I hope that this holiday season brings you and your family everything that you expect it will.  As our nephew would say (while wearing his Santa hat and big smile), and I quote, "It's a celebration bitches!"
Rest in peace Mitchell.

Poinsettia photo from www.publicdomainpictures.net (David Wagner)

I grow a handful of what I call white daylilies but, in fact, none of them are actually white. They are referred to in the daylily world as 'near white' which means they have an underlying base color of cream, yellow, or pinky/peach. They look white when viewed by themselves, but when you place them next to another flower (a daisy or Asiatic lily perhaps) that is truly white, a 'white' daylily doesn't look so white after all. Hybridizers have been trying for decades to perfect a truly white daylily. They've come very close, but are still trying. 

Here is "Gentle Shepherd," which is the whitest daylily I grow. Gentle Shepherd was originally a division from my friend Roger, many moons ago, when I first became interested in daylilies. Gentle Shepherd is an old-school daylily, hybridized in Georgia, and registered in 1980 by Clarke Yancey. This semi-evergreen daylily can be a bit temperamental in our northern climate. It's not a super-fast multiplier, but I baby it, because it's one of the whitest ones available, even after all these years. The fragrant blooms measure about 5 inches, and it's a multiple award winner. I also like the crepe texture on the petals. So it's safe to say this beautiful 'white' daylily will continue growing (slowly) in my garden for many years to come.

At first "Pumpkin Festival" was what I considered a rescue adoption. Rarely have I bought daylilies from any source other than those I know that are true plant divisions (as opposed to tissue-cultured). But this pretty face stole my heart. There it was in the garden center, blooming forlornly in a small pot, calling out my name. So I took a chance on it and the tiny plant came home with me. If it was tissue-cultured and didn't perform I could ditch it, right?

Well, this gorgeous daylily has thanked me year-after-year for bringing it home. Pumpkin Festival has great bloom performance, muted, yet vibrantly-colored flowers, and winter hardiness. Hybridized by Patrick Stamile, and registered in 1997, this daylily grows about 20-24" tall -- perfect for the front of the border. My Pumpkin Festival turned out not to be tissue-cultured. The nursery where the plant came from (noted on the name tag) had a disclaimer posted online that all the plants were field divisions.

Tissue-cultured plants are created in a lab by taking a few cells from a mother plant and developing new plants (clones). This is an inexpensive way to produce large numbers of plants in a short amount of time. Problem is, tissue-cultured daylilies often do not thrive, or may not look exactly like the mother plants. I once had a tissue-cultured daylily that produced beautiful foliage, but after three years it failed to produce even one bloom. Compost-city for that plant. 

Many large-scale operations sell tissue-cultured daylilies for greater profit. When you see what should be an expensive daylily being sold at a 'cheap-o' price, this could indicate that it has been tissue-cultured. But often, these daylilies can be priced as expensively as the field grown divisions. This is why knowing your source is so important.