Some plant nurseries and  big box stores have been known to sell daylilies with 'garden' names or no names at all, with perhaps only their color printed on the sales tag. Does it matter if you buy unnamed or unregistered daylilies, or should you only buy those registered with the American Daylily Society?

There are three schools of thought on this topic:

1. Who cares? If the plant is pretty and it gives me pleasure, I could care less if it has a name. Furthermore, I don't display name tags by my daylilies.
2. I only plant registered, named daylilies in my garden. Unregistered daylilies are not eligible for any American Daylily Society (ADS) awards or can't be mentioned in the ADS Journal. I appreciate knowing who hybridized my plant, if it has won any awards, and its parentage. I like having all the available statistics about my plants. Before I buy any daylily I research it thoroughly in the ADS Daylily Database. And I love name tags!
3. Both option #1 and #2 work for me.

As you can probably tell from my blogs, I fall into the #2 category. Where do you stand on this topic?

Daylily pictured: Bill Tonn

Mother Nature is holding out on us. I can't believe it's almost July in Wisconsin and only two or three of my daylilies are blooming. This has to be the latest bloom season ever. The anticipation is killing me! Let the whining commence.

A daylily is a flowering plant in the genus Hemerocallis. The name Hemerocallis comes from the Greek words "day" and "beautiful." The individual flowers only last one day, but plants typically open successive blooms over a period of four to five weeks, some even longer.

The old-fashioned orange daylilies that you see growing in roadside ditches are native to east Asia, where they had been cultivated for one thousand years. They have long been popular with the Chinese for their edible and medicinal properties. In the 16th century, European traders carried them home and daylilies became a common sight in many homestead gardens. These orange lilies eventually spread from the gardens and took over the countryside.

Despite being around for years, daylilies weren’t cultivated much in America until the 20th century. Dr. Arlow Stout, a botanist in New York, became fascinated with the flowers. He spearheaded a breeding program and was responsible for hybridizing at least 100 new varieties. In 1934, he published Daylilies, the definitive book on the subject. He is known as the 'father of the modern daylily.'

Daylilies have come a long way from their invasive ancestors. Today's hybridizers have catapulted daylilies to a new level of perfection, with over 94,000 different cultivars currently registered.

Information from:  https://blog.gardeningknowhow.com/tbt/learn-some-daylily-plant-history/

Daylily pictured: Jerry Hyatt

Daylily obsession typically arrives in degrees. It slowly creeps up on you. When does the realization hit that you may have an addiction? Here are 20 common indicators:

1. Your backyard vegetable garden has disappeared. Dozens of daylilies have replaced the veggies. The farmer's market is where you find your vegetables nowadays.
   
2. You get rid of other perennials to make room for daylilies.
3. Sections of your lawn have been removed to make larger daylily beds. Easier to mow, right?
4. You attend a daylily sale, promising yourself that you'll buy no more than eight new cultivars.  But when you get home, somehow an additional 20 daylilies have hitched a ride.
5. Online daylily purchasing is fun, easy, and you partake often.
   
6. You have started growing seedlings in your basement.
7. You routinely trade daylily divisions with other enthusiasts.
8. On rainy days you create and work with daylily spreadsheets on Google.
9. You are compelled to make plant tags and labels for your daylilies.
10. You lie in bed at night orchestrating transplant maneuvers in your mind for the following day.
11. Your partner tells you they are sick of hearing about daylilies.
12. Proliferations grow  on your window sills.
13. No one has to wonder what to get you for your birthday. Duh!
14. You spend hours online researching what daylilies *need* to go on your wish list.
15. You own at least one or two daylily attire items.
16. You have friends and neighbors who also have daylily gardens. Prior to meeting you they had no idea that daylilies even existed. 
17. You remove trees and bushes on your property to get rid of the excess shade.
    
18. You are forced to hold a daylily sale because you must make room for more new daylilies.
19. You plan vacation road trips around garden visits to daylily hybridizers.
20. And finally, you must have the latest daylily buzz so you become a member of both your local daylily club and the American Daylily Society.

How many of these indicators should you admit to before you are considered a daylily addict? Good question! I'll venture to say that at least five true statements indicate you've started walking down that path ;) And myself? I'm definitely in trouble for the simple reason that I am familiar with each and every indicator, but I'm not admitting that they're all mine...

Daylily pictured: 'Something Angelic'

2020 was uncharted territory for me in more ways than I could have ever imagined.

I've learned:

• I am blessed with some over-the-top, amazing people in my life who mean the world to me.
• guarantees are for appliances.
• not to stray too far from the 'here and now.'
• that potato chips, brownies and soda in one sitting is not a good idea (even though my 'here and now' self would disagree).
• you can deal with difficulty whether or not you have courage.
• gratitude is necessary.
• it's all about perspective.
  
• the fortune-teller was wrong.
• material items live low on the totem pole.
• finally, and of utmost importance, it ain't so bad that it can't get worse.

Pictured: A quaint storefront I passed by in Bath, England.

Every entity has its own set of terms and acronyms, and daylilies are no different. Daylily details can be very helpful when purchasing plants because it helps you narrow down exactly what characteristics you want, to avoid disappointment later. (Perhaps you want only a late-season blooming daylily, for example.) Many of these terms are listed on a daylily's name tag, or if you purchase online some or all of the registration information is typically included.

This list is in no way comprehensive, but it does cover the most commonly used terms and acronyms that I've come across.

So here's the 411...

Hybridizer:  The person who bred the hybrid daylily by hand pollination, and in most cases introduced or registered it with the American Daylily Society

Ploidy:  The number of sets of chromosomes of the daylily

• DIP: A diploid daylily has two complete sets of chromosomes in each cell, 22 chromosomes
• TET: A tetraploid daylily has four complete sets of chromosomes in each cell, 44 chromosomes

Tetraploids are typically more sturdy with heavier petal substance, while diploids are more delicate and graceful in appearance. When hybridizing, a diploid cannot be crossed with a tetraploid and vice-versa.

Foliage:  This refers to whether the foliage stays green instead of dying back through the fall and winter

• DOR: This daylily foliage becomes dormant in the winter
• SEV: This daylily has semi-evergreen foliage
• EV: This daylily has evergreen foliage

Fan - A complete division of the plant which consists of leaves, crown and roots
SF/DF = Single Fan/Double Fan
Scape - The flower stalk above the crown
Scape Height - The mature average scape height

Bloom Season: Approximate time of flowering (determined by the hybridizer at their location; this may vary slightly if you live in a different location)

• EE - Extra Early
• E - Early
• EM - Early-Midseason
• M - Midseason
• ML - Mid-to-Late season
• L - Late season
• VL - Very Late

Bloom Terms:

• CMO - Cold Morning Opener - Some daylilies are reluctant to open if it's cold. CMOs are great for those of us in northern growing zones
• DBL/Double  - A daylily which has additional petals and or sepals. Single daylilies have only three petals and three sepals. Doubles are layered or have the extra petals/sepals sticking up into the air
• EMO - Early Morning Opener
• EXT - Extended Bloom - Flowers which stay open over an extended period of time
• FFO -First Flower Open - Usually the first flower of the season for a particular plant
• FR - Fragrant - Most daylilies don't have much fragrance but a small percentage do
• Miniature  - Daylilies with flowers less than three inches
• NOC - Nocturnal - This is a daylily that opens or begins to open late afternoon or in the night
• POLY - Polymerous (outdated term was Polytepal) - A daylily which has four or more petals and four or more sepals in a flat whorl
• RE - Rebloomer - A daylily that will rebloom and send up new scapes later in the season. This happens more often for early bloomers, or for plants that have a longer growing season
• Spider  - A flower that has petals at least four times longer than the width of the petals
• UF/UFO -  This is a daylily that has unusual characteristics on three sepals or petals

Daylilies pictured: 'Webster's Pink Wonder' and 'Lounge Lizard'

Guilty! Luckily, each daylily I bought just for the name turned out to be an amazing plant! Here are six of my 'I love the name' daylilies (pictured in alphabetical order):

• 'House of Misrepresentatives' - Enough said
• 'Legislating Life' - Because we have an attorney in our family
• 'Lounge Lizard' - Who could resist that name? And I have to wonder if one evening this daylily will escape and make a beeline for the bars.
  
• 'She's Got Legs' - Gotta luv ZZ Top!
• 'Three Bad Pigs' - This cute name always makes me smile. What mischief will it get into?
• 'Waxed Legs' - I love waxy-textured daylilies, so I took a chance on this one and was immensely pleased. The name couldn't be more perfect.

What about you? Have you bought any daylilies based solely on their name?

Here are a few daylily hacks that have helped me grow healthy daylilies over the years:

• When bare root daylily divisions are purchased, I always soak them in a 10 to 1 bleach solution (10 cups of water to one cup of bleach) for an hour or two to sanitize them.
  
• After bleaching, I wash the plants thoroughly with a clean water spray.
• I typically hydrate newly purchased divisions overnight in a bucket in preparation for planting the following morning. If they have been shipped, it may have been 6-8 days without water for the plants.
• Cut the division foliage to about 4-6" above the roots. The daylily can focus on root growth instead of foliage growth.
• To accelerate root growth of new divisions, I plant them in a dark black plastic pot and place the pot on my warm patio brick. In about one month the pot is usually filled with new roots. At that time I plant the daylily in its permanent spot.
• This one's easy. I keep a huge black garbage bag full of dried up manure stored in a big garbage can that's hidden behind the garage. I routinely sprinkle dried manure around my daylilies - they love it!
• Be sure to deadhead the old daylily blooms. It's discouraging to find a pink bloom in a clump of yellow blooms. A seed from a dried up pod can fall into a clump and grow a completely new plant in the middle of your old one. Worst of all you may not discover it for two or three years until the new plant ultimately blooms. By that time, it's well established and you will have to dig the entire plant out and do surgery to remove the interloper. Not fun, in case you're wondering.
• I plant temperamental/finicky  daylilies by the house for protection or in a terraced area surrounded by rocks for extra warmth over the winter.
• When you initially plant new daylilies, be sure to give them at least 2-3 feet of space between each other. I know a double fan division looks tiny and you may be tempted to put two plants in that one space -- resist doing that at all costs! I guarantee it will save you extra digging in a year or two.
  
  

Pictured: Daylilies 'Wayne Felgar' with 'Heavenly Starbrite' in the background

As much as I love my daylilies, Picky-Patty-Me harbors a few pet peeves. Here are my top ten:

• Daylilies that multiply too fast. Sounds crazy, right? Truth is, I get tired of dividing the same plant every year or so, and then trying to re-home the discards. (Why can't I just throw them in the ditch?) At one point in time, I'm pretty sure every friend I've ever had received a division of 'Mary Todd.'
• Blooms that have poor substance and slick-off in the sun (wet, slimy blooms).  In my 100% sun yard that calls for instant removal.
• Scapes that droop and/or fall over. I refuse to prop up any plant in my garden. Away you go!
• Daylily bloom petals that canoe (when the flower petals turn inwards) Ick!
• A cultivar that puts out exceptionally beautiful blooms alongside of inconsistent blooms. Why put up with that? There are thousands and thousands of daylilies available that always have consistent, beautiful blooms; those are the ones I keep.
• Some daylilies have roots that are so densely woven together and tangled up that I have had to resort to a small saw to get divisions!  It must be genetics, because most daylily roots are not saw-worthy.
• Daylilies that periodically send out traveling roots to new fans that are far away from the mother plant. Then Picky-Me has to dig out the traveling fan to keep the plant contained in its allotted garden space.
• Plants that bloom inside of their foliage instead of above the foliage.
  
• Ratty foliage. Enough said.
• Daylilies that exhibit scape blasting. I've had some cultivars that routinely did this every year. I've said goodbye to all of them but one, and that daylily (Virginia B. Hanson) is so perfect in all other aspects that she gets a pass.

Here are some of my experiences that make up the ever-present irony of daily life. Do any sound familiar?

1. Good news....free samples of pizza at the grocery store
   Bad news...it's 'breakfast' pizza - no wonder they give it away
   
2. Good news...the grocery store offers an insanely cheap price on an item
   Bad news...you have to buy 10 of them to get the cheap price
3. Good news...you are given a *free* car wash token
   Bad news...while going through the car wash,  your rear windshield wiper gets ripped off, never to be seen again
   
4. Good news...while shopping you finally locate a public restroom
   Bad news...there's not a shred of toilet paper to be found anywhere
   
5. Good news...it's Saturday
   Bad news...your alarm clock woke you up at 5 am because you, while on auto-pilot, activated it the night before
6. Good news...you are having friends over for dinner
   Bad news...you forgot to press start on the dishwasher full of dirty dishes
7. Good news...a dog-walker dutifully carries their plastic bag
   Bad news...when his dog did the deed, the dog-walker did a 360 to see if anyone noticed; he assumed no one did and continued on his way. The plastic bag must have been a fashion accessory.
   
8. Good news...you spent $150 at the grocery and replenished every item you wanted
   Bad news...except for the one item you desperately needed to make your evening meal
9. Good news...you bought ten beautiful perennials you couldn't resist
   Bad news...not one empty space was available in your garden
10. Good news...gasoline prices are at an all-time low
    Bad news...you're 'sheltering at home' and your travels are limited

I'm often glad I live out in the country, because I'd be the first to admit that I can get very distracted while outside gardening. I sometimes find myself just sitting still with my eyes closed so I can hear the birds, feel the wind in my hair, or enjoy the warm sun on my face. If I had close neighbors they'd probably wonder what I was doing.

Weeding, after all, is not the most rewarding garden activity. I can easily be distracted from weeding -- fill that bunny hole, stomp down that mole tunnel, remove the Japanese beetles from my plants, or run to get my camera or phone to capture that perfect photo I can visualize. Some days (or should I say most days) weeding can take way longer than expected.

But I don't think that's a bad thing; it's all part of what we enjoy about the garden experience. And on a positive note...it's great for your well-being.

Pictured: Daylily 'Grey Witch'

If you talk, sing, or play music to your plants, will they respond? Does it help them grow?

I read an interesting article "The Intelligent Plant" written by Michael Pollan and published in The New Yorker. According to the article, plants have the ability to sense and react to the world. For instance, when plants were played a recording of a caterpillar chewing on a leaf, they reacted by secreting a defensive chemical, just as though they were threatened. Pollan also states that plants can sense gravity, the presence of water, and can adjust/shift the direction of growing roots when it senses there is an obstruction (a rock, perhaps).

The Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters explored the possibility that plants respond to sound and/or speech. They set up seven greenhouses, four of which were equipped with stereos playing looped recordings. Two were of negative speech, while two were of positive speech. The fifth greenhouse had classical music playing, while the sixth had heavy death metal. A seventh greenhouse, set up as the control, had no music. The team found that the plants in the four greenhouses with recordings grew faster than the control plants with no music, but the plants in the greenhouses with music grew even faster than the negative and positive speech. Surprisingly, the plants in the greenhouse exposed to heavy death metal music grew the best of all!

Bottom line: Talk and sing to your plants; complain, yell, and scream...just don't give them the silent treatment.

New Yorker article "The Intelligent Plant"
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent-plant
Discovery Mythbusters (Episode #23 aired November 15,  2004)

Pictured: Daylily 'Black Falcon Ritual'

Recently I passed by a home that had a ginormous resin cow in the front yard. The homeowner had tied a chain around the cow and wrapped the chain around a tree trunk with a padlock. Cows are big here in Wisconsin! This is yard art at its best!

You've all seen yard whimsy gone wild, yes? It's that yard that has one too many flamingos and somehow crosses the invisible line between tasteful and tacky. It stops you in your tracks to gape at in disbelief. Thoughts I ponder when I see yard whimsy gone wild:

• How do the homeowners cut the grass? Clearly, in many cases, a lawnmower isn't an option. Do they just go around the entire yard with a weed-whipper?  I once saw a man on his hands and knees trimming his yard with a hand clipper so as not to disturb his yard art.
  
• Can there be too much of a good thing?
• Does the inside of the home resemble the whimsy-fest that's happening on the outside?
• Rock on yard whimsy! Keep the smiles coming :) Wouldn't life be boring if we all liked and did the same thing?