daylilies

[Lavandula Girl]

Here we are enjoying the much needed rain, and then I look outside and in some little burp of sunshine my new daylilies started to bloom. FYI... Hemerocallis spp 'CherryCheeks' and 'PardonMe' look pretty good through the driving rain out the kitchen window :rolleyes: Hopefully the deluge won't knock the flowers off before I can go out and look up close!

[flowerpower]

I see mine just getting buds. But my Peonies just opened (3 wks late), and now we are going to get 5 days of rain.

[Lavandula Girl]

We got a two day shower right after my peonies went into full bloom, and my husband thought it was the funniest thing to see me out in the garden shaking water out of the flowers to get them up off the ground! Of course, later when he was walking the dog, he came back and reported that everyone else's peonies were sad smushed things on the ground, and ours were pretty! When it rained early the next week, he called me from work to report he had shaken the peonies at 5:AM, so I could rest easy.... ha!

[Marty Maraschino]

I'm enjoying my daylillys as well. I ordered 2 new ones this year Friendly Reminder and Fruit Loops. Friendly Reminder is blooming and Fruit Loops has a couple buds that I can't wait to check on each morning. BTW Cheery Cheeks is on my wish list Lavandula Girl.

[Gary]

I received an e-mail from the National Gardening Association with "specials" on Dayllies today. I am passing the link along if some of you might be interested.
Gary/Louisville

National Gardening Association
http://www.ngagardenshop.com/campaigns/show/3218

[winter_unfazed]

We have feral orange species daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva) growing here. The buds are edible when boiled, and taste like cooked green beans.

[Lavandula Girl]

I have Cherry Cheeks, Stella D'oro, Pardon me, and the wild orange ones blooming.... Bela Lugosi and Double Classic are a little slower. In Northern CA, Amador is a great source. Here in Virginia, I have newly been swearing by Long Mountain Nursery. Cherry Cheeks is definitely a great addition, Marty - I bought it at Long Mountain in May, and it's vigorously blooming a month later. I am waiting with great anticipation for the Bela Lugosi to open.

[sparrowgrass]

Hey, daylily experts, help me out with a gardening problem.

I have a woven wire fence, opposite my front porch, than divides my property from the farm next door. It is impossible to mow (steep, short slope from driveway down to fence) and I am thinking a good thick stand of daylilies would crowd out the weeds.

I can get all the "wild" ones I want, but it would be nice to have some other colors in there. Can you recommend a kind of daylily that is tough, grows fast, and generally behaves like the wild ones?

I am not particular about color.

[Lavandula Girl]

longmountainnursery.com has photos of lots of daylilies.... I've honestly never had a problem getting daylilies to grow and bloom. Division is easy, so with some patience you wouldn't need to lay out much money to disguise the fencing and cover the hill, even if you buy all kinds of colors. Personally, I really like the look of the native orange ones, in huge clumps on hills and in old farmstead yards. Good luck with your project!

[sparrowgrass]

thanks, LG. It will no doubt be mostly wild ones--they are cheap and easily available. I even have some double ones that need to be moved from under the maple tree--they don't get enough sun or water.

This is definitely an old farmstead yard--my house was built in 1872.

I am going to lay some newspapers/feedbags out there to smother the weeds this summer, and transplant the daylilies in the fall or next spring, depending on my energy level. :)

[Marty Maraschino]

Sparrowgrass, if you use the common orange daylilly don't put any of the hybrid colors in among them because the orange ditchlillys will crowd out the hybrids. But I agree that the oranges in mass are beautiful. I have a huge fence row of them in the front yard and a nicely planned bed of hybrids in the back. A couple places that I would suggest are Gilberth Wild.com and Homestead Farms. I have been to Homestead Farms in person and can get lost in their website for hours. They have all of their lillys pictured in alphabetical order A-Z.

[zebraman]

Hey don't forget www.aztecdahlias.com

[sparrowgrass]

Thank you all--it is too late and too hot to plant anything right now, but I will be looking around at my neighbors to see if anybody has any pretty lilies that need to be divided.

[Lavandula Girl]

An excellent idea! If your neighbors have them, then there's a great chance they'll be perfectly happy in your yard, too :p ! I have a constant list of people from my town who want splits from my yard, and I'm perfectly happy to give them away as they are available.... Then, whenever they see a great flower in their own garden, they'll think of me!

[sparrowgrass]

Oh, LG, isn't that the truth! I have lots of plants that came from friends and family, and I do think of them when I am enjoying the plants.

My recipe box is just the same--when I ask for a recipe from a friend, I make them write it out and sign their names. Looking for a recipe is almost the same as leafing thru a photo album.

[Marty Maraschino]

You can plant daylillys any time they just might not take off right away, transplant shock I guess.

[moonlightmadness]

I am so thrilled....I have 10 bigggg seed pods forming
where i hybirdized a huge ruby purple to a big lacey
red...The pods now are bigger than a quarter and i
suppect these might be awsome...I tried to hybirdize
the big purple with other daylilies,,,,but to no avail.
However the union with the big lacey red worked.
Wonder why the Ruby purple dayliley liked the red?

[Lavandula Girl]

Good luck with that hybrid! I'm so pleased - my Bela Lugosi opened in all it's deep peurple and yellow green glory yesterday.... Double Classic opened, and it was David Kerchoff Siloam instead!! I'm just as happy with it, it's very pretty, and Long Mountain is being very good about getting a Double Classic correctly labelled to me. It's daylily heaven at my house right now!

[werecat]

I'm going to have to hit up a family friend again for what he calls his little bastard lilies. He has Dowis Ranch daylily and Iris nursery. When he hybridizes (sp) his daylillies sometimes they cross poliate on their own and he just gives away those ones to friends when they grow up in the middle of the rows. Maybe if I beg real nice he will save me enough to fill in that section where everything is all dead and nasty. Thinking of that, I know daylilies are hardy as all get out, but how long would poison / weed killer poison the ground? Nothing is growing in that spot and I mean nothing. Not even weeds. everything is totally dead. I may try to take a picture to show what I mean. I would hate to take the bulbs only to have them die too. :(

[Lavandula Girl]

Do you know for sure what was dumped in the dead spot? My husband new a guy in Seattle who was in the "business" of ridding properties of invasive blackberries. His solution was to cut them to the ground, and then dump diesel fuel on the whole patch! Yeah, he did get rid of the berries, which was in fact all he was claiming to do, but geez! I'd bet there are still patches 20 years later that are dead and barren!

[werecat]

No clue what was used. I'm hoping if I take a soil sample to the extension service they may be able to tell me. I know it wasnt fuel of any sort. that I would have been able to smell. My friend at the daylily nursery says if it was actually poison it should be safe to plant after the first rain fall past when it was done, but I still may wait a bit. He is going to set me all up and get me more lilies too. :^) Along with some wood chips for nothing to take care of my back yard where the neighbors are complaining that I have no grass. Too much shade to grow anything. Its good to have friends. :^)

[Lavandula Girl]

There may also have been salt put down to kill something, which will stay in the soil a long time too. The extension center is a good idea, but some diagnostics will take awhile. If you're lucky, they've seen it before, and have a solution. Your friend is right, many commercial defoliants wash out of the soil quickly, but not all of them. Some chemicals actually bind with soil particles, making them VERY hard to get rid of. How long have you had this bald patch in the yard. If it's been longer than a month or two, there's an excellent chance that whatever is in the yard is in to stay awhile. Amendments will probably help, but it may be slow. I think you've hit on a terrific idea to put in something like daylilies, which usually refuse to die! Good luck!