Friday, July 21, 2006

The Truth about Daylilies

But first, here's my new bloom today


'Condilla'- a double gold.
The color is off in the pic. It's really more gold than yellow.
I like this one a lot. (I say that about quite a few, don't I?)










And here is a deformed red lily.
Isn't it the neatest thing? It should look like the red 'fan fares' I posted below. I don't know what happened to it. It's the only bloom on the plant.


I bet there are some non daylily people coming here (and to all the blogs posting all those beautiful macros of their daylillies) and thinking that they may want to grow these, too. Everyone knows they are so easy to grow -- just plant them and they bloom for years with no work. I bet some of you think maybe you would like a big garden full of them.

Well, before you dash off to buy truck loads of them, here is something to consider.
If you do no work, they look like this



Not too pretty with all those deadheads dangling about, are they?

Sure, they will grow with very little work, but if you want them to look good, it takes a LOT of work.
They need daily deadheading to look nice.

Do I do it every day?

No, not any more.

I now have so many that I would have to quit working to have enough time to do them every day.

I don't worry much about them until the weekend. I will deadhead them all on Saturday and again on Sunday. I will most likely use a pair of scissors because it's faster and my fingers don't get all sticky.

And that, dear readers, is the truth about growing daylilies.

4 comments:

  1. Zoey, you must look for the Hems every day and take off the flowers from the last day, which are over.
    Some flowers are not so nice because of rain-damage, but not very often. When you buy good sorts, you have a lot of luck with them.
    I love them all!

    sigrun

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  2. I don't deadhead much either-mine usually fall off by themselves by the end of the day. If I happen to see lots of dead guys together on one plant, then I will do it then and there.

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  3. I never deadhead until at least the second day after the bloom. The first day they are all soggy and jellied and I can't stand touching them. I have to wait until they are dry. Plus, since I want the seed pods, I usually wait even longer, until I am sure I won't pull the newly forming pod off with the flower.

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  4. I agree with Sigrun about some daylilies looking worse as deadheads than others. I don't do much deadheading because of lack of time, but when I do deadhead, I use some kind of scissors, because when I use my fingers I too often knock off buds that haven't bloomed yet.

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