The first successful everblooming Daylily was'Stella De Oro' or 'Stella D'Oro', bred by the late Walter Jablonski in the early 1970s. With its unmatched blooming quality, the plant's popularity soared above all others. The plant was a benchmark, with its reblooming characteristics and its Northern-hardy dormant foliage. Genetics found in 'Stella De Oro' helped open the door for the beginning of what would become the world's first line of hardy, alternative color, mulitple-repeat blooming daylilies.
Nearly 10 years later, Dr. Darrel Apps selected a seedling out of a cross he made with 'Stella De Oro'. It was a yellow daylily that had stunning rebloom characteristics. It would become one of the most popular daylilies of all time: 'Happy Returns'. For many years, this cultivar has been among the top of popularity polls. Despite its ever-lasting popularity, Dr. Apps knew that he could get so much more than a yellow daylily.
So fifteen more years of breeding and around 350,000 seedlings (yes, that is not a typo: three-hundred and fifty thousand seedlings) later, Dr. Apps made yet another breakthrough. He had spent many years and generations of seedlings breeding non-yellow non-orange colors into reblooming daylilies, until one day, he selected what became 'Rosy Returns', the world's first hardy, alternative-color, multiple-repeat blooming daylily.