Date: Fri 16-Apr-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: SARAH

Quick Words:

Suburban-Gardener-Eddison

Full Text:

SUBURBAN GARDENER: Daylilies Go With Everything

"When in April the sweet showers fall and pierce the drought of March to the

root... And the small fowl are making melody that sleep away the night with

eye (So nature pricks them and their heart engages) Then people long to go on

pilgrimages)."

--William Chaucer

By Anthony C. Bleach

These lines from the prologue of The Canterbury Tales I recall every Easter.

Gardeners go through their own sort of pilgrimage at Easter. For example, The

Perennial Plant Conference at the University of Connecticut. Here they have

been teaching and researching into plants for over 100 years. She is the Alma

Mater of all who love horticulture.

For me the best presentation this year, though, was not from a professor, but

from a gardener so in love with her topic that we were all drawn into the

drama as irresistibly as if we were watching Shakespeare in Love. Sydney

Eddison was inspiring on "Daylilies Go with Everything." A less inspiring talk

would probably have resulted in pages of notes. This time I was so interested

I took few and will have to rely on her script.

One hundred years ago, British schoolmaster George Yeld won an Award of Merit

from the Royal Horticultural Society for the first daylily hybrid. It was

early flowering, semi-dwarf, with yellow flowers larger than that of its

species parents. For centuries before, daylilies were grown in their native

China and Japan. But it wasn't until the 17th Century that two species arrived

in England: the orange Hemerocallis fulva, and the lemon lily, H.

liliosphodelus . By George Yeld's time there were about six species.

The Story of Daylilies is part of the American Experience. In the 20s, Dr

Arlow Stout at the New York Botanical Garden began to research into the

infertility of H. fulva but soon found that daylilies had an enormous

potential for hybridizing and thus discovering (perhaps creating is more

accurate) new cultivars.

In the process of crossing thousands of plants, he discovered that the limited

flower colors of the species could "be broken up, recombined, and even

intensified through hybridization, thus producing an increase in diversity and

yielding new forms of special interest and value to the flower grower."

Stout introduced the first red and pink daylilies. He did a lot of work on

double flowered forms, miniature flowers, and flowers with patterns like eyes.

At the end he selected 97 flowers, out of thousands of candidates, to be

worthy of a cultivar name.

What is amazing is that so many amateurs became disciples of the fabulous

flower and have discovered forms even Dr Stout would have found incredible.

The reds are redder than Dr Stout could have imagined, for example. Some have

as many as 18 extra segments; normally it is six -- three outer segments

(sepals) and three inner segments (petals).

In modern daylilies, the edges of the petals and sepals can be ruffled,

shirred, pleated or even fringed. The latest craze is eye patterns: light

colors on dark or dark on light, with matching edges on the petals or sepals.

The rest of the talk was so incomparably Sydney that you must have it word for

word!

"The changes that have occurred in daylily flowers during the 40 years since

Dr Stout's death are mind-boggling. Given the beauty of the blossoms, there

are other qualities that make the daylily such an incredibly popular garden

plant: rate of increase, ease of culture and versatility.

"For my part, I love the different sizes of the flowers, from tiny miniatures

no wider than an inch across to glamorous eight-inch plates of sepals and

petals. I enjoy every flower shape from the graceful, old-fashioned trumpet

shape of the species and early cultivars to the modern round form with

rolled-back segments and a shallow profile.

"Besides the various shapes, colors and color patterns, there are also many

heights, from dwarf -- less than a foot -- to six-foot giants like the

so-called Altissma hybrids. Three-footers with flowers carried just above the

leaves are the most popular with daylily fanciers, but gardeners like all the

different heights.

"Stalwart of constitution, daylilies are tolerant of other plants encroaching

on their space and are, therefore, a boon for mixed borders. They literally go

with everything. Those of robust stature can hold their own with shrubs and

dwarf-evergreens; the tall ones can be used at the back of a border with Joe

Pyeweed and lofty Rudbeckia nitida.

"Ornamental grasses and daylilies are a marriage made in heaven. One approach

is to use the grasses as a background. This is particularly effective because

the arrangement of daylily flowers changes daily, while the grasses remain the

same, thus preserving the overall picture.

"Another pleasure is to pair variegated ornamental grasses that have cream or

yellow-striped blades with pale yellow to white daylilies. Near-white and very

pale daylily cultivars are extremely eye-catching, and they blend into a mixed

bed better with a fringe of ornamental grass overhanging them.

"Daylilies are handsome in the company of globe thistles and fall's

sunflowers. Their flower shapes contrast with the daisies and round ball

shapes. Spiky perennials are good partners, and daylilies love airy fillers

like Coreopsis verticillata and annual Love-in-a-Mist. The uses of daylilies

in the perennial garden are limited only by the imagination of the gardener.

"Critics of the daylily point out the short life of each flower and the need

for dead-heading. I point out the longevity of the plant and the pleasure of

`breaking bloom' on a summer's evening when the flowers are still exquisite.

"A lily of a day/Is fairer far in May,/Although it fall and die that night,/It

was the plant and flower of light./In small proportions we just beauty

see,/And in short measures like may perfect be."

One of the most enthralling books I have read on plant science is Ms Eddison's

A Passion for Daylilies, The Flowers and the People.

(Anthony C. Bleach coordinates the landscaping/horticulture programs at

Naugatuck Valley College in Waterbury.)