Daylilies

If I can get the big rocks out of the way, starting next spring the bed behind the house will become home to a wide selection of daylilies (Hemerocallis).  I've been fond of these perennials since first encountering them in the 1960s behind our home in Hunting Valley, OH.  My mother developed a perennial bed in cahoots with her friend Josephine, who had trained as a landscape architect but instead became a housewife and mother.  Jo coaxed Mom into creating a perennial border, thereby introducing her to a hobby she soon came to love.  When I asked about the daylilies, Jo assured me they were easy to grow and almost impossible to kill.  That, no less than the beautiful blooms, sold me on this plant material.

H. fulva
(Wikimedia photo)

The daylily (Hemerocallis) is native to Asia and Europe, and was brought to America by immigrants.  People apparently liked to plant the orange daulily (H. fulva) near outhouses and washhouses — hence the common names "outhouse lily" and "washhouse lily."  In time the flower escaped its house-behind-the-house setting and spread across the landscape.  It showed a special fondness for roadside ditches — hence its "roadside lily" fame.  More properly called the Tawny Daylily, H. fulva is pollen parent for most cultivars now being sold.  Its companion, the venerable Lemon Lily (H. lilioasphodelus), a lovely yellow, has likewise served as pollen parent for modern hybrids.  Since the 1920s, when serious work on hybridization got underway in the U.S., tens of thousands of cultivars have been introduced.

In my garden in Detroit I eventually had about 30 cultivars, many quite beautiful.  Unfortunately, over the years I lost track of the names of these flowers.  For that reason I was not too unhappy to leave the plants behind when I moved to Grand Haven.  But one favorite orange lily was given as a gift to John and Susan in Ferndale.  This too is an unnamed cultivar, but I rechristened it my "Outrageous Orange" daylily.  It's a fantastic bright orange flower which is borne on tall scapes (stems) and blooms in abundance at midseason.  I hope my friends will give me a division which I can plant here at Presque Isle.  As for the rest of the garden, this time I'll do it right and keep track of which cultivar is which! •••