New spider daylilies bloom
Daylilies, daylilies, daylilies. What a great season. It is almost over now. Watering was certainly necessary this year to keep the blooms coming. But with a little care, I enjoyed some delightful surprises in my daylily collection. We even held a daylily garden open house one hot July Sunday afternoon. A recent focus has been expanding my collection of spider daylilies. They have always been among my favorites. So this article concentrates on them. A spider daylily is any daylily with a flower petal at least four times as long as it is wide.
The last few years I have been adding seed-grown daylilies to my garden. So now I am getting a collection of new spider daylilies. A few are volunteers, that is, they came up in the garden from seeds naturally scattered. I just recognized and cared for them. Others are from seedpods I deliberately gathered in the fall and then planted inside in the winter. I then transplant the seedlings into pots for a year before putting them into the garden. It usually takes a second year for the young plants to start blooming. This past year I also bought some seed-grown daylilies from Roger Adams. In contrast to me, Roger frequently knows the parentage. Here are a few of the new seed-grown spider daylilies.
But of course, daylily lovers like myself are never quite satisfied with their collection and are always seeking out new looks. I was looking to add lavender colors and big blooms. Here are a couple stars that I found this year.