Need a Little Lovin'

2011:  "Along the Way" daylily blooming in full sun and happy!

For daylilies (and most all plants) to thrive, a gardener must provide optimal growing conditions.  Plants may survive in less than optimal conditions, but the key word here is "thrive".  

I may plant an annual in less than optimal conditions and baby it all summer, but I seldom plant a perennial in conditions too far off perfect.  To do so, means they must be babied year after year, they never live up to expectations and they may eventually die.  Loss of labor and money.

2017:  Almost total shade, competing with an ornamental grass and not happy.

Conditions may change over the years - most common:

1. The bed has become covered in shade most of the day.
2. Other plants' root systems may become wide-spread taking moisture and nutrients.
3. The drainage may change due to construction or landscaping.

Generally, the perfect conditions for daylilies in Zone 5 or north:

1. Full sun.
1. Some will enjoy some late afternoon shade in the heat of late summer.  All require at least 6 hrs. of direct sun a day. 
2. Not sit in standing water.
3. Regular moisture.
4. Healthy soil prior to planting.
5. Mulch to insulate roots from too much heat and cold.

   

   2018:  Moved into full sun and loving it.

Diseases:

1. Fortunately, there aren't a lot of diseases this far north.  The nasty run of rust in areas where there is no freeze won't be an issue here.
2. Different virus can come in several ways, symptoms can mimic other things, it's difficult to diagnose and there's no cure.  If you want to do anything to have disease free plants, only buy from reputable sources and never buy a daylily if the leaves look diseased (even if they may not be.)
3. Root and crown rot are not typically seen unless the ground is too wet or the plant has been overly fertilized.

Want more?  Check out the American Daylily Society's web page:  http://daylilies.org 

Note:  The American Hemerocallis Society is changing it's name to American Daylily Society.  It means the same thing but is easier to pronounce.

Both of these pictures are of the featured "Along the Way" daylily.  The bottom one has bloomed in mostly shade; the top in full sun.  Both are pretty but the top one is stunning and all that this variety can be.  It has deep colors: the petals have subtle shimmering-gold overlaying the peach and the halo a dark maroon red.  The bud count and number of scapes in the sun example has increased over ten times.  The scapes are more sturdy and the flowers more robust.    

If you pay good money for a perennial, don't plant in less than optimal conditions and if less optimal develops over the years, then move it or amend the conditions. 

Note:  If you click on the first picture, it will take you through them in a larger format - allowing you to see all the little pretties.        

Silly Reasons - Good Results

Except for the few very disciplined gardeners (and I personally know none) we tend to have changing priorities or reasons for buying the plants we purchase each year.

• The years when we first started and bought and planted willy-nilly.
• The years where we wanted a specific color.  With my daylilies, I had the red years and the yellow/gold years.
• The years where we decided to make new beds and formally landscape things.
• The years we happen to be at a nursery and fell in love with something different.
• The years where we'd bought all of our favorite perennial the local nurseries had to offer and started going bigger and better.
• The years we started looking for new and more beautiful/unique traits on our favorite perennial. 
• The years we went on garden walks and realized there was so much more we could be doing.
• The years we totally lost our mind and you know how THAT turned out. 

I can look at a plant in my yard and almost always tell you what stage I was in when it was purchased.  

Kady in front of Bitsy before it got moved. (I love my garden
pictures that feature grandkids!)

This all came to mind when I was cleaning up my daylily records; a winter project.  I came to the daylily "Bitsy" and knew it was when I decided to make a family daylily bed.  I'd buy a daylily simply for the name.  I'd plop it into the family bed and it became a riotous mass of colors and traits.  

Twice I've had to take everything out of the bed for house related reasons.  At that time, I'd take a few of the more simple ones and move to other beds.  Bitsy, bought for one of my little kitties, was moved out to a west dry bed that I seldom managed.  (Out of sight out of mind.)  It struggled to the point of near death.  Eight years later, not one to rush a task, I moved it to a new bed that had many more favorable conditions.  In two years, it was everything it was suppose to be.

2016 - settling into new bed.

So here's the scoop on this small little daylily.  The flowers are certainly sweet but have none of the fancy traits of new hybrids.  Registered by Warner in 1963, it wasn't bred for fancy, it was bred for unique blooming traits.  A good reminder that the plant is as important as the bloom. 

There's a reason it's won five major awards; the last almost 40 years after registration.  Not a bad run for any plant.

The flowers:  1.5 inch clear bright lemon yellow with light green throat.  It's registered at 18 inches but the scapes on my plant are all of at least 24 inches, holding it high above the grassy-like slender foliage.  

2017 - Always in flower.

OK, here's the big fun stuff:  

It is one of the earliest blooming lilies (05-29-2018) but is considered a continuous and repeat bloomer.  Mine was still blooming after the first frost last year.

Note:  A light frost will not damage a daylily bud and it will still bloom.  

It branches; meaning the blooms are not all on single scapes (stalk) but have stems coming out from every stalk with blooms on each.  This makes for a fully covered plant.

It tolerates extreme temperatures and water.

I use this same 8.5 x 5.5 inch book to visually indicate
the size of the flower.  

It's nocturnal!  This is pretty wonderful for a flower that only blooms one day and usually only in the daylight.  Planted next to a place you sit in the evenings, it provides a bright yellow glow.

This little beauty is one that I consider a "workhorse" and even though it's little blooms aren't complex, I wouldn't want a daylily garden without one.   

Bitsy is an example of a phase or reason I bought a plant morphing into a much better result.  

This one shows the branching and bud count.

Case of Mistaken Identity

Life is all about choices and a small choice (in the scheme of life things) is what to do about a daylily you buy and it isn't true to the American Hemerocallis (daylily) Society's registered description.

Admittedly you have to be really into daylilies to care very much.  For those that are or want to be into it that much, let's talk about reasons and choices.

If you buy a daylily from a source other than reputable and proven nurseries, you may get a daylily that doesn't look or act anything like the name they've labeled on the package or on-line.  This would be any big box store (Those racks where they have bare root plants and a picture on the front.)  Any on-line auction or sales site such as e-bay or Facebook lily sites.  Not that they are always off but my experience is that they are most likely wrong.  They just might be the only resource that still has something you are wanting B.A.D. and your only option.  Let's just say "Buyer Beware!"

The reason these places have plants mislabeled or they don't show up as officially described when they're registered by the breeder could be any one of the following:

(1) They are simply substituting anything to get a sale - this is deliberate lying.  
(2)  They are taken from places that have bought large quantities of breeders' throw aways.  These are plants that didn't make the cut and aren't registered but are pretty and they want to get some cash from them.  Most reputable serious breeders don't do this or only sell them stating they aren't registered.  
(3)  Somewhere someone has bought the actual registered plant but then hybridized it with others but still sold it as the original registered variety.  
(4)  Someone dug the wrong plant and/or mislabeled at the time it was dug.  A mistake.

Even knowing all the of above reasons, it still doesn't help you when you get something that wasn't what you thought you were getting.  

You can return the plant although it may take a year or two before you catch on the first booms you're getting are wrong.  Chances of a refund are slim.  Or, if it's pretty and you like it, you can live with it.  

Here's my example where I learned about getting a lily so far from what it is actually described.  On the flip side, I love this daylily because it's pretty, substantial, is a robust grower and I've divided it many times to fill in places where breeding doesn't really matter.

The daylily was labeled "Bali Hai" and I bought it from a big box store for less than $5 and from a company called "Imported Holland Bulbs".

This is my "Bali Hai":

This is from the AHS cultivar database:

    You can see the problem.  The registered description reads and my plant reads: 

AHS:  22 inches tall.  Flower is 5 inches across.  Blooms Midseason.  Color:  Pink melon with raised orchid midribs and light gold throat.
DIANE:  28 inches tall.  Flower is 5 inches across.  Blooms Midseason and both continuous and reblooms.  Color:  Bright coral orange with deeper veining; yellow eye and deep red halo.  Slightly ruffled edge.

Yep, not much alike except they're both daylilies.  Bali Hai is an old daylily, registered in 1973 by Wild.  Whatever the reason Holland Bulbs sold this flower with the Bali Hai label, it was wrong.  And whatever the outcome, I have a very nice daylily that I refer to as Bali Hai but realize it's not.  

My recommendations: 

If you want to buy a daylily from a big box store or an on-line avenue, and don't care what you get, go for it.  I will warn you that some on-line sources send flowers that are so small or so unhealthy that you will never get a blooming plant in this lifetime.  Some big box store plants, including daylilies, were never meant to withstand our Zone 5 winters.  If you've been buying this stuff and it's not making it through the first winter, this may be the reason. Buyer Beware if you don't know and trust your vendor.

If you buy a mislabeled daylily from a reputable nursery (either neighboring or on line) and don't want to keep it, talk to them.  If you want a refund or exchange, let them know.  Most, but not all, will gladly make it right.  (In all fairness, customers will sometimes pick up tags and put them back in the wrong container.)  Oakes will always make things right.  I bought a lily from Hornbaker's that was mislabeled and they refused to discuss it with me.  It was a pretty lily that I told them I was alright keeping but their attitude definitely changed my opinion of their business.  

Most big box daylilies are still between $5-10 but you can go to local nurseries or places like Oakes Daylilies on-line and get healthy correctly labeled plants for those same prices.  This is especially good if you are just beginning to landscape with daylilies.  I still love the first daylilies I bought in that price range when I was starting to garden.  These less expensive lilies are great if you want to flood a flower bed with a particular color and don't really care about names or all the new bells and whistles. 

Yes, I like my little mislabeled Bali Hai and everytime I see it I break into the song from "South Pacific" (Well, in my mind anyway.)

The Homies

My 2018/19 Amaryllis

"Raise your hand if you have a sweaty butt!"

I'm pretty sure you've never heard that as the first sentence of any article anywhere.  I have this sweet and incredibly funny six-year-old granddaughter.  And the story goes:  It was an especially cold winter Illinois day and my two granddaughters and I were headed to a nearby town to Christmas shop.  The girls love the seat heaters and asked if they could have them on high.  Sure.  About fifteen miles into the trip, Kady asks the above question.  It got quiet and then we all broke out laughing and all hands went up.  Little children - love them.

Now:  Raise your hand if you've ever bought a big box store Amaryllis, Christmas Cactus or Poinsettia!

The reason I only say big box store plants is because they are so cheap.  I agree the ones from nurseries are more hardy, larger and so very beautiful.  And I do buy them some years for all those reasons.  But, then I feel so responsible for their continuing life.  The pressure of being responsible!

If I pay between $5-10 for a plant, I can almost consider it disposable.  It's less expensive than a Starbucks coffee, a fancy Christmas ornament, a  pre made bow - you get the rationalization.  If I choose to baby it for a couple of years and it actually works - great.  If I'm sick of the whole mess, I can dump it with little regrets.   If I happen to leave the bare bulb in the basement for five years - well, you get the picture.

Here are some of the beauties I've bought cheaply over the years.  They are also some of the beauties I've enjoyed exceptionally over the years.

NOTE:  If you like pictures of blooms with a dark background, take the picture at night using your flash.  This works both inside and outside.