By Russ Allen
If you’ve not yet grown some of the newer varieties of daylilies in your perennial garden, they are something you’ve got to try. The explosion in daylily hybridizing over the past 20 years has resulted in over 95,000 different registered varieties, but how do you know which will perform best in Connecticut gardens?
The Most Rewarding Perennial Flower
Many gardeners believe that daylilies (also known as Hemerocallis) may be the most rewarding perennial flower one can grow in their garden based on a number of considerations which include:
The beauty of modern daylilies can be breathtaking with tremendous variety of colors, flower sizes and forms, heights, patterns, sculptural features, and bloom season.
Daylilies can thrive in most good topsoils without any special fertilizing or insect control measures
Most modern cultivars multiply their number of plants (fans) by 30-50% per year – leading to beautiful clumps in just a few years, unlike some perennials which may die out over time.
While each daylily bloom only lasts a day, most modern cultivars have 10-20+ buds per scape and bloom over a several week period – generally during late June through early August in Connecticut gardens.
While daylilies love full sun, fortunately they can tolerate and sometimes thrive in Connecticut gardens with only three hours or less of sun per day.
While receiving ample rain certainly helps daylilies to bloom longer and multiply faster, they generally tolerate periods of drought well and resume blooming when rain returns.
Bringing daylily blooms into the home is also so easy – just pick several of your favorite blooms each morning and place them on a plate with NO WATER. They’ll close up after dinner whether they have water or not – so simply go out the next day and pick another set of your favorite blooms to beautify your home.
Explosion at the Paint Factory – Hybridized by Rich Howard in CT
Selecting Outstanding Performers
A great way to start obtaining daylilies which will be excellent performers in your garden is to select cultivars whose flowers you love, but which have also been proven to thrive particularly well in Connecticut climate zones. (Warning: many daylilies hybridized in the South do not always perform well or even survive in the North.) By “excellent performers” is meant the ability to thrive (multiply) in our climate zones, and to display consistently stunning flowers.
The highly recommended cultivars in this story were largely selected from amongst national daylily society award winners and top vote getters in recent daylily popularity polls conducted among American Daylily Society members living in the Northeast. They are NOT anything like the common orange roadside daylilies. These plants have proven themselves to be reliable and floribundant performers in New England gardens, and most are also readily available at reasonable prices from local nurseries.
One can find daylilies among the newer exquisite introductions with more “bells and whistles” on their flowers, but these can sometimes be pricey. The beautiful varieties listed in the box below have proven their popularity with great performance over many years in Connecticut gardens.
Acquiring Daylilies
Acquiring any of these outstanding cultivars can be easy once you understand that daylily commercial gardens sell most of their plants by mail order from their websites and ship bare root plants to your home.
While one can plant a daylily anytime during warm weather, the best time to plant would be in the fall or late spring in order to optimize blooming.
Of course, it would be ideal to plan a visit to a nearby commercial garden during July so you can see hundreds of cultivars in bloom and look for additional cultivars whose blooms irresistibly melt your heart – but most sales from these gardens would also be freshly dug bare root plants or sometimes potted plants.
A partial list of commercial gardens which specialize heavily on daylilies is provided for your convenience. Be sure to check out their websites which often provide beautiful pictures of their daylilies available for sale, along with key details such as blooming time. height, flower size, and cost, etc.
When planning a garden, it’s best to include some daylilies which start to bloom in late-June/early July (called early bloomers) and those which start mid-season (mid-July) or late-season (late-July/early August). This spreads out your daylily bloom across the entire summer.
Commercial Daylily Gardens
Commercial daylily gardens to visit or check out which are located within a two hour drive of Hartford include the following:
• CT Daylily, 76 Anderson Road, Wallingford, CT 06492 www.ctdaylily.com
• Golden Skep Flower Farm, 264 Linden St., Berlin, MA 01503 – www.goldenskepfarm.com
• Greywood Farm, 85 River Road, Topsfield, MA 01983 – greywoodfarm.squarespace.com
• Harmon Hill Farm, 49 Ledge Road, Hudson, NH 03051 – harmonhillfarm.com
• Mountain Meadow, 112 Parker Road, Somers, CT 06071 – visit Mountain Meadow Daylilies on Facebook
• M.T. Bobbins Daylilies, 101 Oak Circle, Winchester, NH 03470 – mtbobbins-daylilies.com/store (online orders only)
• O’Brien Nursery, 40 Wells Road, Granby, CT 06035 – obrienhosta.com
• Partridge Hill Gardens, 23 Partridge Hill Road, Dudley, MA 01571 – partridgehillgardens.com
• Tranquil Lake Nursery, 45 River St., Rehoboth, MA 02769 – tranquil-lake.com
There are additional excellent sources for daylilies in the Northeast which can supply daylilies by mail order.
Learning More About Daylilies
It’s easy to learn more about growing daylilies. If you go to the website for the American Daylily Society (https://daylilies.org), you will discover a wide range of resources including a “Frequently Asked Questions” section and a database covering all registered daylilies. It’s only $25 to join as a member and access even more benefits.
The Connecticut Daylily Society holds meetings at the Avon Senior Center on West Avon Road (Route 167) in Avon, CT every other month at which one can meet and see presentations from world-famous daylily hybridizers about their hybridizing programs, while also being welcomed by friendly daylily lovers with local gardens and lots of free advice.
There also is an annual daylily plant sale on the grounds of the Avon Senior Center. In 2023, it’s on Saturday, May 20 between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm. For further details on club activities, check out their website at https://ctdaylilyclub.com
There’s also a great new Facebook website just for gardeners new to daylilies called “Discovering Daylilies – A Virtual Classroom” which can be accessed at facebook.com/groups/ 364353112266898
In conclusion, if you aren’t growing some of the gorgeous outstanding daylilies which thrive in Connecticut gardens, you’re definitely missing out on what could be among the highlights of your perennial garden!
Russ Allen is a former president of the Connecticut Daylily Society. He is currently on the board of the American Daylily Society and has a Daylily Display Garden in Guilford.
Cultivar name, hybridizer, flower size and plant height in inches, bloom timing
• All American Chief – Sellers, 9, 32, early-mid season
• Astral Voyager – Mason, 6.5, 31, early-mid season
• Big George – Krupien, 7, 35, mid-season
• Explosion in the Paint Factory – Howard, 7, 38, late-season (photo page 3)
• Fooled Me – Reilly-Hein, 5.5, 24, early-mid season
• Forestlake Ragamuffin – Harding-F, 5.5, 28, early-mid season (photo page 6)
• Heavenly United We Stand, Gossard – 9, 51, mid-season
• Isabelle Rose – Laprise, 7, 59, early season
• Laura Harwood – Harwood, 7, 23, mid-season
• Mabou, Mason-M – 6, 30, mid-late season (photo above)
• Neon Flamingo – Gossard, 8.5, 35, mid-season
• Primal Scream – Hanson-C, 7.5, 34, mid-late season
• Ruby Spider – Stamile, 9, 34, early season (photo on cover)
• Sun Panda – Culver, 5, 35, mid-late season
• Red Volunteer – Oakes, 7, 30, mid-season
• Rose F. Kennedy – Doorakian, 7.5, 29, mid-season
• Scarlet Pimpernel – Ripley, 10, 35, early-mid season
• Signature Truffle – Kirchoff, 6, 28, early-mid season
• White Eyes Pink Dragon – Gossard, 8.5, 38, mid-season
