Daylilies pop, pop, pop in local gardens

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They are everywhere right now, blooming their little heads off.  As you walk anywhere in Riverdale, there is a profusion of orange blossoms of the wild daylily – which we called Tiger Lilies when we were children.  Little did I know then that each bud only bloomed for one day, and the extended bloom period was the result of numerous blooms opening sequentially on a single branched stalk.   

In addition to the Tiger Lilies, another common variety is the yellow Stella D’Oro daylily. Together, these two plants are workhorses that grow well under challenging conditions. Many home gardeners cherish them for their ability to quickly colonize a difficult spot. The flip side, of course, is that when you finally want to tackle said spot, it is hard to rid yourself of them. My solution, in absolute desperation one year, was to cut off the foliage as it repeatedly appeared, until the roots finally gave out. Still, it took several years to rid that spot of all of them. Because of these hardy qualities, this plant has now been designated an invasive species.

A hint that a flower is popular is the existence of a flower society dedicated solely to it. The scientific name for daylilies is hemerocallis, and the daylily society is the American Hemerocallis Society (AHS ). It has an amazing amount of information about all the varied characteristics of this plant (visit www.daylilies.org to learn more). Scrolling through the various pages, particularly the “Frequently Asked Questions,” was an eye-opener.

The original work of hybridizing was done by Dr. Arlow Burdette Stout, who was curator of education and laboratories at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). He began working there in 1911, and over the ensuing 37 years crossed 50,000 daylilies and registered 97 hybrids. He developed the first red daylily – which was quite a feat, considering that the only colors then available to work with were orange and yellow. Today, the color spectrum runs pretty much from lavender to near-white.  The flowers have also developed all kinds of petal types – adorned with colored edges and ruffles – as well as midribs. Part of the daylily walk at NYBG is called the Arlow B. Stout Garden. 

Browsing the website of AHS, I was delighted to learn of two additional qualities that were personally grabbing. One is called polychrome, and it refers to an intermingling of three or more colors, such as yellow, melon pink and lavender, on the flower segments. The other is called dusting, and it refers to a glitter-like quality on the petal surface. If the sparkles are white, then it is diamond dusting, and if they are golden, the petals are gold dusted. Check them out at www.smokeysdaylilygardens.com.

Hybridizing sounds very painstaking and presumably too difficult for home gardeners. Not at all! Similarly to any reproduction, you need two parents. While each plant has both pollen and ova, daylilies, fortunately, do not self-fertilize. Look carefully at a newly opened bud, and you will see yellow pollen grains all over the anthers. You can remove the anther by pulling it gently by hand, and then just dab the pollen all over the pistil of other plants. A seed pod will develop over the next few weeks, and the seed will be ripe for planting 45-50 days after fertilization, when the seed pod cracks open and you can see the shiny black seeds inside. However, without a greenhouse, it is best to keep the seeds in the crisper of the refrigerator until spring. Michael Ruggiero, a former senior horticulturist at NYBG, recommends just putting them in an envelope and keeping them in the refrigerator until spring. There is a useful video from Martha Stewart, who talked to him about daylilies: www.marthastewart.com/920268/daylilies-hybridization-mike-ruggiero.

AHS awards the Stout Silver Medal in honor of Dr. Arlow B. Stout. This award started in 1950. In a lengthy process, the new cultivar must win first an Honorable Mention Award and then an Award of Merit. In order to receive these awards, the cultivar needs to be distinctive, beautiful and must perform well over a wide geographic area. Although a professional horticulturist systematically fertilizes plants with special characteristics, traditional breeding can be a hit-or-miss proposition. When Edna Spaulding was asked how she breed three winners of the Stout Medal, she said: “well, I just cross purty on purty.” Her winning flowers were Luxury Lace, Lavender Flight, and Martha Adams.

So, if you have an annoying bare spot in reasonable sunlight, hurry out and ask a friend for some plants that you will enjoy next year!

Green scene, Sura Jeselsohn

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