One of the spectacular flowers in the garden in July are daylilies. Below are some flowers from one of our new committee members. Below the pictures is an article about Daylilies.
The pictures and article are by Lisa Bozdeck.
South Seas 
Hush Little Baby 
Glow and Show 
Bonanza 
Violet Light 
Elegant Candy 
Smoky Mountain Autumn 
Strawberry Candy 
Rosy Returns 
Unknown 
Bella Lugosi 
Strawberry Candy 
Aztec Princess 
Nordic Night 
Little Grapette 
Wineberry Candy
Daylilies: The Easy, Low Maintenance, Carefree, Most-rewarding Garden Plant
The Daylily (hemerocallis ) is in fact not a lily at all. The name actually means “day beautiful.” Beautiful they are indeed. They have become one of my favorite plants in my gardens. A bud will bloom in early morning and wither the next night with another bloom to follow the next day, hence the name “daylily.” They have multiple buds/blooms on “scapes,” what we consider the stems.
Full-Sun Perennials: As opposed to annuals, they come back every year without fail. Even if you don’t clear the dead leaves from the prior season, they will grow. They generally require 6+ hours of sun but they have been known to grow and bloom with less albeit less blooms.
Low maintenance: There is literally no maintenance to these plants. As long as they receive normal water amounts in the spring (they begin growth as early as March) they WILL bloom. They will bloom even if the lower leaves begin to brown in mid- to late-summer as their buds have already set.
Heights & spreads: There are all different heights from short (10” scapes) for the front of the garden all the way up to extremely tall (42” scapes) for the back or middle of the garden.
Great cut flowers: They make great cut flowers even if they do only last a day. If you can cut a scape with several buds on it, they will continue to bloom in the vase.
Bloom times: I’ve spaced them in my garden so that I almost always have a daylily blooming all season long. There are early-season bloomers, midseason, and late.
Varieties: There are tens of thousands of varieties (cultivars). Some of my favorites in my garden that I found locally in St. Louis:
Fragrant – ‘Bonanza’ ‘Rosy Returns’ ‘Sunday Gloves’ ‘Elegant Candy’ ‘Wineberry Candy’ ‘ South Seas’
Rebloomers (they bloom more than once a season) – ‘Always Afternoon’ ‘South Seas’ ‘Many Happy Returns’ ‘Eenie Weenie’ ‘Violet Light’
Colors – there are multi-colored, deep purple, violet, yellow, peach, red, orange, white, the list goes on and on.
Extended bloomers – this means the flowers stay open for at least 16 hours: ‘Eenie Allegro’ ‘ Aztec Princess’ ‘Bonanza’ ‘Sunday Gloves’ ‘Elegant Candy’ ‘ Stella d’Oro’
Ruffled/Double-blooms – ‘Variegate Kwanso’ ‘Hush Little Baby’ ‘Druids Chant’ ‘Bela Lugosi’
For more information, visit the American Daylily Society https://daylilies.org/daylilies/faq/
Lisa Bozdeck
