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Daylily
Fever
By Pat
Underwood,
Plant Manager, Sam Hill Gardens
Malcolm, Nebraska
Do you grow hybrid
daylilies? You do? Have you caught it
yet? "Daylily fever"?
Actually it's more like an
addiction. Only this "addiction" is not
particularly harmful to your health. In fact, it might
even be good for you; although, it may impact your pocketbook
negatively if you can't keep your addiction under
control. So, are you afflicted? It's OK if you
are. It happens to the best of gardeners. |
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How do you know if you
are addicted? Let me describe the progression. It starts
like so many addictions. With just one. One
daylily. After all, ONE can't hurt. You plop it in the
ground along with your other perennials. Give it a little
water, a little mulch. That's all you do. With no
further attention. Your new daylily subtly sends up bright
green, grass-like leaves that gracefully arch forming a delightful
fountain of green.
When you're least
expecting it, it starts budding - maybe only two or three buds the
first season. But now it has you full attention again.
Your plant is getting ready to bloom for the first time and you want
to be there when it does. Since you have only a few blooms and
each flower only lasts a day, you check the plant daily, sometimes
twice a day as a bud starts to open. Then it happens.
The flower opens. it's beautiful. It's
colorful. It's bright. What a fantastic job you've done
with this daylily.
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Heck, that was so
easy, too easy. You spent practically no time attending
to this green mound and it rewarded you will beautiful
blooms. By chance you get to go on a garden tour
hosted by a daylily grower. The
"pushers" of these daylilies know the power of a
flower in bloom and have beds and borders filled with
different cultivars - hundreds of blossoms in all colors,
shapes, and sizes.
Everywhere you
look you see blooming plants in colors ranging from cream or
near white to deep purple with many shades of reds, yellows
oranges and pinks. Some of the flowers are as small as 2
inches and others are as big as 8.5 inches. They come in
different shapes - round, triangular, star, open and flat or
spidery. And that's not all.
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Need a border plant or
something to fill a gap in the middle of your perennial bed?
You'll find something in every height and in the color you want from
9 inch tall blooms to flower stems over 5 feet tall.
Do you like ruffles on
your ridges? Some daylilies are ruffled on the edges; some are
wavy, some have a smooth, tailored finished and other may have white
or gold markings on the edges. Daylilies can be velvety or
smooth or creped or satiny. And for added interest, check out
the ones with ring(s) of color like a halo toward the center of the
flower.
Feeling overwhelmed,
yet? If all that you see isn't enough to grab your
interest, try reading the cultivar names. Who can refuse
Charming Heart, Breathless Beauty, or Butterfly Kisses?
Feeling patriotic? Try American Revolution, American
Bicentennial, Admiral, or Appomatox. In love? There's
Charming Heart, Bridal Moments, and Only Just Begun.
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Another little
trick these "pushers" have is pointing out that some
daylilies are fragrant - Ice Carnival, for example, or
Abstract Art. Butterflies and bees love daylilies,
too. And if you work during the day, look for daylilies
that stay open in the evenings.
To make daylilies
even more appealing, consider that some bloom in June, some
bloom in July and some even bloom as late as September.
Even though each bloom lasts only one day, 3-5 year old plants
will have so many buds, they can be flowering for 3 to 6
weeks, depending on the cultivar. What a nice, and
easy way, to keep your beds interesting and colorful
throughout the growing season.
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By the end of your
garden tour, you feel the need to take home one plant - just
one. Your first plant was so easy to grow, remember? No,
let's make it two. You did like the shape of that gold one
even though gold isn't your favorite color. Actually, three
would be better. Then you could have a gold, a pastel and a
purple in different sizes. That's enough - for now.
Like any addiction, this
one doesn't happen overnight. By the second season, your
daylilies are growing vigorously, giving you more flowers than last
year, pulling you deeper and deeper under their power. At this
point, one can only hope the voice of reason will intervene or a
friend or spouse will come to the rescue. For it has
happened. You're hooked. You have succumbed to the power
of daylilies. But it's OK. It happens to the best of
gardeners.
To paraphrase an old
advertising slogan, "Bet you can't plant just one."
But then, why would you want to anyway. The more, the merrier.
Sam Hill
Gardens
9405 Northwest 112th Street
Malcolm, Nebraska
402-796-2191
Sam Hill Gardens
specializes in the propagation of hybrid daylilies and have over 200
cultivars.
They have yearly open house and garden tours providing you with the
opportunity to see
the wide range of colors, shapes, and sizes available in daylilies.
Stop by and say hello and order one of their catalogs.
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