Let's talk about a perennial plant that can provide early, mid and late season flowers, and ultimately color. There are distinct flower shapes and sizes. The overall plant height can vary greatly from 12 inches to exceeding 4 feet. They can be incorporated in existing perennial beds, or can stand alone in swaths and borders. The perennial I am talking about is the daylily.
The genus of daylilies isHemerocallis. It derives from two Greek words meaning "beauty" and "day". This refers to each flower lasting a day, but each plant has many blooms that provide ongoing color over a season. Daylilies are native to China, Japan and Korea, but can be found in gardens worldwide.
There is an American Daylily Society that is a great source of information. They present awards each season in a variety of categories. On their website they describe daylilies as dazzling and diverse and further explain daylilies are easy to grow and they are everywhere: the neighbor’s backyard, city hall, botanical gardens, and even in the ditch. But that doesn’t mean they are just another boring perennial that fills empty space. As of May 2018, there are nearly 89,000 registered cultivars! With that many cultivars, there is no reason to plant a single cultivar! Mix up the colors and sizes.
Over the last week, I visited two gardens in NW Ohio that have daylilies in their garden. The first was Simpson Garden in Bowling Green, Ohio - https://www.bgohio.org/171/Simpson-Garden The second was Toledo Botanical Garden in Toledo, Ohio - https://metroparkstoledo.com/explore-your-parks/toledo-botanical-garden-metropark/
While this alert could have gone on for days if I included photos of each cultivar, here are some of my favorites. The favorite could be the actual flower, and sometimes it is the name - or maybe both.
PHOTO CREDIT: AMY STONE