Seedfork - I agree with you! I would love to have nice foliage on ALL my daylilies!
Rust does not die here unfortunately. Living in central Florida, we rarely get freezing temps that would last long enough to completely kill the rust spores. But I do indeed have some daylilies that exhibit very little rust throughout the growing season. Even growing right next to a rust host daylily. The exposure is there, but some of mine definitely appear to be resistant. One thing I've heard though is that I may have a particular strain of rust. Some of my plants may be resistant to whatever strain I have, but if exposure to another strain of rust appears, they may not be resistant to that strain. Whether that is true or not, I don't know at this time. But I will continue to try to breed rust-resistant plants together to hopefully increase the rust resistance in seedling hybrids. Rust fungus seems to love my yard, because I have other plants that also get rust. Different strain of rust depending on the plant species, but rust shows up all the time on numerous plant species! One of the pitfalls of living in what some folks might consider "paradise" ... there are always challenges no matter where you live and what your climate is like! But there is always advantages, too!
