Flowers aren't same color as last year?

[marcym]

When we first moved here, I had an abundance of bright orange tiger/ditch lilies at the four corners of the house. This year I now have dark yellow, light yellow, and light orange tiger/ditch lilies at the four corners. Some of them even look frilly like a fancier flower?

Around the outbuildings, on the hills, and on the sides of the house my iris's were either yellow, purple , or yellow and maroon. This year, I now have several dark almost black flowers.

My husband was raised here, and says that they've always been orange. What is causing this, and will they keep changing colors? I'm not very familiar with cross pollination, does it cross between species? Help! I know I'm not going crazy!!

 

[patandchickens]

When we first moved here, I had an abundance of bright orange tiger/ditch lilies at the four corners of the house. This year I now have dark yellow, light yellow, and light orange tiger/ditch lilies at the four corners. Some of them even look frilly like a fancier flower?

Around the outbuildings, on the hills, and on the sides of the house my iris's were either yellow, purple , or yellow and maroon. This year, I now have several dark almost black flowers.

My husband was raised here, and says that they've always been orange. What is causing this, and will they keep changing colors? I'm not very familiar with cross pollination, does it cross between species? Help! I know I'm not going crazy!!

Is it possible that some of them were planted within the last several years?

The card-carrying Actual ditch lilies are basically sterile and don't produce seed (except in very rare cases). Somatic mutations in them are even rarer.

However, the first year or two after planting very SMALL daylily roots, or if for some reason an existing clump is feeling exceptionally abused, the flowers can be sort of 'washed-out' in coloration. Then the next year they will have their proper vividness.

It is also possible, if you've been tending beds that had gotten overgrown, or digging around there for any other reason, that plants that have been overgrown by others and just been clinging vegetatively to life for the past X years have finally gotten enough light and elbowroom to bloom.

It is not *absolutely* impossible that an existing population of daylilies, containing chromosomally-compatible non-sterile cultivars, could have set seed which fell, germinated and grew to blooming size. However, that would seem pretty unlikely UNLESS these are very long-established clumps that have had no changes in their environmental conditions.

Sounds pretty, anyhow

JMO,

Pat