Wow, what a sad thing to happen this late in the game. Have you dug up what was left of the plant to see what the roots look like or were there no roots to dig up?....Maryl

Wow, I've never heard of that happening to a daylily. What weird is that the spot is sunken too as if it rotted the roots too. Are you sure you didn't make someone mad who knew it was your favorite and they sprayed round up on it?

This happens to me almost every year. A few years ago I lost over a dozen. I understand it is crown rot. Thought I had corrected the problem, I've added compost to the soil & it helped, but obviously hasn't completely cured the problem. Last year I only lost one, but it was a huge well established clump that had been there 6 or 7 years. Other clumps only inches away were fine & not affected. It seems so very odd & can happen within just a few days. For me, I think it must be something with the soil because it is always in a certain area beside my driveway, about 10 or 15' area. Of course my obvious cure would be not to plant daylilies there, but I really enjoy them along the driveway like that. This year I lost 8 plants, 2 well established clumps, but fortunately only 1 I liked a lot, South Seas. I had gaps there, so I moved some seedlings I wanted to keep & some daylilies I wouldn't mind to lose if it hits again.
It always seems to happen when the plant has bloomed exceptionally well, almost as if it used up all its energy in blooming. It really is depressing. If you catch it early you can dig the plant & cut off the rot. Seems rather sneaky though, this year it happened when it was really hot & I didn't go outside much. By the time I caught it, several were already gone & the others were too far gone.

I'd like to suggest that you check the plant's crown & root carefully. I've had a few over the years that appeared to have died & disappeared only to show up again with new growth - usually weaker & smaller fans - and sometimes on the outside edge of the original clump perimeter (Clump centre died out?)

Some dormant daylilies will pull back (die back) into the ground entirely if they want/need the rest and certainly appear to have died completely - only to re-emerge later on or the following season. I have a few older cultivars that do predictably 'go-to-ground' early in August after blooming only to put up modest new growth in September.

A breeder made a comment recently that our chosen plant is now so mixed up genetically after 100+ years of hybridizing, that often time we will experience unusual growth and bloom situations.

If there is a sunken spot are you sure someone didn't come and dig it up? Are there dead leaves or something?

I agree that it sounds as if the plant were removed, not as if it died. I have certainly lost a few established plants/clumps, but Indian Giver comes to mind. I noticed one fan of Fear Not has succumbed to rot. Hopefully the other five fans will be fine.

Sorry for your loss...it is never a plant you don't like that you lose.
kay

CWC is a dormant so possibly it just went dormant? Well if you do dig it up, you'll know soon enough if any part of the plant still remains.

Julia

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. It definitely died (not dormant) and was not removed. There were some remnants of rotted root and I looked carefully to see if there was any scrap of crown left that I could salvage but it's just toast. I just can't believe the sheer speed that it happened. We live way off the road out in the country, have a gate that stays closed, nobody knows about my daylilies unless they've come to our house which is only family pretty much. No one works in the field except for me and there are no kids running around to do malicious things. People around here for the most part are smart enough not to go sneaking around uninvited on other folk's property 'cause that's a good way to get yourself shot. Guess it was just a speedy case of crown rot, I just figured there'd be warning signs well before hand. I just wouldn't have thought that I needed to keep an eye on the established ones but I was wrong.

Well I know what I'll be putting back on my "wanted list" for next year lol. But I'll plant it in a different spot just to be safe. It sure seemed happy until it went poof. I plant in a mixture of native soil (red clay), compost/manure, and some sand to improve drainage. Since I've started doing this some years ago all of the daylilies have responded beautifully, much better than just planting them in the existing dirt like I used to when I was a newbie.

This is common, that the plant is over-stressed from better than normal bloom and/or lots of seed pods. On established plants, it does leave a hole with lots of dead hairlike material. It's depressing I know.
What I did to combat rot, was to encourage deep root growth, so the plant has access to cooler water to keep itself cooler during hot days. I added lots of coarse organic material to the soil in the beds to keep the soil aerated and cooler. I mulched to make sure the root zones are cooled. Some people claim that bloom is initiated by stress, so adding a bunch of seed pods makes for bad results.
Hope the replacement does better. Ed

Thanks for the tips Ed. I knew that setting seed pods was not recommended on new plantings, that they needed to get established first because it uses up a good bit of the plant's energy. Never thought twice about one that was several years old. I didn't pollinate that many blooms but I'm sure even a few didn't help if there was some underlying problem just waiting for a good excuse to get the better of it. And it did bloom phenomenally so I guess it kinda stressed itself out.