Georgia Magazine - June 2020 - 28

By Pamela A. Keene

COURTESY GIBBS GARDENS

GEORGIA Gardens

Dazzling daylilies
Share the love with these easy-care perennials

SUE CLIE T T

ardeners are notorious for passing along
favorite plants to family, friends and
neighbors, and few plants are as easy to
share as daylilies.
"Years ago, when my husband and I moved
to South Georgia from Homerville, a neighbor
gave me some daylilies as a going-away present, and soon I was hooked," says Sue Cliett,
who lives in the Black Creek community near
Savannah and is active in the Ogeechee Daylily
Society. "I didn't save the names of those first
daylilies, but now I have more than 1,000 varieties
in my garden."
Daylilies offer a wide range of bloom times, so
it's easy to have colorful blossoms from May through
'Pinebelt Double'
the end of September.
"Hybridizers are always developing new cultivars to
bring in new color combinations, flower forms, color palettes,
heights and other attributes," Cliett says. "It can take five years
to six hours a day," she says. "If you fertilize them in
or longer to create a new variety. That's why many of the newer
the spring and again in the fall, you'll be rewarded
types can cost $100 or more for one plant."
with more blooms and healthier plants. Water them
deeply at least once a week when it's really dry."
Daylilies grow from fleshy roots and produce
More than yellow and orange blooms
clumps of leaves, called fans, that arise from one
Daylilies range in color from almost pure white to golden
point. 'The Poet's Wife'
yellow with a tinge of green and from pale pink to deep purple.
"When buying daylilies, whether they're bareSome are solid colors; others have petals with edges in contrastroot or in pots, look for plants that have more than
ing colors. Flower throats-the inside of the blossom-also vary
one fan if you can," she says. "Most of the more
in color and are often much darker than the main petals. Flower
common varieties that you find at big-box retailers
forms vary; some have single petals, while others are doubled,
or nurseries are potted and may have a single fan or
frilled or ruffled.
multiples. These will be pretty affordable as far as
Most daylilies open early in the day and close in the evening, hence the name. Many have only one flush of blooms each daylilies go."
Cliett frequently shares her daylilies with friends
season.
and family, but she rarely adds a new hybrid to her
"Some newer hybrids may take as long as two days for
garden.
their blooms to fully open," Cliett says. "And there are now read"Really serious daylily growers hybridize and
ily available cultivars that bloom twice in a season, such as the
strive to create new hues, color combinations and
bright-yellow single 'Happy Returns' and the red single
even more blooms per stem," she says. "Me? I'm just
'Pardon Me.'"
a grower who seeks out daylilies for their looks and
how a particular variety multiplies so that I can divide
Easy, beautiful, prolific
them to share."
Daylilies are known for being easy-care, drought-tolerant
Pamela A. Keene is a freelance writer and
plants. They will come back year after year with proper care.
gardening enthusiast living in Flowery Branch.
"They need well-drained soil and full sun for at least four

Georgia Magazine

June 2020

Georgia Magazine - June 2020

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