could be said of watering,amount of sunlight,length of season by zones and clump sizes.
Not that stats are not helpful,they are, but i use them as a general guide instead of the gospel.

Aren't those characteristics going to be affected by growing conditions? It's like irises and the registered heights, branching and bud counts. In my area, they don't seem to be able to duplicate the registration info no matter how good the growing conditions have been. It's really rare. If the same is true for daylilies, the information is going to be really inconsistent and highly variable from location to location and grower to grower. I think it would take a lot record keeping, not just a few reports, for the information to be statistically valid for a plant. Information is always good, so I'm just wondering out loud here. I expect registration info is based on optimum conditions that most growers aren't going to provide. It's the potential a plant has, but not necessarily the norm. Buds fall off scapes for me. I don't know why. Counting buds wouldn't represent the number of blooms here, though it probably is an indication of the potential.

I didn't think the point was to form a consensus , I thought it was just the opposite, to not have a consensus, but to have the differences reflected for each zone. If I live in zone 3, the bud count in zone 9 is of little relevance to me. If I live in zone 9 the hardiness of a zone 3 plant means nothing to me.

What would be helpful .... in my opinion, is if there were zones listed and you could click on your zone to see if anyone posted any comments about how their daylilies grew in that zone.

kssmith said:

Agreed on this but then i always take stats with a grain of salt. No doubt most have better prepared beds than i do and some worse off. The same could be said of watering,amount of sunlight,length of season by zones and clump sizes.
Not that stats are not helpful,they are, but i use them as a general guide instead of the gospel.

True. It does help when trying to determine what to buy, though. Even knowing that a particular cultivar has 5-6 branches vs. another that has 1-3 is helpful to me. Or 35-40 buds vs. 8-9 buds. Or just a note of 'thick' scapes vs. 'thin scapes' (subjective, I know). And foliage should probably be easy to determine after 1 year, I would think, right? (They cut mine at time of purchase to conserve water for the ride home, so no measurements on that for me this year.)

I still think its a good idea to have the info, even if it isn't perfect. I need more people on board with it though, and a consensus (and viable method) on how to obtain the info.

That is why I like the idea of one thread per plant, and have each response linked to a zone. It would not take long to scan a thread even with a hundred responses if they were all in the thread 'Red Volunteer' growing report for example. Then maybe there could be a way worked out to move the most meaningful or helpful, responses to the comments section of the database for that plant.

beckygardener said:What would be helpful .... in my opinion, is if there were zones listed and you could click on your zone to see if anyone posted any comments about how their daylilies grew in that zone.

I've been following this

. Becky, zones Will only tell you how the plants fair in the winter. I'm in zone 8. But zone 8 in the pnw is nothing like zone 8 in the south. The only thing my climate has in common with the south is the winter low temperatures. Everything else is different.

Maybe if zones are not that appropriate maybe a state reference would be better!