Comments on: “Designing” with Daylilies

By: Marie

Marie — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:57:28 +0000

Is leaving a comment THREE years later allowed??? I admit to a softspot for day lilies. They are also delicious: the closed buds, raw and sliced as a vegetable in salads, or steamed with olive oil/butter, as a side dish: and the tubers when young are nutty and crisp, siced raw or cooked like potatoes. Given your experience I hesitate asking – but are they in full sun? I find they do make wonderful, hot displays of colour if they get a lot of sun.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 15:30:21 +0000

Hi Susan, I don’t use them anymore. Much to messy for my liking. I love the grass like foliage in the spring but I just use grasses for that now. The grasses like carex look good all year.

By: Millie

Millie — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 00:35:23 +0000

Gasp!! Dissing Daylilies – That’s like dissing apple pie! Henry Mitchell LOVED them, ergo I love them, and mine, while they bloomed – huge red and yellow ones – were really gorgeous. Everything and everybody has ugly times. You should see me in the morning when I wake up (I’m actually not much better by the afternoon).

By: Kasmira

Kasmira — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 13:14:17 +0000

I like the foliage in the spring and early summer, but it can get messy looking in the late summer.

I saw daylilies massed along a row of flagpoles, alternating pink and yellow flowers. They looked great in bloom. The landscapers planted an ornamental grass behind them. Now the daylily foliage doesn’t look so good, but the grass and its seedheads arc over the lilies and cover the ratty leaves.

Pic of the daylilies in bloom:
http://static.flickr.com/22/27762057_9ef03dbf3b.jpg

By: MistressMary

MistressMary — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 00:35:57 +0000

Hey! Don’t you be bad-mouthin’ the daylilies. I’ll take your discards.

By: ML

ML — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 00:35:39 +0000

Susan: I wandered over here because of your book comment (I read Drop City out of your short list; I love Boyle!), but got sidetracked by your lilies. You don’t mention what I think is a drag about daylilies: all the books say they’re “easy-care” plants. But after their day-long blooms fade, they quickly turn to ugly, streaming mush if you don’t deadhead them faithfully. So every day you have to be out there pinching off the dead blooms, or else the spent blooms completely ruin any effect you’ve managed to get.
I mass them very tightly in a hedge shape lining my drive. I get a big impact this way, but the work! It’s hardly worth the hours of deadheading in July.
So I totally sympathize with your ripping them out (my “hedge” is too huge and well-established by now). Life’s too short to dick around with plants that don’t produce the spectacular effect you should get from tight bunching.