INCITE gardening: Showboats of the July Garden

Daylily Susan Weber

One of my favorite plants electrifies the garden with a riot of color in July - the glorious daylily. These lovely flowers come in every imaginable color, from yellow and orange, to red, purple and almost blue, and every color in between. The botanical name for daylily is Hemerocallis, which in Greek means “beautiful for a day”.

Daylily Lake Norman Spider

An unknown yellow gift from a friend.

Each flower bud will last for a day, however each plant typically produces a large number of buds. A single variety can bloom for a couple of weeks or more. There are early, mid and late bloomers and if you select your plants carefully, you can spread color over the peak bloom period of July and add varieties that bloom in August and September too.

Daylily Dawn's Echo

There are a few things you will want to consider in addition to the bloom period when you are selecting daylilies for your garden The flowers come in different sizes from miniature (flower under 3” in diameter), small (flowers from 3 to 4.5”), and large (blooms greater than 4.5” across). And while large flowers are showy, some of my favorite varieties display a lot of small flowers in bloom as the same time.

Daylily Vision of Beauty

The flower stalks come in a wide range of heights, from low to medium and tall (ranging from 6” to 36”). The height of the plant should be considered when placing daylilies in your garden, providing an opportunities to create interesting combinations of short and tall varieties, blooming at the same time or at different times.

A tall daylily - Femme De Joie

Daylilies are wonderful, care-free garden plant. They can grow in a wide variety of soil and light conditions and are very heat tolerant.

Daylily Victoria Grace

One of the things I appreciate the most is that they grow well in a hot sunny border and perform well in dappled shade garden. I prefer gardening in the shade and like to mix daylilies with my hostas and other shade plants, creating a nice mix of foliage and color.

A spider daylily Miracle

Daylilies do not have any significant pests to worry about. The only real maintenance is managing the size of the plant clump, as they multiply freely from one year to the next. However this problem is easily solved simply by sharing daylilies with your friends.