Daylilies, members of the Liliaceae (lily family), are some of the easiest to grow and most popular of the garden perennials. Because they range in size, color, and design application, there is a daylily for almost everyone and every garden. Like their name Hemerocallis, “beauty for a day,” the individual daylily flower lasts only one day. What is so wonderful? They are borne on long arching stems with the flowers in clusters and bloom in succession over a period of two to six months from mid-spring to late, depending upon the variety.
Daylilies are versatile in the garden and landscape. They can be very dramatic in a perennial border or in the foreground of shrubbery plantings. They can be spectacular as foundation plantings, cover an unsightly bank or serve as accents beside a pond. These flowers are more dramatically effective when planted in clusters of three or more to create sweeping drifts or a mass effect. Not only do the flowers sway in the breeze, so does the light, strapping foliage. Motion in the garden!
The flowers of the species come in vibrant shades of yellow, orange, and red, with a much more varied color selection in the hybrids. Plants have been developed with flowers in cream, gold, scarlet, pink, apricot, purple, violet, and plum. There are also hybrids, which repeatedly bloom throughout the summer; they bloom early, then after a short rest, bloom again, constantly repeating the process.
Don’t miss out on our new daylily hybrids with ruffles, piecrust ruffles, and picotee borders. Ruffles have soft, lightly wavy edges. Piecrust edging has heavy indentations, much like edges to a pie crust. Picotee has petal margins that are either lighter or darker than the main petal color—a contrasting color. All of these new introductions are gorgeous!
Choose a sunny or lightly shaded location for your daylilies. The best flowers will be produced when they are planted in a sunny location, unless you live in a very hot climate; in this case, choose a lightly shaded area. Daylilies also enjoy a regular feeding every two months during the growing season to maintain their bloom color.
They are tough, adaptable, vigorous-growing plants that will thrive in nearly all kinds of soil; however, the best is soil that is moist, but well drained, fertile and humus-rich. Whether your soil is light and sandy or heavy clay, add planting mix. Mulch the soil with bark or compost mulch in the spring and in the fall to minimize weeds and retain soil moisture.
Here at White’s, we have numerous daylily hybrids for you to choose from.