DAYLILIES — BLOOMING EARLY SPRING UNTIL FALL!
By PAUL ESKINE | LONE STAR DAYLILY SOCIETY lonestardaylilysociety.org
It has been said in the past that the daylily is a great pick for the Lazy Gardener. Today, there are over 80,000 cultivars that are registered.
So, how does one pick from all the different registered daylilies to grow in your garden? Well, there are those that like a certain color, height of bloom, size of bloom, or type of bloom. But we all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
But how does one find daylilies that begin blooming at different times of the year, not just one mass blooming in April and May.
For SE Texas, it is best to find daylilies that grow well in your area, normally evergreen and semi-evergreen daylilies in the SE Texas area, that are rebloomers. These are daylilies that bloom more than once during a single season. Then, pick daylilies that have their Initial Bloom at different times during the growing season.
The American Daylily Society has established general time frames, as Extra Early (EE), Early (E), Early Midseason (EM), Midseason (M), Late Midseason (ML), Late (L), and Very Late (VL).
As the seasonal warming of the weather is different each spring, the main bloom season fluctuates by a few weeks. But most Early-Mid daylilies start to bloom in the SE Texas area anywhere from Late April till Late May. Just remember . . .
. . . each cultivar name has an Initial Bloom time. There are Extra Early daylilies that will begin blooming in March or earlier, while Midseason do not start blooming until late May through late June, and then the Late Midseason, Late, and Very Late start their blooming in the later summer or early fall.
You can find this information in the Daylily Database at www.daylilies.org.
By having a selection of daylilies from different initial bloom times, and rebloomers, you can have daylilies blooming from Early Spring, throughout the Summer, and into the Fall.
