Daylilies

Daylilies - Hemerocallis. Some summers I'm merely cross with them. One summer I made plans for mass evictions. This summer I'm madly in love again! Gardeners can be so fickle sometimes...

Daylilies have confounded me for many garden years now. Some years they're a complete green and leafy flop, while other years they've bloomed brilliantly. There seems to be no rhyme or reason, no matter Whether I divide and replant, or totally ignore.

Best Summer Ever

I am pleased to report that the summer of 2008 - 2009 is one of the best ever. I am so glad I didn't do any drastic culling. Phew! What was I thinking of?

Hemerocallis History

My Hemerocallis history is pretty typical. I started with the rusty-coloured species daylilies, rejects from a friend's tiny seaside garden. My large sprawling country paddocks were teasing and tempting me, and clumps of anything were welcome.

Fledgling gardeners usually go throuh a mail-order catalogue phase - and I certainly did. Here I met hybrids for the first time - dwarf daylilies, large daylilies, both deciduous and evergreen. And the colours, too, suddenly blossomed into an extraordinary variety of shades, from 'lime green' (possibly a slight exaggeration) to deep wine red. That rusty terracotta-orange colour couldn't compete.

Daylily Envy

When I first saw yellow daylilies flowering in swathes in North America I was struck down with envy. Some patches were right beside busy, traffic-polluting roads, but they were densely covered in flowers. What was the magic? Sun and water - could it be that simple? What did the North American sun and water have that my own didn't? Hmm...

After my North American trip I made serious scary and plans for my own garden. My daylilies were so sub-standard that they were getting the chop - or more accurately the slice - with the sharpest Moosey shovel. Just a few shorter ones were to be pulled apart and replanted. As for the rest...

Good intentions are often best left to compost quietly in the corner. Who knows what the heap will turn into by next summer? Anyway, I didn't get the timing right, and so the daylilies in my various garden borders all stayed put. Phew!

The summer of 2008 - 2009 has been one of the very best ever for daylily flowers. Only the small Stella D-Oro patches have refused to bloom, and many of my larger plants have been amazing. So I've totally changed my mind, and I love all my daylilies to bits. Again!