Daylily Proliferations

Hemerocallis 'Sarah Christine'

I have never really thought of myself as being a daylily fan (no pun intended!), but I've been rethinking this in the last few years.  Every time I see a beautiful one, I want it. In spite of the foliage of some of them getting rather ratty looking late in the season, I still want it. I've made a compromise with those by cutting the foliage back to about 8-10 inches and pulling off the brown and yellowed leaves.

As a result of my non-love of daylilies, I have no less than 44 different ones (possibly a couple more that I missed when I just went out to count) and I have a wish list of some that I'll buy if I ever run across them.

One of my favorites is a very large lemon yellow one, called 'Sarah Christine'. The American Hemerocallis Society's Online Daylily Database says this about it...

 

 'Sarah Christine' 

Introduced by Millikan-Soules in 1993

Scape height: 28 inches
Bloom size: 6 inches
Bloom season: Early-Midseason
Ploidy:  Diploid
Foliage type: Evergreen
Fragrance: Fragrant
Bloom habit: Diurnal
Color: Pale yellow and ivory to pink bicolor with cream throat
Parentage: (Siloam Mama × Groovy Green)

I would challenge the bloom size as stated in the database.  Mine have gotten larger than that on a regular basis. Regardless, it's one of the larger blooming daylilies out there. Its color doesn't really command attention because there are a gazillion yellow daylilies (at least), but its size certainly does, and that makes it worth having.

This week as I was walking through the garden doing a bit of late summer clean-up, I noticed 'Sarah Christine' was doing something her friends and cousins hadn't. She had proliferations! I've had a daylily do this before, but I didn't do anything with them and merely cut off the scape and composted it.

What are proliferations?

Sometimes a daylily will start to form little plantlets at nodes on the stem of a flower scape. These will often form roots while still attached to the plant. If the stem of the scape is cut on both sides of the plantlet - the proliferation - and put into potting soil, a new plant can be grown. It will be a clone of the mother plant - in other words, identical to it.

'Sarah Christine' has several proliferations on this flower scape. The middle
one is actually two, which I will pot up together.

The reason I don't get too many of these is because I'm pretty obsessive about cutting scapes off once they're finished blooming.  I missed this one.

There are four proliferations on this scape.

I cut it off at its base and then cut each proliferation and put them in water so they can form some roots before I pot them up. I'll keep the potted plants in the greenhouse this winter and then plant them out near the mother plant in the spring.

'Sarah Christine' had babies!

In Defense of Daylilies

When it comes to daylilies, it seems that you either hate 'em or love 'em.  Okay, so this is one plant that you can both love AND hate, depending on the season.  Honestly, how can you not love the myriad of colors and forms that these easy perennials come in?  When they're in bloom, they can be absolutely breath-taking, complete with fragrances that range from subtle to intoxicating.  Some aren't fragrant at all, but each has something positive to bring to the garden palette.

I've got exactly 50 different daylilies here and I imagine I'll acquire a few more over time.  There are a couple that I'd like to take out for various reasons.  Some have that awful issue of yellowing foliage once they've bloomed and I hate that.  A couple of them aren't that outstanding in color or form and they don't hold up well when it rains, so I think that out they'll go.  With over 60,000 different daylilies out there, I don't need ones that have "issues."

Here are some of the daylilies that have bloomed or are blooming at Our Little Acre:

'Frans Hals'

'Showgirl'

'Hush Little Baby'

'Toy Cameo'

'Primal Scream'

'Prairie Champ'

Unknown

'Czar's Treasure'

'Selma Longlegs'

'Flore pleno'

'Buttered Popcorn'

'Siloam Double Classic'

'Ladyfingers'

'When I Dream'

'Cherry Chapeau'

'Swirling Water'

'Wild One'

'Cherry Lace'

'El Desperado'

'Big Smile'

'Alabama Jubilee'

And my very own, that I registered and named (and Lana Wolfe hybridized):

'God Winked'

How to Deadhead Daylilies

'Buttered Popcorn'
An All-American Daylily (2006)

Sometimes the simplest things can seem, well, not quite so simple when it comes to actually doing them.  I made a comment the other day about how I love to deadhead, and I especially love deadheading daylilies. My friend said, "How exactly do you do that?"


There are a few reasons why gardeners deadhead blooming plants:

• to clean up the plant by removing the spent blooms
• to stimulate the plant to bloom again
• to prevent the plant from spending energy on making seeds

Daylilies are no different and these are all good reasons to do it.  But for me, I simply can't stand seeing dead blooms hanging like limp, dirty rags at the tips of the scapes, and I definitely want my daylilies to get larger by spending more of their energy on growing the plant itself, not making seeds.

'Siloam Double Classic', which often doesn't bloom double

One of the things that I really enjoy about deadheading daylilies in particular is the snapping off part.  And when I say "snap," I mean SNAP!  It feels good when they snap off between my fingers and I love the crisp snappy sound it makes.  It's so onomatopoeia-ish.

What you do is to place your index finger under the junction of the bloom and the stem, then push down from the top with your thumb while pushing slightly upward with your index finger in one motion. (See video below.)




That snap is the sound of the developing seed head breaking away.  If the flower didn't get pollinated, it won't snap - the flower just either falls off in your hand or requires very little effort to remove it.

Sometimes the flower comes off easily, but the developing seed pod remains.  If that happens, go ahead and either pinch that off with your fingernail or repeat the snapping maneuver with it so that it doesn't stay on the stem.  When all the flower buds have bloomed on a scape, I cut the scape off at its base.

Daylily seed pod

You can always use pruners to cut things off, but what's the fun in that?  Snapping off daylily heads is akin to popping bubble wrap and we all know how much fun that is!

Hemerocallis 'Prairie Blossoms' with
Heliopsis helianthoides var. scabra 'Loraine Sunshine'

P.S.  I regularly remove any yellow foliage from my daylilies, too.  Some are worse about yellowing than others, but it's removed easily enough. The plants just look better when you do.

Divine Appointment With a Daylily

Once upon a time, I bought a daylily seedling from local hybridizer Lana Wolfe.  Mom and I had visited her daylily gardens in Ft. Wayne - Hidden Acres - back in 2006.  We both bought several other daylilies and mine have all done very well for me.

July 28, 2007

Last summer, I contacted Lana to see if she ever named and registered the seedling she sold to me. I'd labeled it 'Lovely Lana' in the meantime, but I wondered if it ever got an official name.  It turns out that Lana, who has 22 registered daylilies to her name, had sold me the only seedling she had of this particular cross.

She explained to me that when a hybridizer sells a seedling, it becomes the property of the new owner who then has the right to name and register it.  I got a little excited about the possibility of doing this, but by all rights (in my mind), it was Lana who put all the work into it, so she should have the opportunity to name it and register it.

Lana gave me a gift when she sold me this gorgeous daylily. It's a beautiful flower, but as a gardener, I don't take lightly that she also allowed me to name it and register it.  So I began the process.  There is a form to fill out at the American Hemerocallis Society page, on which all known information about the cultivar is given.  Lana gave me all the pertinent information needed, I paid the fee ($20), submitted the form with photos, and then waited.

I first submitted the form on July 9, 2012, and I received acknowledgement that my form and photo had been received.  It was stated that even if they accepted my registration, it wouldn't be listed in the database until they updated sometime in 2013.

I named this gorgeous daylily 'God Winked', based on the title of a book that I bought my grandma many years ago.  When GOD Winks: How the Power of Coincidence Guides Your Life by Squire Rushnell is a wonderful little book with essays telling about how small things that happen in our lives can change them in surprising ways.

I'm also a big believer in divine appointments.  It was Chuck Swindoll who first introduced me to this concept, or at least put a name to it for me.  Some things are purely coincidental, but coincidences happen so often that I refuse to believe they're all attributed to chance.  

In any case, I believe that meeting Lana, purchasing that daylily seedling, and contacting her years later to inquire about it didn't all "just happen."  If you think that our God doesn't have time to be bothered with things that are incidental in the grand scheme of things, you really do underestimate Him.

So here we have it - 'God Winked' - a beautiful daylily, with thanks and gratitude to Lana for growing it, selling it to me, and allowing me to experience some geeky garden fun.

July 1, 2009

______________________________
***When I submitted the registration form, Lana Wolfe was listed as the hybridizer. This is not shown on the registry listing, but be assured that I gave Lana credit for creating this daylily.

Daylily Drama

This time of year makes me glad that I grow daylilies for a number of reasons. There are literally thousands of different ones to choose from and just when I think I've got enough, another one catches my eye. This year, it was Proven Winners' 'Primal Scream' that jumped into my cart as I was doing some shopping earlier at Garden Crossings.

Hemerocallis 'Primal Scream'

This garden center in Zeeland, Michigan, held an open house party the night before the Proven Winners Outdoor Living Extravaganza in April and P. Allen Smith made an appearance there.

Allen and me at Garden Crossings

Garden Crossings is an outstanding example of what a great independent garden center should be. With a wide variety of perennials and annuals to choose from, as well as a fair number of shrubs, vegetables and tropicals, the store is about the most immaculate one I've ever been in and the displays are just gorgeous. They're well-labeled with plant information and owners Heidi and Rod Grasman are ever so helpful with their knowledge of what they grow and sell. They do a booming online business, but their physical store is such a joy to shop in, I wish they were closer to me!

I purchased several plants that evening, but 'Primal Scream' is the one that is commanding attention in the garden now. It was one of the first daylilies of the season to bloom in my garden and though I didn't plan it this way, I'm happy that I sited it by the butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), because the two of them have bloomed in unison and the echo of color enhances each of them.

Hemerocallis 'Primal Scream' with Asclepias tuberosa

Other daylilies have been blooming like crazy all over the gardens, too and while I know some people don't like them, it's hard for me to understand this. Even though each individual bloom only lasts a day, they have so  many blooms that they flower over a very long period of time. Not only that, they're scoffing at the intense prolonged heat and the drought we're experiencing.

Here's some of what I'm enjoying in the way of daylily blooms at Our Little Acre right now:

'El Desperado'

'Indian Giver'

'Alabama Jubilee'

'When I Dream'

'Leprechaun Eyes'

'Swirling Water'

This is a very large hybrid by a local grower that I call 'Lovely Lana',
named for its hybridizer, Lana Wolfe.

'Wild One'

'Sarah Christine', which is HUGE!

'Siloam Double Classic', which doesn't always bloom double. Its first few
blooms this year were double, but subsequent ones have not been.

I received several daylilies from American Daylily & Perennials to trial in my gardens this summer, but they're not yet large enough to bloom. I'm looking forward to seeing them flower, especially 'Dream Souffle', a double and a rebloomer.

Do you have an exceptional daylily that you love? Do you have any that you wouldn't be without in your gardens? Tell me what they are, please. I might need them, too.

Wordless Wednesday: Rhymes With Orange

Hemerocallis 'Primal Scream' with Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

Honeysuckle (wish you could smell it!)

Kniphofia sp.

Echinacea 'Summer Sun'

Gaillardia sp. - either a result of random cross-pollination of 'Golden Goblin'
with other gaillardias in my garden, or a sport of 'Golden Goblin'

Lilium 'Treffer' with Hosta 'Francee'

Chinese Globe Flower
(Trollius chinensis)

Butterfly Weed
(Asclepias tuberosa)

Hemerocallis 'Primal Scream' with Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)