I have had Bela Lugosi since it came out. It is my gold standard to judge all the other purples to.
Any chance that the disapointing Bela's were from tissue culture?
I wonder if the disappointment you are seeing in it has to do with the number of tissue cultured Bela's on the market these days. I have grown several daylilies that were TC, alongside divisions I got from the hybridizer. The TCs were really disappointing. I remember how upset Curt was when he found out that Bela was being TCed. I won't buy any daylilies from "box" stores or nurseries now, knowing most have been TC'd.
