I learned something new! | Daylily Blog on Bud Blasting

Don't freak out.  

This shot is not from this week in my gardens.  This was taken in early June, and I miss these lush, green hazy-lazy days.  I miss the colors and the supple petals.  I miss seeing something new blooming everyday and I actually miss deadheading at night.  

Those things have been replaced with every shade of desert-tan you can imagine, complemented with dry, cracked Earth.  The daylily season finished just as the drought really kicked in, so my bloom season was not crushed by the heat reported from my part of the country.  We were blessed with the best blooms ever seen in our care, and are thankful for so much this year.

remembering green,

so poised to spring forth and grow

now waiting for snow.

One thing I am thankful for in 2012 was the opportunity to take Garden Judges II in another region.  My 5-year term was up last year and it was time to reapply to be a Garden Judge.  I signed up for this class at the Region 11 Summer Meeting - just 4 hours west of me in Kansas City, Missouri.  The meeting was in early June and was a great experience.  During this Garden Judges II training, I learned many new things about daylilies.  (I also learned that many people think they know everything about daylilies.  How sad.)  I also confirmed some things that I assumed to be true prior to this class.  But.  I digress.

One of our instructors was Linda, the fabulous Publicity Director from Region 11.  At one point in our stroll around the garden, she says, "This.  Now this is bud blasting.  Look at this, everyone."

I looked.

I raised my eyebrows!  So, THAT'S what it is!

Linda said, "Bud blasting."

Look at those deformed buds on otherwise healthy scapes.  Some commented that it was caused by the Tarnished plant bug (Lygus rugulipennis), some the extreme heat, some thrip, some gall midge, some thought the early bud formation then frost caused it, some suggested over-watering, and others thought it was just genetic predisposition.  If you know something definitive about it, or have other photos or ideas, please let me know by emailing me here.

The above are images on a registered cultivar in my garden in Michigan last year.  I took snapshots because I didn't know what was going on.    This cultivar had buds on every scape aborting, seen in the above photo. I thought it was a plant-specific problem since no other plants in the area were doing it.  I just filed the pics away and kind of forgot about the issue.

But then this year, more cultivars started doing this in my new Illinois garden (seen on the left).  Maybe about a dozen exhibited this "bud-blasting."  Note this scape on the left has blasted most of its buds.

The moral of this story is that although the AHS Dictionary of Daylily Terms does not mention "bud blasting," and over an hour of searching the reputable forums I know of turned up no clear photos or explanations of "bud blasting", I will begin to use this term to describe what I see in these pictures.  This site has some thoughts about "bud drop" and so does this one.  I learned something new.  HOORAY!

I'm not going to hold any of my daylilies responsible for their performance (good or bad) this year.  We had over 20 100-degree days, very little rain and a very early spring.  Some daylilies bloomed like royalty and others suffered a bit.  There is more rebloom than I have ever seen, but I also had six that didn't bloom at all.  Considering I just planted all of these cultivars last fall, I expected a lot more no-shows.  A few deeply southern, intricately patterned ones did not even show a scape, and several northern born, previously perfect ones never had a single flower.  All but one of the no-shows have nice foliage, so I expect some bloom out of them next year.

I'll give them all another year to shine like the newly-planted, very saturated, slightly carved, sunfast, 6.5" H. 'Bulletproof' from Nicole DeVito...  I love the spray-effect at the tip of the eyezone on the midrib.  Neat punctuation!