“Daylily Season Starts”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana
The warm weather has ushered in daylily season. The first daylilies started blooming almost two weeks ago with the little reliable Stella d’ora being the absolute first to flower. Last year was the first year I needed to divide these, and now there is a nice line of these little gold flowers in the circle garden.
Next, to start blooming were the old-fashioned red daylilies. These are from my mother’s garden and were very popular in the ’60’s when she received them from one of her gardening friends.
A ruffled pink daylily that I purchased just last year was the next to show up. It didn’t have a name tag, which is a shame because this is such a pretty flower. I know it must be a tetraploid because the stems are very sturdy and the flower petals are very thick.
Happy Returns, a lemon yellow version of Stella d’ora, started blooming just about a week ago. I wish I had more of these. Unfortunately, they are not ready to be divided.
Next to Happy Returns, I planted a daylily with the same lemon-colored flower, but where Happy Returns makes a small flower, this one has a huge flower. This is the largest daylily flower I have ever seen. These flowers have to be about nine inches across.
Lavender Girl, another one I bought just last year, has also started blooming. There are a lot of buds on this daylily which surprises me since it hasn’t been in the garden long. It must be very vigorous.
The last one to bloom so far, has been a yellow daylily which my mother gave me years ago. She got this one about the same time as the red one pictured above.
I have added many more daylilies to the garden in the last year, so there are still more to bloom. Most have buds in various stages of development, and a few have none yet (I am sure they are late blooming daylilies.) So, it looks like daylily season will be a nice long one this year.
Always Growing 
Ferdi Nel said,
May 4, 2011 at 9:49 pm
You have beautifull daylilies in your garden, and such variety. Stunning photographs.
Ryan said,
May 5, 2011 at 4:35 am
I can’t believe you already have daylilies blooming. Your flowers are way ahead of the ones here.
Scott said,
May 5, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Wow…hard to believe how far ahead of us you are! We are still in the middle of tulip season!
Nell Jean said,
May 5, 2011 at 7:19 pm
I’m always glad to see the daylilies of other gardens, with or without names. I give mine a ‘Garden Name’ until it has an ID, always careful to say garden name with the name I made up. ‘Salmon Sheen’ was ‘garden name Billie’s Scapes’ for years until I learned better. Miss Billie gave me proliferations off hers.
susan said,
May 6, 2011 at 4:37 am
Lovely, lovely. I particularly like Lavender Girl. I think I need to plant more daylilies.
teresa said,
May 9, 2011 at 4:37 am
I love the frilly pink one. I tend to like the “fancy” flowers.
Jeannie said,
May 14, 2011 at 8:25 am
Beautiful! I had no idea Day Lilies could be such fun.
Swimray said,
June 8, 2011 at 9:14 pm
You know, I thought my red daylily was not as vibrant this year as last year, maybe due to weather conditions. I was wondering if others had this issue or if it was in my head. Thanks for verifying my sanity.
-Ray