If you don’t have one or 1,000 daylilies you are missing out big time.
From the humble “ditch” lily, also known as orange single flower, to far too many to name extraordinary fancy daylilies that can swept you off your feet and smack you back to consciousness, the daylily is the go-to perennial in the garden.
There are thousands of daylilies — according to the American Daylily Society’s database more than 96,000 — and they are darn near perfect flowers. They are tough, live a long time, multiple without being brutish about it, and while each bloom only lasts a day, there are many buds on each plant.
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The bloom season for daylilies differs depending on the variety — early, mid and late summer through early fall. There are short ones to tall varieties that reach upward to 5 feet. And they come in an amazing variety of colors — not blue though — with different color combinations, with double blooms and different types of petals. Many folks swoon over the ruffle variety but check out the spider varieties that are very cool.
There are even rebloomers.
My buddy Charlie Shaw, of Shaw’s Sunshine Gardens which is the go-to place to find these beauties, says daylilies are like people. Daylilies can survive almost anything, but the better you treat them the more they thrive.
They do want full sun. They’ll survive in partial, but to get the flowers give them sun.
Charlie says you can plant and transplant any time of the year, but in the heat of Georgia’s summer, I’d wait. If you must, cut back the foliage and baby it for some time afterward. When you do divide plants, you and the plants will be much happier if there are at least three fans.
Sandy Hodson is a staff reporter covering courts for The Augusta Press. Reach her at sandy@theaugustapress.com.Â
