When the daylilies bloom, my garden is at its peak.
Each flower lasts only a day, but the plants bloom so heavily that it doesn't matter. I love these plants for their toughness and versatility. You can use them to hold the soil on a hill, cover the edge of an alley that never gets watered or baby them and make them the stars of a perennial border.
Years ago when I was a victim of daylily mania, I dug a new garden and planted 15 or 20 daylily varieties amid other perennials. A couple were passed down from family: an old-fashioned yellow that smells like lemons, and a small, sturdy plant with rich dark red flowers and a yellow throat that just doesn't quit blooming.
I have gentlemen in the daylily garden: spunky bantam Bertie Ferris, with a name that brings to mind a dapper English gent strolling along in top hat and tails. Every summer he throws up sprays of persimmon orange flowers. In contrast, James Marsh seems a giant with bright red flowers that sport a yellow throat.
Then come the ladies: gentle Annie Welch, with big peach blossoms, and Barbara Mitchell, a stunner with thick pink petals and a yellow and green throat.
I'm partial to pink, red, orange and yellow daylilies, and never warmed to the lavender and purple varieties that were all the rage a few years ago. But I have high tolerance for the eye-popping heat of Mauna Loa, a brawny orange that carries hints of lava in its petals. Some might say it's gaudy, but to me Mauna Loa screams that it's the height of summer and we better enjoy it while we can.
I'd like to add Bela Lugosi, Little Wart and Primal Scream just to get those personalities in the garden. But could Primal Scream be planted next to the new "Tea Party" series, or would war break out?
Breeders have been playing with daylily genetics for decades, and you can get daylilies with double flowers, twisted centers, curled and ruffled and pointed petals and a whole range of colored "eyes." Some are gorgeous, but others strike me as freakish. When I wander around the garden in the morning while the dew is still on the grass, snapping off the previous day's shrunken blooms, the plant I always linger over is an oldster.
Hyperion was introduced in 1925. It has classic lemon-yellow flowers. Carried on tall scapes, in my garden they shine like sunbeams against the green of an ornamental grass. And unlike some of their modern cousins, they are wonderfully fragrant.
I hate to cut daylilies when the plants are at their peak, but when Hyperion's blooms slow I will cut some of the flowers and put them in vase with some coneflowers so I can stare at them all day long, the essence of summer.