Daylily Season Begins, 2015

Pixie Parasol

Daylily season peaks towards the end of July, but the first blooms are beginning to open. Every day brings a new face. Here are the flowers that have been kicking off the bloom season over the last few days.

Suzy Wong

Brookwood Lee Causey

Starman’s Quest

Broken Heart

Willow Wind

Lavender Blue Baby

Coyote Moon

Mata Hari

Hold Your Horses

Tangerine Horses

Fencing Master

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Daylilies July 19th

Mokan Butterfly (Lenington 1984)

I haven’t posted any daylilies since Monday. Lots more daylilies have bloomed since then! For the hemeroholics out there, here is another batch of pretty faces.

Old King Cole (Moldovan 1995)

Trahlyta (Childs 1982)

Blonde is Beautiful (Harris Benz 1985)

Siloam Little Girl (Henry 1970)

Border Sentry (Whatley 1995)

South Seas (Moldovan 1993)

Banned in Boston (Simpson 1994)

Alpha Centauri (Hanson 1992)

Outrageous (Stevens 1978)

Ruby Spider (Stamile 1991)

Wisest of Wizards (Salter 1994)

Karen’s Curls (Reinke 1997)

Blue Voodoo (Rice 2005)

Ghost of Thunder Road (Hanson 2001)

Seminole Ruby (Kirchhoff 1993)

Pandora’s Box (Talbott 1982)

Chance Encounter (Stamile 1994)

Scarlet Pansy (Stamile 1986)

Troubled Sleep (Hanson 1998)

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Daylilies July 14th

Rosella Sheridan (Spalding 1976)

Here are the some of the daylilies blooming over the last couple of days. We had rain on Sunday, so a few are spotted with raindrops.

Willow (Russell 1960)

Key West (Trimmer 1999)

Starman’s Quest (Burkey 1989)

Fencing Master (Munson 1988)

Asterisk (Lambert 1985)

Velvet Thunder (Benz 1994)

Femme de Joie (Hayward 1979)

Giggle Creek (Culver 2000)

Ghost of Thunder Road (Hanson 2001)

Custard Candy (Stamile 1989)

Seminole Ruby (Kirchhoff 1993)

Jerry Hyatt (Hanson 2004)

Galena Gilt Edge (Blocher)

Mata Hari (Brooks 1981)

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Just a Few More Daylilies

We had a very rainy early summer, and I was worried that the lack of sun might suppress flower production among the daylilies, but that hasn’t proved to be the case. There is a fine display of brilliant blooms. Walking through the garden during daylily season reminds me of Emerson’s line from Hamatreya, although the context is not the same: Earth laughs in flowers. And I laugh too.

Jerry Hyatt (Hanson 2004)

Choo Choo Fantasy (Pickles 1995)

Alpha Centauri (Hanson 1992)

Mystical Rainbow (Stamile 1988)

Raspberry Bouquet (Bomar 1994)

Geneva Firetruck (Hansen 2000)

Tangerine Horses (Kaskel 1996)

Doug’s Red Mercedes (Williams 1996)

Galena Gilt Edge (Blocher)

Moonlight Orchid (Talbott 1986)

Blue Voodoo (Rice 2005)

Coyote Moon (Kirchhoff 1994)

Ruby Spider (Stamile 1991)

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More Happy Faces

Flutterbye (Childs 1981)

Here are a few more daylily faces. It’s traditional to show single daylily blooms in photographs so that the intricacies of the flower can be appreciated. Lest you should think that daylilies just bloom one flower at a time, however, I’ve included a few clumps.

I demonstrated great restraint this spring, and didn’t add a single new daylily cultivar to the garden, leaving the hemerocallis count at 140 varieties, so these photos represent just a modest sampling, taken at random according to what looked good to the camera.

Earth Angel (Stamile 1987)

Rue Madeline (Carr 1992)

Prague Spring (Lambert 1989)

Chesepeake Crablegs (Reed 1994)

Asterisk (Lambert 1985)

Slow Burn (Salter 1996)

Blonde is Beautiful (Harris Benz 1985)

Magic Carpet Ride (Kirchhoff 1992)

Beautiful Edgings (Copenhaven 1989)

Electric Man (Culver 2007)

August Morn (Carpenter 1995)

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Happy Faces

Country Melody (Klehm 1987)

I love the spring season in the garden, when new growth is everywhere. It’s very exciting and inspiring. But for brilliant, happy, boisterous colour, there is nothing like the midsummer daylily season. These easy-care no-fuss perennials come in a wide range of colors and shapes and sizes, and brighten the garden for weeks. As each individual flower blooms for just one day, every morning brings a new bouquet. Here are some of the daylilies blooming right now. Each flower is labeled with its name, hybridizer, and the year the hybrid was registered with the American Hemerocallis Society.

Angelic Grin (Joiner 1992)

Giggle Creek (Culver 2000)

Ghost of Thunder Road (Hanson 2001)

Cameroons (Munson 1984) with Chance Encounter (Stamile 1994)

Serena Dancer (Marshall 1986)

New Series (Carpenter 1982)

Key West (Trimmer 1999)

Karen’s Curls (Reinke 1997)

Big Smile (Apps 1999)

Mata Hari (Brooks 1981)

Troubled Sleep (Hanson 1998)

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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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