Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Garden

Consider the day lily

This hardy beauty, pirouetting on its slender stem, gilds the garden in a breathtaking array of hues.

By YVONNE SWANSON
Published April 23, 2005

[Photo: Bay Area Day Lily Society]

This lily was the winner of last year’s Bay Area Day Lily Society annual show and plant sale.

Dozens of bay area gardening enthusiasts will be searching their yards for the perfect day lily to enter in the Bay Area Day Lily Society's annual show and plant sale next Saturday.

Only one will be crowned the coveted Best of Show. Last year it was a multihued charmer with enormous 6-inch petals named "So Many Stars," grown by Elaine Alito of Kenneth City. She has 150 varieties in her garden, which may sound like a lot, but the pretty perennial - a member of the lily family known as Liliaceae - has more than 50,000 registered cultivars.

Lots of Florida gardeners like Alito are hooked on day lilies because they're easy to grow, have a long bloom time - from April through September, depending on the cultivars - multiply quickly, are drought-tolerant and almost free of diseases and pests. They thrive in full sun or filtered shade, with light-colored varieties preferring more sun than their dark-hued counterparts.

Although individual blossoms last only one day, multiple flower buds appear on each stalk and each clump generates many stalks. One clump can flower for several weeks, and some varieties bloom more than once. According to a poll by the American Hemerocallis Society, which represents 11,000 day lily enthusiasts, the most popular cultivars in Florida are the cream-and-peach "Ed Brown," sunny gold "Bill Norris" and "Mary Ethel Anderson," a tiny pale ivory and pink flower with a bright red center.

Spring and fall are ideal times to plant day lilies, especially under trees, around a mailbox, in borders, at entryways, surrounding a garden pool or pond and as edging in front of foundation plants. Always dig the planting hole larger than the root mass, make a mound of soil in the hole and place the day lily on top of the mound. Fill the hole with loose soil, positioning the crown of the plant at ground level. "If it's planted too deep, it won't bloom," Alito says.

Day lilies like rich soil, so amend your garden with peat, compost or bagged manure, and mulch the exposed ground with leaves or pine straw to keep it moist and reduce weeds. Those are recommendations from the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Recommendations on fertilizing differ, so learn what works best with your soil and plants. The Bay Area Day Lily Society suggests using a time-release fertilizer in the fall and spring, although some members fertilize with a half-cup per plant of an organic, nitrogen-rich product such as Milorganite as often as every six weeks, says Joyce Smith, a member of the society and a Pinellas County master gardener.

Growing day lilies is the easy part. Choosing a variety is more difficult because of the thousands of patterns, hues, bloom sizes and shapes, from round-looking flowers to irregularly shaped blossoms. Those new to growing day lilies can look for colors in various shades of yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, melon, brown, apricot, peach and near-white. Some grow taller than 3 feet. Dwarf varieties barely reach a foot.

Always choose plants with an evergreen growth habit; they retain green leaves throughout the year and are best suited to local growing conditions, says the Bay Area Day Lily Society. Semi-evergreen and dormant varieties generally require colder temperatures to thrive.

Although buying plants in pots offers immediate gratification, you will be stuck with limited colors, shapes and sizes. The best way to buy day lilies is in bare root form, in which roots are packaged in sawdust or a similar medium. Most garden centers usually sell potted plants and don't sell day lilies by varieties.

Your best bet is to visit a day lily nursery a list of local growers is available at www.bads.us) shop catalogs or online sources. You can also plan to attend next week's show; hundreds of bare root plants will be for sale, with most prices ranging from $5 to $20. New and unusual varieties will sell for more.

Yvonne Swanson is a freelance writer in St. Petersburg and a master gardener for Pinellas County. If you have a garden question, e-mail features@sptimes.com put "Garden" in the subject line; or write Yvonne Swanson, Garden Writer/Floridian, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.

Bay Area Day Lily Show: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., April 30; Florida Botanical Gardens, 12175 125th St. N, Largo. Free. Judged flower show, demonstrations, educational materials and plant sale. Call (727) 582-2100 for information.

Bay Area Day Lily Society meets monthly. Annual dues are $5. Contact Kay Smith, 232 Gulf Blvd., Indian Rocks Beach, FL 33785, or visit www.bads.us

[Last modified April 22, 2005, 08:41:05]