Sunday, April 19, 2015

Daylilies - The Summer Treat

Daylilies were one of those plants that were generally found on the side of the road in the ditch, but hybridizers over the years have tweaked them into a plethora of colors!  Everyone seems to have a 'Stella de Oro' in their landscape, but most people don't realize that there are literally thousands of hybrids out there in every shape, size, color, and form.  My love of daylilies started when I was introduced to them by my high school biology teacher who sold them at the flea markets on the weekends.  Since then I have been hooked into collecting and even hybridizing these amazing, versatile, perennial plants.  

There are currently around 60,000 registered hybrids of daylilies that haven been introduced in the last 100 years, with many more improvements to come!  Daylilies come in every color possible except a true blue and a white.  Even though these shades can be found in some patterns, some hybridizers have set the goal in working for these two traits.  


This first picture is of one hybrid that I hybridized when I worked in Cookeville, TN at Burgess Falls Nursery with Phil Steidl.  This is one that I'm currently watching to see how it performs.

This is one HOT daylily called 'Rosy Spiketail' hybridized by James Gossard of Ohio.  It has one of those traits that drive some people wild - TEETH!  Teeth on a daylily is basically an area of the petal that comes out to a point, thus the name - TEETH.  


I love the small flowered daylilies.  This one is called 'Broadway Last Mohican' and it has one intense dark eye.  This was hybridized by Grace Stamile out of Florida and it continues to perform well in my garden and will always be one of my favorites!



This last picture is one of my daylily mentors hybrids that he created called 'Fangtastic'.  I absolutely love this flower because it is loaded with TEETH.  The color also held well in the summer time and I'm excited to see some seedlings bloom out of this, this coming year.