Who doesn’t want to enhance their garden with colorful daylilies blooming all day long? This is the right place for you if you are among such people.
As with most perennials that bloom in the summer, the best time to plant daylilies is in the spring, late summer, or fall. But if you require it, you can plant them in the middle of summer or the winter. When you plant daylilies in March or April, they have time to settle and bloom in the summer.
Starting with plant pots is the easiest way to add daylilies to your garden. All you have to do is dig a hole and put the plant in it. But, first, let’s find more details about planting daylilies!
When Should You Plant Daylilies?
Large, showy flowers in a rainbow of blazing hues adorn daylilies (Hemerocallis), a must-have perennial for the backyard during the summer.
Their elegant blooms, which look like amaryllis or lilies, might make you think they’re hard to grow, but they’re not. Instead, they’re easy, sturdy plants that anyone can take care of.
It’s better to plant daylilies early in the spring so that they may have a good start before the summer heat gets to them. However, if you live in a place where winters are mild, you can also plant after the hottest days of summer have passed.
Even in the depths of winter, you may plant daylilies and have them flourish in any season of the year. However, daylilies planted in the fall should be covered with mulch to stop frost heaving in the winter. And plant your daylilies as soon as you get them.
But if they are kept for more than a few days, soak the roots for an hour in water before planting. It is possible to plant container-grown daylilies in the ground at any time of the year. If you put them in the ground in the spring, they will spend the summer and fall getting established.
Those planted in the fall need to get into the ground as soon as possible to settle. The following spring will be the end of their setup phase.
Daylily Varieties
What do you know about daylilies? Do you know that they come in hundreds of varieties? They are of different sizes, shapes, and colors. Let’s look at some of them in more depth below.
Stella De Oro Daylilies
One of the most prominent examples of this flower is the Stella de Oro daylily. It stays small and grows quickly, making some of the brightest flowers in any garden.
This tiny daylily has golden trumpets with rough edges and leaves that look like blades. Each flower can be as wide as seven centimeters and lasts at least 16 hours.
Yellow Daylily
This trumpet-shaped, bright yellow flower is also called a lemon daylily. The flower petals are very bright and add a nice splash of color to both gardens and vases of cut flowers.
Little Grapette’s Daylily
One-flowered Hemerocallis “Little Grapette” blooms in the late afternoon with a greenish-yellow eye and tiny flowers the color of grape juice. It grows to a height of 18″. Zones 4-10.
Daylily “Bright Sunset”
Hemerocallis’ Bright Sunset’ has flowers that smell like copper and are orange with a golden yellow edge. Zones 3-9.
Daylily of Hyperion
Hemerocallis’ Hyperion’ has large, single, lemon-yellow flowers that smell wonderful and open in the evening. It gets to be 4 feet high. Zones 3-9.
Pandora’s Box
As a reblooming early midseason evergreen, ‘Pandora’s Box’ is also a good choice. The flowers are white with a purple center and are 4 inches across. They grow on a plant that is 20 inches tall.
How to Plant Daylilies?
Usually, daylilies are grown in pots, but you can buy bare-root daylilies online and plant them from November to March.
Potted
So that the plant’s crown is level with your border’s soil, dig out a hole just an inch or two deeper than the roots and fill it with compost or other organic matter before placing the potted daylily into the hole. Repeat this process until the daylily is ideally situated in its new location.
Bare-root
If you’re planting bare-root daylilies in a pot, keep them in a warm, sheltered place, like a greenhouse, until they have a few leaves. This is a good sign that they’re ready to be planted. Then, once the last frost has passed, move them.
Planting Tips
They do best with at least 6 hours of sun a day, but they will grow in full or partial sun. If you want to produce red or deep purple daylilies, try to keep them out of the sun during the hottest part of the day.
They also love a little bit of acidic soil, but they will grow in most garden soils as long as they are not too wet. Daylilies can grow in many different soil types, from clay to sand.
Depending on the size of the plant, daylily spacing can be anywhere from 12 to 18 inches. However, even with the many choices for daylilies, the general rule is to use a 12-inch spacing when planting smaller (1-1.5 foot tall) kinds and an 18-inch spacing when planting bigger (2 foot and up) varieties.
Growing Daylilies in Pots
Can you grow daylilies in pots? Certainly, daylilies do well in pots as long as there is enough room to grow. The better they grow in a pot, the smaller the variety (some are small ones). You shouldn’t plant full-sized daylilies in smaller pots than a gallon.
You can buy incredible pots for planting your favorite daylilies, such as Rivet Geometric Ceramic Planter Pot (on Amazon).
If daylilies in pots are left out in the cold without protection, they might not make it. The best way to do this is to grow them in pots in the summer and then move them into the garden in the fall. You could also store the containers in a protected area.
Plants in pots dry out faster, so you’ll require watering daylilies in pots when the top few inches of soil are dry. During the hottest part of the summer or drought, you may need to water your daylilies daily.
How often the plant needs water depends on the type of pot and how much sun it gets, so check the soil and water as needed.
Maintaining Daylily Plants
Daylilies bloom best when planted in moist, well-drained soil in full sun (6 hours a day). If you live in a hot area, give dark-colored cultivars some afternoon shade to help them keep their color. If you plant daylilies in the right place, they will bloom for years with little care.
Light
Daylilies need at least six hours of full sun daily to grow well. So a little shade in the afternoon will keep them healthy in scorching climates. However, darker kinds demand midday shade to keep their color in warmer areas.
Soil
Even though daylilies can grow in any soil, they do best in one that is rich and crumbly. Just make sure the soil is moist. Soil that is too dry could be sandy or clay. By adding compost, it can hold on to more water. Also, make sure the area drains well to stop root rot.
Watering
The most important thing for growing healthy, beautiful daylilies is water. Watering your daylilies once a week during the growing season is ideal for them. In many places, most of that amount will come from rain regularly.
Fertilizing
Daylilies do well in garden soil that is at least a bit rich. But a little extra fertilizer can make a big difference. If you only fertilize once in a season, do it when the daylily’s new top growth appears in early spring. Then, spread a handful of any fertilizer around the base of each clump of daylilies.
Common Pests and Prevention
The good news is that daylilies don’t have many pests, and the ones that do can only do minor damage. And if your daylilies are giving you trouble and it’s not because of pests, it could be because of diseases.
Common Pests
- Aphids
- Spider Mites
- Thrips
- Snails and slugs
Spider mites are one of the most common pests of daylilies. Even though they are most active when it is hot and dry, you can get rid of some of them by spraying them with a hose. If you have to, you can use a Kelthane-free pesticide since the chemical is terrible for daylilies.
Common diseases
Some diseases are easy for a home gardener to spot, like rust, but others, like crown and root rot, are harder.
- Leaf Spot
- Rusty daylily
- Root-Knot Nematode
- Slow Decay
Perennial daylilies are one of the toughest around, and they have a high level of disease resistance. But a daylily’s leaves could turn brown after it blooms in the summer.