 Not Your Grandma's Daylilies by Troy B. Marden
Nearly every gardener I know has daylilies in their garden. Many of us remember them from the gardens of our parents or grandparents, grown because of their undemanding, forgiving nature and their ability to increase in size and flower power each year despite what might have been less-than-ideal care. Daylilies have come a long way in the past three decades, and recently I decided to jump feet first into the fray and add some of the best of the modern hybrids to my own garden. Modern hybridizers have made great strides in both color and flower form, and today's daylilies feature exquisite blooms on vigorous plants with taller scapes that push the blooms up out of the leaves. Add to that the fact that many modern daylilies -- even the fancy ones -- will rebloom at least once and sometimes multiple times throughout the summer, and you have plants that no garden, or gardener, should be without.  | | 'A Bodacious Pattern' (Morss, 2001) |
So what makes modern daylilies so great? A variety of things! I've already mentioned a few qualities found in many of the newer plants -- vigor, disease resistance, height, and the ability to rebloom -- are among the many desirable characteristics. It is the flowers, though, that set modern daylilies apart from their older, though no less beautiful, counterparts. Perhaps no other trait has been more focused on by both large scale, professional hybridizers and amateur daylily lovers who are growing and breeding plants right in their own back yards than the appearance of the flowers.  | | 'Jazz After Five' (Selman, 2007) |
Because of their efforts over many decades, we now have flowers with intricately colored eye zones, frilled and ruffled edges, colored edges and flowers that look as though they have been dusted with diamond dust. Some have eyes and edges that match, while others may have double or even triple-colored edges that are so ruffled they almost appear serged or pleated.  | | 'Blushed with Emerald' (Grace-L., 2001) |
We have flowers that are single -- with 6 petals (technically, 3 petals and 3 sepals) -- and we have flowers that are full double, with multiple "petals" that fill the centers of the blooms. There are flowers called "bagels," whose petals are so wide they make the flower appear as an almost complete circle, and there are "spiders," whose petals are so thin and delicate-appearing that they look almost like spider legs dancing in the wind. Yes, the daylily has come a long way from the days of the old orange "ditch lily" that grew in front of my grandmother's house!  | | 'Puccini' (Stamile, 1999) |
 | | 'Lime Peel' (Stamile, 2002) |
So what are a few of my favorites that have been standouts in my Tennessee garden, and what made me choose those varieties in the first place? Let's be clear that with nearly 75,000 registered cultivars of daylilies, choosing the very best is no easy task. This does not mean that there are nearly 75,000 daylilies on the market, but that the American Hemerocallis Society has registered that many officially-named cultivars in their database from both professional and backyard hybridizers around the world. Still, looking through a catalog or nursery website with 300 to 500 cultivars for sale can be overwhelming. Where do you start?  | | 'Safe Island' (Kirchhoff, 2001) |
I have pictured a few of my personal favorites for you, but before I leave you to pore over the photos, a word on daylily culture. Ideally, daylilies prefer full sun in rich, moist, well-drained soil. Most of us know that they will tolerate less-than-ideal conditions better than almost any other plant and be entirely forgiving of us for not treating them better. However, the kinder you are to them, the bigger, better and more impressive show they will give you each year. This is especially true for the reblooming types that need extra water and nutrients at their roots throughout the growing season in order to keep producing new flowers. It takes a lot of energy to keep blooming! I feed my daylilies twice a year with a dry, organic fertilizer, usually in late winter or early spring; and again in early autumn, as they are storing energy in their roots for the following year's display. I supplement this with liquid fertilizer during the summer months, applied quickly and easily to the foliage with a sprayer that fits right on the end of the hose. For disease control, be sure to keep the old, withered, or dead leaves removed from the plants; and once the current season's growth has died down in autumn, remove it completely so that rust and other fungal diseases are less likely to overwinter. And finally, deadheading. Deadheading, or removing the old blossoms (and eventually the old scapes when there are no more buds left to open), keeps energy going to the plant so that it continues to increase in size and, for reblooming cultivars, may encourage plants to produce new scapes and more blooms.  | | 'Jamaican Love' (Trimmer, 2004) |
It seems that there are almost as many sources for daylilies as there are daylilies themselves. Daylily people are some of the nicest folks out there, so don't be afraid to pick up the phone and give them a call or send an email if there is something special you're looking for. They can almost always help you find it! Daylily Terms When buying daylilies for your garden, it may be useful to know a few basic daylily terms. Clump - A clump of daylilies refers to a plant that is mature enough to have three or more fans growing together. The older your daylilies are and the larger the clump grows, the more impressive their display of blooms will be in the garden. Crown - The crown of a daylily is located at or just below ground level and is the growing point of the plant. For basic purposes, the leaves emerge from the top of the crown and the roots emerge from the bottom. When dividing daylilies, it is important to have a viable piece of the crown intact, with both leaves and roots, in order for the plant to survive and continue to grow. Dormant, Semi-Evergreen and Evergreen - I've lumped these three terms together because they all refer to a daylily's leaves and whether or not those leaves are retained throughout the year. Dormant daylilies are those whose leaves disappear entirely for the winter, with new growth emerging from below ground when the soil becomes warm enough the following spring. Semi-evergreen cultivars may retain some leaves during the winter in warmer climates, but have the ability to "go underground" (dormant) in colder climates until warmer weather arrives. Evergreen cultivars may have some growth above ground throughout the year. Often, the current year's plant dies back in the autumn and new growth emerges almost immediately. In warmer climates, this is not a problem; but in the colder zones, freezing temperatures can damage the leaves and sometimes the entire plant. The cold hardiness of evergreen plants can vary dramatically and gardeners in zones colder than Zone 6 should select cultivars carefully and may be better off with plants that are dormant or semi-evergreen than with the true evergreen types. The opposite is also true, and gardeners in warmer parts of the country may find that the truly dormant cultivars don't perform as well due to the lack of cold winter "sleep" they need. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule! Fan - A fan is a single plant in a clump. The name comes from the fact that individual growths on daylily plants are flat and fan-shaped. This may be more obvious on smaller plants or single fans than it is when the daylily is mature and growing in a large clump. Rebloom - Many modern daylilies have the ability to flower more than one time during the same growing season. This is called rebloom in the daylily world and is a highly sought-after characteristic in modern hybrids. Good rebloom extends the season from a few weeks in early to mid-summer on into late summer and even autumn. Roots - The roots of a daylily come in several forms and provide several functions. Some roots are for anchoring and drawing water and nutrients into the plant. These are long, thin and fibrous roots. Other roots appear almost bulbous, and these are used primarily for storage of water and some nutrients. A few daylilies have creeping underground stems called "rhizomes." These have the ability to produce plants several inches away from the base of the mother plant and are the means by which some daylilies spread to form large colonies -- the old-fashioned orange "ditch lily" comes to mind. Scape - A daylily scape is the technical name for its flower stalk. When perusing daylily catalogs or looking at a daylily nursery's website, you may see references to the height of the scape. This is the height of the plant's flower stalk when it is in bloom and is usually different -- sometimes considerably so -- than the height of the leaves, which are usually shorter.  With a career spanning more than 25 years, Troy Marden is a true Renaissance man in the world of horticulture and design. An award-winning garden and floral designer with a passion for plants, Troy lives in Nashville and has ventured into the worlds of garden and floral design, special events, garden photography, writing, public speaking and television. He is watched each week by tens of thousands of viewers across the state of Tennessee on Nashville Public Television's hit gardening show, Volunteer Gardener, and his gardens, floral design, writing and photography have appeared in both regional and national gardening magazines, including Horticulture , Fine Gardening , Garden Design ,Southern Living , and Tennessee Gardener , among others. www.troybmarden.com www.troybmarden.blogspot.com |
