This Week in Daylilies

Misty Morning

Here’s the garden on a misty, moisty morning one day this week. We finally had a small amount of rain, with scattered showers passing through. In spite of the dry season, the daylilies have put on a good show this summer. A few of the plants showed signs of stress, producing smaller and fewer blooms than usual. But many weren’t deterred by the drought at all.

Scarlet Pansy

Scarlet Pansy has been like a certain battery-powered bunny. It has just kept blooming and blooming and blooming its gorgeous, glowing flowers that catch your eye and beckon to you from across the garden.

Notify Ground Crew

Some of the tallest daylilies are late-season bloomers, taking longer to reach their full height. Here is Notify Ground Crew, showing off its trumpet-like flowers atop 5 foot tall scapes. It is a little below its registered height of 72 inches, perhaps due to the lack of rain.

Sears Tower

And here is Sears Tower. It is similarly registered at 72 inches but is blooming on 5 foot scapes this summer as well. Its flowers are a bit more showy than those of Notify Ground Crew.

Autumn Minaret

Autumn Minaret, an old Stout introduction registered in 1951, produces a bouquet of petite flowers every day. It has reached close to 6 feet this year, the tallest daylily in the garden.

Priscilla’s Dream

Sadly, the daylily season is winding down for another year. Here are some of the daylilies that were showing off this week.

Eloquent Silence

Laura Harwood

Dragon Dreams

Give Me Eight

Tigerling

Nile Plum

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Friday Daylily Roundup

Garden Path

Here is a sampling of some of the daylilies blooming this week.

Galena Gilt Edge

Flaming Wildfire

Starstruck

Ruby Spider

Custard Candy

Rue Madeline

Scarlet Pansy

Siloam Little Girl

Vesuvius

Alpha Centauri

Geneva Firetruck

Dragon Dreams

Troubled sleep

Old King Cole

Outrageous

Golden Tycoon

Pink Super Spider

Texas Gal

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Daylily Season Returns

August Morn

The most anticipated event in the summer garden is the daylily season. A few plants have been opening flowers for the last week or so, but the main show has just begun this week. There are plenty of flower scapes and buds and it should be a good year for daylilies. Here are a baker’s dozen of the first flowers to bloom. Hold Your Horses was new to the garden this spring and has already produced several scapes, boding well for its future contribution to the annual display.

Railguy and I are taking a few days of vacation to travel into New York state with the goal of visiting a few gardens south of the border. Be back on the weekend!

Blonde is Beautiful

Born Yesterday

Chesapeake Crablegs

Coyote Moon

Helter Skelter

Hold Your Horses

Hurricane Sky

Longstocking

Pixie Parasol

Prince Redbird

Slow Burn

Suzy Wong

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Polymerous Daylilies

Quality of Mercy poly

You could be excused for wondering whatever is happening with this daylily bloom. While daylilies normally have three outer sepals and three inner petals, the Quality of Mercy bloom shown above has five of each! This makes for a very full, round flower. Such blossoms are termed polymerous. Formerly, the term ‘polytepal’ was used but ‘polymerous’ reflects more botanically-correct terminology.

New Series poly

Here’s a New Series flower with four petals and four sepals (tetramerous). Below is a Pink Super Spider flower with five of each (pentamerous).

Pink Super Spider poly

Polymerous flowers can happen occasionally in any cultivar. Some believe the phenomenon is weather-related. However, some cultivars seem especially prone to throwing polymerous flowers. Hybridizers have taken advantage of this proclivity to develop cultivars that produce polymerous flowers 90% or more of the time.

Give Me Eight

I have one representative of this class of daylilies, bred to produce polymerous flowers. In recognition of this trait, it is named Give Me Eight. Its large, spidery flowers are quite eye-catching.

Give Me Eight

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Daylilies Today: July 30th

Frans Hals (Flory 1955)

It’s been an amazing summer for daylilies here. Although it has been very hot and dry, a few thunderstorms have rolled through and kept things from becoming totally parched. Some of the plants have put on wonderful displayed, but the daylily season is beginning to wind down now. Early bloomers are finished, middle bloomers are getting down to their last few buds, and there are only two or three plants left that are just now about to open their first flowers. Here is a display of some of the flowers that have been brightening the garden this week, everything from an old favorite, Frans Hals, introduced in 1955 to Old King Cole, a new spring arrival in my garden.

Priscilla's Dream (Shooter 1993)

Prince Redbird (Sellers 1986)

Dragon Dreams (Salter 1991)

Old King Cole (Moldovan 1995)

Red Patent Leather (Wild 1977)

Umbrella Parade (Temple 1990)

Moonlight Orchid (Talbott 1986)

Cat Dancer (Moore 1992)

Later Alligator (Reed 1997)

Eloquent Silence (Salter 1993)

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Singin’ in the Rain

Flaming Wildfire

On Monday, we were blessed with a beautiful, soothing rain, a steady daylong drizzle. You could almost hear the overheated earth sigh with relief. The fine mist of rain was perfect for the garden, with no driving downpour to beat down stalks; just a gentle wash of much-needed moisture.

Laura Harwood

An overcast day, even with a bit of rain, can be great for capturing photographs of brightly coloured flowers that can look washed-out in full sun. The vibrant reds and deep purples seem to shine even more brilliantly in the gloom. Here are photographs of some of the flowers that were singing in the rain.

Alabaster Angel

Nile Crane

Texas Gal

Beautiful Edgings

Starman's Quest

Tigerling

Scarlet Pansy and Catherine Neal

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Daylilies Today: July 20th

Palomino Moon (Stamile 1989)

For anyone who may be suffering from daylily withdrawal, here are the latest in daylily blooms. The name of each plant is followed by the name of the hybridizer and the date the cultiver was registered or introduced.

Outrageous (Stevens 1978)

Unique Purple (Childs 1979)

Heaven Can Wait (Hansen 1990)

Asterisk (Lambert 1985)

Roswitha (Trimmer 1992)

South Seas (Moldovan 1993)

New Series (Carpenter 1982)

Malaysian Monarch (Munson 1986)

Priscilla's Rainbow (Spalding 1986)

Pink Super Spider (Carpenter 1982)

Trahlyta (Childs 1982)

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Daylilies Today: July 14th

Blonde is Beautiful (Harris Benz 1985)

Here are the latest daylilies that are just beginning to bloom. The name of the daylily is shown beneath each photograph, along with the breeder who hybridized the plant and the date it was registered or introduced.

Flaming Wildfire (Rasmussen 1996)

Smuggler's Dream (Branch 1994)

Longstocking (Stamile 1997)

Handsome Prince (Courtourier 1993)

Custard Candy (Stamile 1989)

Beautiful Edgings (Copenhaver 1989)

Starman's Quest (Burkey 1989)

Cameroons (Munson 1984)

Choo Choo Fantasy (Pickles 1995)

Karen's Curls (Reinke 1997)

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Daylilies Today: July 11th

Tuscawilla Princess (Hansen 1990)

Here’s what’s new in the daylily patch today. The name of each daylily cultivar is followed by the hybridizer and the year the daylily was registered or introduced.

Chesapeake Crablegs (Reed 1994)

Earth Angel (Stamile 1987)

Dallas Star (Ferris 1976)

Rosella Sheridan (Spalding 1976)

Prague Spring (Lambert 1989)

Dragon Dreams (Salter 1991)

Anne-Evan (Yancey 1985)

Electric Man (Culver 2007)

Willow Wind (Bryant 1987)

Mystical Rainbow (Stamile 1988)

Pandora's Box (Talbott 1982)

Geneva Firetruck (Hansen 2000)

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Daylilies Today: July 6th

Daylily season, long-awaited, is getting underway. A few daylilies have been blooming for a week or so now. Coyote Moon (Hybridizer: Kirchhoff Registered: 1994) was new to the garden last year and has really settled in well. It has plenty of buds and produces very pretty, nicely shaped yellow flowers touched with cinnamon.

Suzy Wong (Kennedy 1962) is an older cultivar. The flowers don’t have the substance of many newer daylilies, but I like its fresh, lemony yellow. It is very floriferous, producing many buds over the daylily season.

Pixie Parasol (Hudson 1975) has also been blooming for a while. It was the first daylily to bloom this year. Like Suzy Wong, I moved Pixie Parasol from my previous garden. I saved it, in part, because I think its name fits it so well.

Femme de Joie (Hayward 1979) is another old favorite that suits its name. The flowers really do look joyful. It tends to have weak scapes that let the heavy flowers droop, but it is holding up well so far this year.

Born Yesterday (Lambert 1972) always reminds me of my children when they were newborns. We have been getting some much-needed showers today, and I just dashed out and snapped a few photos during a brief interlude. The flowers are touched with raindrops.

I moved Broken Heart (Kroll 1993) to a sunnier spot in the garden and it has suffered a bit of a setback from transplanting. However, it is still gamely producing a few flowers.

Yesterday Memories (Spalding 1976) is a very pretty, unassuming pink that always does well. This was its first bloom this year.

Big Smile (Apps 1999) always makes me smile. I like its understated pale yellow, with white ribs and just a touch of pink on the petal edges, a very cheerful, good-natured look. I moved this plant in the spring too, and unlike Broken Heart, it seems very happy with the move. It settled right in and is blooming better this year than it did the last few years in a shadier location.

Finally, here are two spidery flowers, Curly Rosy Posy (Hansen 1992) above, and Eggplant Escapade (Reed 1996) below. The season is off to a good start.

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