Day Lilies
Hemerocallis – the genus for day lilies – are in their glory right now. The earliest bloomers started nearly three weeks ago, most are going great blazes as I type and some have yet to begin. Carefully selected for blooming time, they can give a garden up to 2 full months, perhaps a bit more, of incredibly beautiful flowers. I admit to not paying much attention to the blooming time when making my picks, being more focused on the details of each plant’s individual flowers. I do try to find the ones that have a history of heavy blooming, fragrance if possible, and the possibility of rebloom (which is never much really, but can be something when everything else is usually flagging).
Yesterday while deadheading (yes, you really should do it every morning; the plants simply look so much better and the old blooms won’t interfere with the opening of the new ones), I counted 26 scapes (that’s the stem that holds the flowers) on one plant and they averaged 8-10 buds per scape. Needless to say, it is putting on quite a show! We have roughly 60 different kinds and have only scratched the surface.
There are tens of thousands of registered varieties. While that may seem like a lot, consider this: if there were only 10 variables that could occur within the group of Hemerocallis, the possible number of different combinations would be 3,628,800! Here is a favorite (unfortunately tagged with the really ugly name of ‘Radiation Biohazard’) making nice with the foliage of the Juniper ‘Gold Lace’. This coming weekend – Sunday, Monday, Tuesday – being a holiday weekend, we will keep the garden open all three days for visitors (from 1-5PM), so this will be a perfect time to see the wonder of these stunningly beautiful and individual flowers.
