If there were a “language of flowers,” you’d probably find daylilies have a southern accent. These adaptable perennials fit graciously into gardens everywhere.
Still, there’s no doubt that more of them have found happy homes in the South and Southwest during the past decade than anywhere else.
It isn’t that other gardeners love daylilies less; it’s just that Southerners love them more. In return, these plants have performed beautifully in a great variety of soils and situations.
As news of the new daylilies filters out from advanced fanciers to the general public, more are planted in all southern areas.
Enthusiasm for them becomes feverish in real “hem” hot spots like Houston, Tulsa, Baton Rouge, Valdosta, Georgia, and a dozen other points. It boils over into daily festivals, shows, and public planting projects.
American Hemerocallis Society Connection To The South
The American Hemerocallis Society was founded and deeply rooted in the Midwest, with strong ties of interest in New England.
Still, it has turned southward four times in the past six years for its annual convention. This year’s meeting was in a border area—Washington, D.C.—and daylily lovers will trek to Orlando, Florida, next spring.
Southern Daylilies’ Popularity
Of 114 hemerocallis breeders and introducers listed in the Society’s 1959 yearbook, seventy-two are located in the South and Southwest. Twenty-nine of the fifty top-ranking daylilies came from the same areas in last year’s Popularity Poll.
Full Advantage of Adage
Southern gardeners take full advantage of the adage, “You can plant a daylily whenever the ground isn’t frozen.”
Many gardeners include daylilies in their early spring planting. Strong divisions usually flower in the same season, but neither scapes nor flowers will be up to the standard of those on established plants.
Spring planting is particularly advisable in the Upper South so that any varieties of doubtful hardiness— there are only a few—may be well rooted before winter.
Good Planting Time
Another good planting time is just after the blooming season is finished. And perhaps the most popular season of all is after the heat of midsummer is over, and there is comfortable weather for gardening again.
H. M. Russell, a famous Spring, Texas, grower, sums it up very well, “Anytime is the best time to plant daylilies, provided you get them in the ground a month or six weeks before your severest freezes.”
Importance of Soil Quality
Here, I should admit that many of us well-meaning missionaries for the daily cause have overemphasized their foolproof qualities.
They’ll indeed tolerate neglect and poor conditions, but it’s also true that they’re incomparably better when grown in good soil, adequately watered, and protected from pests.
Happily, they are not critical about the type of soil. I see them growing beautifully in fairly heavy clay loams in Kentucky and equally well in what looks like dirty sand in northern Florida. Nor are they finicky about sharp drainage.
Some varieties thrive in Louisiana bogs, but it is better to give them good drainage wherever there is much freezing weather in winter.
Working peat moss, leaf mold, compost, rotted manure, or some similar material into the soil is always advantageous to improve its humus content.
It is important not to set divisions too deep. With the fleshy roots spread naturally in a roomy hole, fill in soil around them to leave the plant’s crown about an inch below the surface after it is watered in and settled.
Mulching For Daylilies
Mulching is optional but desirable, I think, in most plantings. Pine needles are easily available over much of the South. They are a good-looking material to spread over beds and borders.
Of course, straw and rotted sawdust are also employed, and among the less common materials available but now used by some southern gardeners are peanut hulls and pecan shells.
Growth and Cultivation
That daylilies also grow well under clean cultivation without a mulch can be attested by hundreds of us who visited the Russell Gardens during the 1958 convention of the American Hemerocallis Society.
More than 30 level acres of sandy soil carried row on row of healthy, flowering daylilies, so free of weeds that we marveled.
This same planting gave evidence that daylilies take and like full sunshine. Experience shows that they also do exceedingly well— and some colors look better—in filtered shade and open areas sheltered by nearby buildings, trees, or hedges from the hot afternoon sun.
Regular Feeding
Regular feeding of hemerocallis plantings seems essential in Florida and other Lower South areas with sandy soils and enough rainfall to leach away nutrients. “We use what we have on hand,” says a commercial grower in central Florida.
“Sometimes it is citrus-tree fertilizer, sometimes the azalea-camellia food widely sold here—both give good results.
A sprinkling of food is scratched around clumps in the spring, and I use it again in the fall when lining out young divisions to grow on to salable size.”
Watering
Watering is more important than feeding in most southern gardens, that is if the finest blooms are to be enjoyed. Though the plants are drought-resistant, flowers deteriorate rapidly in size and lose brilliance in hot, dry weather.
Since many daylily plantings are in long borders or drifts against a lawn boundary, plastic soil soakers can be laid down through them and left all summer, with the water turned on for several hours every three or four days during dry spells.
Problems of Pest Control
Problems of pest control in daylilies are highly localized in southern areas. For years, thrips have been a universal annoyance—minor at times, serious on occasion.
They may leave light discolorations on the petals of dark flowers or deform buds and blooms and twist stalks. At the worst, bloom fails.
Fortunately, DDT, lindane, and several other modern insecticides kill thrips, but you must start spraying early in spring and repeat for complete control.
The standard two tablespoonfuls of 50 percent wettable DDT to the gallon of water, with a little detergent added, is probably the most economical spray.
Slugs are a menace in some gardens where they eat tender leaf shoots. Metaldehyde baits in convenient pellet form are used.
During the past two years, since 5 percent granular dieldrin has become generally available, many gardeners have used it to treat areas infested with many garden pests.
Occasionally, grasshoppers are quite troublesome, and only during the past year or two have I heard from the Deep South that aphids winter over on the popular evergreen-type daylilies, causing severe damage.
From the same area, as well as from the dry Southwest, come reports of summer foliage injury by red spider mites.
Of course, we can battle grasshoppers with chlordane, aphids with malathion, and red spiders with any one of several new miticides.
Connecting With Daylily Enthusiasts
No Southerner needs to lack information on daylilies. Enthusiasts in nearly all areas are eager to share their knowledge.
Membership in the American Hemerocallis Society ($3.50 dues to Olive M. Hindman, Secretary, 404 Weigle Ave., Sebring, Florida) will put you in touch with them.
Regional, state, and city-wide organizations of daily fanciers cover every section and welcome new members.
They publish helpful bulletins and hold shows, garden tours, and study sessions. The newsletter of the Mississippi Hemerocallis Society is the best of its sort that I’ve seen anywhere in the country.
Southern Daylily Growers
Not only do Southerners grow daylilies, but many of them also breed new varieties. Suppose we stretch our western border to include southern California.
In that case, we can claim as our own the late Carl Milliken, of both iris and daylily fame, as well as Tom Craig and six members of his family at Escondido who are industriously spreading pollen and turning out fine new creations.
The previously mentioned H. M. Russell; Hooper Connell of Louisiana; Mrs. Bright Taylor and Ralph Wheeler of Florida; Mrs. Hugh Lester, Frank Childs, and the late W. T. Wood of Georgia; and Carl Carpenter of Kentucky are a few among the southern breeders whose originations have won national fame.
With some eight thousand daylily varieties already recorded and about five hundred new ones named every year, there is a natural curiosity about the goals of daylily hybridizers and trends in gardener acceptance of their output.
Factors To Consider When Choosing Daylilies
“If there is a trend in color preference, I think it is back to yellow,” says a Florida dealer. “The daylily novice is used to yellow and orange varieties and, at first, is inclined to buy reds, purples, pinks, and anything different he can find.
But we are gaining experience with daylilies in the South and are beginning to use them in quantity in landscaping our grounds. For that purpose, nothing beats yellows.”
In the South, as all over the nation, there is a tremendous interest in pastels and especially the “melon-tinted” daylilies. Labels like Multnomah, Bailey Walker, and Frances Fay attract admiration for the loveliness of the flowers on display.
A daylily needs more than just a pretty color to get by. Does it fade in the sun? Will the stalks stand up without staking? How tall does it get? Does it remain open at night? How about reblooming? These are the questions today’s gardener asks.
Blooming and Growing Seasons in The South
The recurrent blooming habit inherent in certain varieties depends partly on a long growing season and the right weather conditions and is more important in the Lower South than elsewhere.
“There are so many good ones that bloom for us two and even three times a year,” I heard a Mobile, Alabama, gardener say, “that we just naturally like them.”
Evergreen vs. Dormant Foliage in Daylilies
Again, for Florida and the Deep South, daylilies with evergreen foliage are certainly the most widely planted. Dormant, however, and crosses between the types should not be rejected there without trial—some of them are entirely satisfactory.
Evergreen foliage varieties, in most cases, make themselves quite at home in the Upper South, too, though they do not hold green leaves through the winter as they do in the warmer climes.
Night-Blooming Daylilies
There has long been a modest interest in night-blooming daylilies for planting near patios and terraces. With greater use of garden lights, special attention is now falling on daylilies that throw in several hours of overtime duty after dark.
Expanding Daylily Collection
Far too many Southern hemerocallis fanciers belong to the national society. They keep posted on what goes on in other places to be satisfied with what they find in their backyards.
From Maine to Oregon, they bring in the newest-of-the-new to supplement and vie with local favorites—all in the pleasant gardening madness of land where daylilies are having their day.
44659 by Sam Caldwell