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Re: daylilies

I think it depends on what variety of daylily you have as to how much abuse
they will take.  H. fulva, for instance, will thrive in the worst soil and
come back when denuded by me or the local deer.  But, I don't think some of
the hybrids will do as well in poor conditions and repeated mowings.  May
be wrong here, just my observations of the ones I have, who resent being
munched by the deer a lot and seem to want better soil and feeding to bloom
well for me.  

In my lousy, hot, humid summer climate, my daylilies all have a lot of
foliage die back after bloom.  I just go through and pull out the dead
leaves and leave the green ones on the theory that they are making food for
the plant for next year.  Again, could be totally off my rocker as I am no
daylily expert.

Cutting back foliage when transplanting is a good thing.  For one thing, if
you don't with daylilies, most of it gets broken because it tends to be
brittle and for another, when you divide or move any perennial, you lose a
lot of the root system, so when you cut back the foliage there is less
wilting because the plant isn't trying to pump water to the leaves with not
enough roots to do the job.

A lot of plants won't bloom the year after transplanting or dividing. 
Would imagine it has to do with the size of the division and the time of
year it was done.  I always figure a plant needs a full season to settle
into a new home, to get its wits back together, decide whether it is happy
or not, and if happy, perform well.

From what I understand, there are a large number of daylily classes based
on things like size of bloom, foliage and other criteria, and some are
'evergreen' and some are repeat bloomers.  

Ellen Roddy, whose topic is Daylilies on Suite101, has an article up right
now on their culture and would probably be a good person to ask specific
questions of.  The URL to her article is:

http://www.suite101.com/articles/article.cfm/2592

And, while I'm at it, Carol Wallace has a list of daylily breeders who can
be contacted by fax for a list of what they have available, on her own
homepage.  The URL to that list is:

http://www.suite101.com/userfiles/79/dayfax.htm

The web site, Daylilies Growing Along the Information Highway, has a list
of links to just about every daylily site on the web.  The URL to their
homepage is:

http://www.daylilies.com/daylilies/ 

Have fun, daylilies can be addictive!

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
Editor:  Gardening in Shade
http://www.suite101.com






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