The dean of daylily hybridizers discusses their development, beauty, and usefulness as garden plants.
There are today about 3,500 named daylilies or hemerocallis. Forty years ago, only about a dozen— including both species and hybrids—were widely known in American gardens.
Twenty years later, in 1930, there were about 15 species and approximately 175 hybrids. During 1930-1940, the number of hybrids was a little more than doubled, reaching a total of about 400.
It was between 1940 and 1950, then, that most of the daylilies of today made their appearance. Actually, during this period, the number of day-lily introductions totaled about 3,000—an average of almost one a day!
Three Main Factors
Three main factors contributed to the recent and sudden increase in the popularity of the hemerocallis as a garden plant, as indicated by the rapid rise in the number of named hybrid varieties.
First Main Factor
In the first place, early in the century, there were the introductions from their native home in the Orient of several new and distinctly different types, or species, of hemerocallis that greatly extended the diversity of this numerically small genus. This, of course, multiplied the possibilities of hybridization.
Second Main Factor
Secondly, the New York Botanical Garden 1912 began an extensive program of daylily collecting, breeding, and selecting, which aroused keen interest among gardeners and nurserymen.
In Japan and China, daylilies had received rather scant attention as garden subjects, except perhaps for the double-flowered Kwanso and Flore Pleno.
In Europe and America before 1925. there were only limited and incidental hybridizations that gave a few but worthwhile, first-generation hybrids.
In 1912 the New York Botanical Garden began to work with daylilies on a really serious and systematic scale.
Specifically, the Garden inaugurated a three-point program:
- To assemble plants of all available hemerocallis species and horticultural clones (that is, hybrid “varieties,” the stock of which has been built up by vegetative propagation);
- To obtain wild plants of daylilies and their seeds from China, Manchuria. Siberia and Japan; and
- To make numerous “multiple” hybridizations.
These hybridizations were followed by selective breeding that produced and utilized diverse characters’ segregations and recombinations.
Experimental Planting
By 1925, these efforts had demonstrated conclusively that new horticultural types and classes—especially regarding flower colors and patterns— could thus be developed.
By 1935, the Garden’s large display garden and experimental planting of more than 10,000 seedlings were being inspected annually by numerous gardeners and nurserymen. Also, by this time, 23 selections had been named and made available.
These included:
- Mikado
- Wau-Bun
- Bijou, Theron
- Dauntless
- Majestic
- Patricia
- Rajah
- Chengtu
Additionally, there were numerous distributions of the new late-flowering and small-flowered H. multiflora and of the rosy-pink-flowered H. fulva rosea.
Between 1920 and 1936, too, at least 5,000 of the best seedlings out of some 50,000 discards were distributed to members of the New York Botanical Garden, and various of these, as well as the named clones, were acquired by gardeners and nurserymen who subsequently became breeders.
By 1935 over 20 amateur and commercial growers were raising at least some seedlings of hemerocallis, and several had introduced clones of their seedlings.
Third Main Factor
The third main factor in the rapid rise in the popularity of hemerocallis is what might be called the “golden age” of daylily breeding, which began around 1935.
The number of breeders increased, many of them became nurserymen, and there also arose a class of enthusiastic hobbyists who found time and means to make extensive collections of clones and to use these in cross-breeding.
It has been stated that some of these hobbyists are now growing as many as 25,000 seedlings at a time, and some of the professional nurserymen have grown larger numbers of seedlings.
Nearly every section of the United States now has one or more daylily specialists or enthusiasts and in some sections, there are sizable groups of them.
The widespread testing now going on can be expected to determine what daylilies are best suited for the widely different climatic areas of the United States. And at the same time, the growth of numerous seedlings will extend the possibilities of recombinations and mutations in the development of new classes.
Newer Evergreen Types
The few older daylilies have foliage that becomes dormant in winter, and these types have always been rated among the most dependable garden plants for the temperate zone.
More recently, however, the use in breeding work of ever green types, originating from H. aurantiaca and so-called H. aurantiaca major, has produced many clones with evergreen habits of growth that are especially desirable in southern gardens.
A goodly number of the evergreen and semi evergreen clones are also reasonably hardy in northern gardens, and there can be no doubt that the development of the evergreen class has contributed much to the horticultural value of the daylily.
It can be said, further, that the range of dormant, evergreen, and intermediate habits of vegetative growth is now such that it is possible to grow collections of excellent daylily clones in gardens throughout the entire United States.
Recognizing Size, Season, and Color
When planning to make a collection of daylilies, a gardener should recognize that these plants have distinct classes. In stature, there are dwarf, semi-dwarf, robust, and giant classes that range from 1’ foot to as much as 8’ feet tall.
As regards flowering season, selections may be made which give a succession of bloom from spring until autumn in the North and over an even longer period in the South.
It is in flower colors and patterns of coloring, however, that multiple hybridizations have resulted in the greatest and most conspicuous diversity.
Spectrum of Colors
Today there is every range of spectrum values for the yellow and orange colorings, which are due to plastid pigments and quantitative proportions of each, while the sap pigments now provide a wide range of spectrum red colorings as well as a reduction to pale pastel shades of pink and an intensification to mahogany red with almost every intermediate shade and tone.
Also, the blending and co-pigmentation of degrees of red with the degrees of orange and yellow give an almost endless variation, except for a pure white and a true blue.
In addition, there is a wide range of patterns from two to at least four distinct colors arranged in eyed, banded, bicolored, and striped combinations.
There are also striking diversities in size and form of flowers, in the time of day when the flowers first open and in the length of time, the flowers persist. The flowers of some days bloom clones close to sunset, while others have flowers that remain in good condition after dark.
Versatile Plants
The adaptability of daylilies to various garden conditions, coupled with their long flowering season and their great diversity of color and plant size, ranks them among the most dependable and useful of all garden plants.
Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive of any size or kind of garden where daylilies could not be used to excellent advantage.
Their garden needs are no different from those of most other popular perennial plants; they require no special cultural techniques, fertilizers, or pest control measures: and in fact, they will flourish under soil, moisture, and sunlight conditions that will doom many of the less sturdily constituted but popular classes of plants.
Unfamiliar With Daylily Varieties
A gardener unfamiliar with daylily varieties but wishing to grow some for the first time might well peruse the list of the 100-most popular varieties as chosen by the ‘Hemerocallis Society’s judges.
Descriptions and illustrations of many hundreds of varieties will be found in the catalogs of nurserymen who specialize in these plants.
Living plants of daylilies may also be seen in many localities, home gardens, display collections in parks, and hobbyists’ extensive collections.
Some of the older and more extensively propagated clones of excellent quality may be purchased at 50 cents a division. A price of more than 33.00 a division usually indicates newness and, consequently, a more limited supply of the plants.
For the gardener who desires to study the daylilies more or less seriously, there are the yearbooks of the Plant Life Society and the Hemerocallis Society, membership in each of which is open to gardeners at moderate cost.
Any daylily that is hardy in a locality may be propagated easily by division. A newly purchased plant will increase in size naturally by crown branching, and if more plants are wanted, it will not be long before the original plant can be divided.
Daylilies Used in Home Gardens
Besides their countless uses in all kinds of home gardens—as specimen plants, in groups, or combined with other plants in the herbaceous border— daylilies are admirably suited for naturalizing along brooks, ponds, on cliffs, in meadows, and broken woodland areas.
For whatever purpose they are considered, daylilies offer both permanence and unquestionable ornamental value.
Image: Individual daylily blooms last only a day, but new flowers open up every day, extending the blooming period.-
Images:
Daylilies are displayed to good advantage against a background of lilacs. Here the varieties Patricia, purple yellow; Cinnabar, orange; and Princess, lemon yellow, are used, but the gardener has about 3,500 named varieties from which to choose.
Daylilies are versatile flowers: they may be planted in groups, as above, used as specimens, or with other plants. No special culture is needed, but they respond to good care.
This planting of Dauntless and Midas varieties near a waterfall shows how well-adapted daylilies are for naturalizing, alone or in combination with other plants.
44659 by A. B Stout