When you and your plants are wilting in the summer heat, it’s a pleasure to have no-fuss bloomers brightening your garden with little effort. Versatile daylilies serve as a bridge between seasons in the perennial bed, blossoming in a multitude of colors, forms, and heights. Best known for a trumpet shape, the more than 13,000 cultivars of daylilies can be now found rounded or ruffled, pinched and curled, with spidery trails or with fluffy cascades of petals, with each flower blooming for a single day. Some varieties boast dozens of blooms per stem. Everblooming and reblooming varieties extend the show throughout the summer, with brief rests between new waves of blooms. Daylily petals and pods with their spicy taste, can dress up a salad.
Daylilies can range from foot-high front-of-the-border features to towering six-foot back-bed fencerows of color, depending on the cultivar. So be sure to plant accordingly. Space them at least a foot apart to allow for them to multiply. As they multiply over the years, you’ll want to dig up the clumps and separate them to ensure good blooms. Either plant the divisions in your expanding garden beds, or share with friends and family.
To help whittle down your choices, look for them in full bloom in the Lititz front yard of Jim and Sue Stauffer. These avid daylily growers open their trial beds to the public each year. Bursting with nearly 130 different varieties, the blooms will be on display until the 18th. The couple will be hosting open houses at 315 East Woods Drive, Lititz this weekend and next, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Private garden tours can also be arranged for garden clubs and civic groups.