Considering the weather we had in January and February, I consider myself very fortunate to say I lost none of my cultivars or mature seedlings this winter. We had a couple of days with low temperatures about 10 degrees in January along with snow a week later, then a major ice storm in mid-February with considerable damage to trees and shrubs. However, if you watched the Masters Golf Tournament last week, you could see the weather that we have been having the last couple of weeks - mostly clear skies with temperatures in the mid-70's or mid-80's, and the daylilies have been growing like crazy. I thought I had lost two evergreen plants, but about 10 days ago one fan appeared on Red Balls of Fire and late last week two fans popped up out of the ground on Tree of Gascone. I did lose some fans here and there among both evergreens and semi-evergreens, but my biggest learning from this cold weather (Yes, I know - - cold for us here in east-central Georgia, not for where many of you live!!) is that every seedling may be different, even those with the same parents. For example, I have two seedlings that will be blooming for the fifth year this spring - - one is Forestlake Ragamuffin X Painting the Roses Red while the other is Painting the Roses Red X Forestlake Ragamuffin. I lined them out into double fans in the same bed last fall. I had considered both to be evergreen as up to now they had performed about the same in terms of winter hardiness, multiplying, number of buds, rebloom, etc. The one from the PRR X FLR cross may have lost a fan or two this winter, but most did just fine and I presume they will bloom this spring. The one from the FLR X PRR cross was badly damaged. I lost one double fan completely and several other plants froze back to the extent that only one of the fans remains while several more lost all foliage, but have come back with several small fans of new growth. Based on the other Ev and Sev plants that I have, I would now judge the first plant as either a hardy evergreen or a semi-evergreen (some of my evergreens suffered less loss this winter than some of my semi-evergreens) while I would call the second an evergreen, perhaps a tender evergreen.
There's always something new to learn about daylilies!
Larry
