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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Daylily Season 2014 Begins

Suzy Wong (Kennedy 1962)

The first of the dayliles to bloom this year was Suzy Wong, a very reliable older hybrid introduced in 1962. She’s the leader of the pack as the daylily season gets underway, the annual highlight of the garden calendar.

Coyote Moon (Kirchhoff 1994)

Just a day later was Coyote Moon. This prolific bloomer was introduced in 1994. It’s one of my favorites, with its bright round flowers touched by just a hint of copper.

Longstocking (Stamile 1997)

Third place goes to the large spider Longstocking. This plant had been overshadowed by a large bush, and I moved it to a sunnier location in the spring. Longstocking clearly appreciated the improved access to sunlight.

Tangerine Horses (Kaskel 1996)

After a streak of intensely hot, humid days, we enjoyed a couple of days of light rain. This morning when I walked out into the garden, I found another half-dozen daylilies beginning to bloom, their first flowers freckled with raindrops. Here are this morning’s starlets.

Prince Redbird (Sellers 1986)

Hold Your Horses (Trimmer 2004)

Serena Dancer (Marshall 1986)

Pixie Parasol (Hudson 1975)

Broken Heart (Kroll 1993)

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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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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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Pretty Faces

The first two weeks of July mark the zenith of the daylily season. The plants that were on the cusp of blooming when I left for vacation were in bloom by the time I returned five days later. Daylilies (hemerocallis) are straight-forward plants. Not for them the fussing and fretting of garden prima donnas. Although they prefer full sun and moderate moisture, they will bloom, albeit on a less flamboyant scale, in shade or in drought, in good soil or poor. They are quite pest-free. Unlike the old species daylily from which they were developed (sometimes called the Ditch Lily or Orange Daylily), modern hybrids don’t spread rambunctiously, but form neat clumps. The clumps may need dividing every few years. How quickly they multiply depends on factors such as the quality of the soil and the climate. Here is a selection of photographs of some of the daylilies that are blooming in my garden today.

Prague Spring

Galena Gilt Edge and Helter Skelter

Born Yesterday (This one always reminds me of my three new baby daughters!)

Big Smile

Hurricane Sky and Fencing Master with roses and campanula

Pure and Simple

Asterisk

Rococo

Seminole Ruby

Helter Skelter

Suzy Wong

Angelic Grin

Geneva Firetruck

Yesterday Memories

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Daylily Season

Hemerocallis fulva growing by the roadside.

Note: You can see more daylilies on their own page. Click on the tab labelled Daylilies above the Willow House Chronicles header.

The common daylily (Hemerocallis fulva) is a native of Asia. These rusty-orange dayliles were often found around old homesteads. They are tough, hardy plants, and can now be seen here and there, growing along roadsides, a habit that has earned them the name of Ditch Lily. The name ‘daylily’ is a simple description of the flowering habit: each bloom lasts for one day.  Long scapes hold the flowers above the sword-like foliage, and even though each bud blooms for but one day, the abundance of buds on each scape means the plant offers an extended display of bloom. The scientific name, hemerocallis, is from the Greek: day (hemera) + beauty (kallos). Originally the genus Hemerocallis was placed in the lily family, Liliaceae, but more recently it has been moved to the family Hemerocallidaceae.

Hemerocallis fulva spreads by fast-growing rhizomes and can be an aggressive garden plant. Modern hybrids developed from the species have a much more well-behaved clumping habit. And while the rusty-orange of the fulva sp is not unappealing, daylily hybrids are now available in a wide range of colours, from pinks and purples to creams, yellows and yes, even bright oranges, that makes the old standby drab by comparison. There is also a wide variety of plant and flower forms available. Flowers may have long petals and sepals (‘spiders’) or be flat and round (‘bagels’). Plants may be compact, with blooms held on short scapes or have tall scapes that reach as high as 60 inches. There are more than 10,000 hybrids registered with the American Hemerocallis Society, so gardeners can find a plant to please every taste. In Ontario, the daylily is celebrated by the Ontario Daylily Society.

The first few weeks of July mark the height of the daylily season, although a range of hybrids extend the season from spring through fall. Here are  photographs of a few that are blooming in my garden today. Included is the name of the hybridizer and the year the hybrid was registered.

Galena Gilt Edge (Blocher)

Suzy Wong (Kennedy 1962)

Helter Skelter (Lambert 1981)

Earth Angel (Stamile 1987)

Broken Heart (Kroll 1993)

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