This time I want to talk about flowers such as daylilies. Planting and care, reproduction - are there any difficulties growing for an ordinary grower? I had not thought about this before, but once, one of the online stores sent me a catalog of vegetable seeds. There, in addition to seeds, photos of numerous varieties of flowers, tubers, bulbs, shoots were presented - all this could be ordered. I can’t say that daylilies I saw for the first time. No, of course, I knew there was such a flower. But then she was struck by a huge number of photos of daylilies, the magnificence of their colors.
The flowers were so diverse that it was difficult to choose, one, the most beautiful. The color of daylily flowers ranged from pure white, through all shades of yellow and orange, to burgundy and almost black. Simple, corrugated, with or without a border, with a contrasting color of the flower core, a gentle transition to a lighter or, on the contrary, a darker one on the petals, with a different flower shape ... There were photos of tall daylilies and miniature, low. Honestly, I did not expect such a great variety!
Of course, I made an order, and later received a parcel with two roots. But I was not lucky - the package went for a very long time, the roots were poorly packed, they managed to dry out. No resuscitation measures could revive them. For two years I “forgot” about daylilies, was afraid of a repetition of failure.
But, as often happens, the case helped! I once visited my aunt - in the front garden of her neighbor I saw two blooming daylilies. The rest can not be told, you guessed it yourself - I was presented with two large roots.
Now two daylilies grow in my country house. For some reason they didn’t bloom for the first year, but this year they blossomed! Each plant has formed only one peduncle, but I'm still thrilled!
Daylilies in the garden, what I know about them
This is a perennial from the lily family. The botanical name is hemerocallis. Folk - Krasnodar. The second is more accurate, since the flower is very beautiful, blooms only during the day, but this is my free translation from the folk language.
True, there is one old variety - daylily lemon yellow (Hemerocallis citrina) - it blooms at night, blooms until the middle of the next day. This is a tall (up to 1.2 m), abundantly flowering plant with numerous elegant, pleasantly smelling flowers of lemon yellow color.
By the way, I gathered very interesting information from one video about daylilies. It turns out that Karel Čapek, a Czech prose writer, playwright, science fiction writer, called him "the dream of a lazy intellectual."
And the ancients called it the flower of oblivion, since it was believed that by inhaling the aroma of this flower you can forget about earthly sorrows.
True, not all varieties have a smell. For my daylilies, for example, the smell is faint, audible if only a flower is brought to the nose. But, according to the many enthusiastic reviews of gardeners, there are very fragrant varieties with a pleasant smell that spreads throughout the garden in the evenings.
With the shape of a flower, daylily looks very much like a lily, but it does not have a bulb, but there is a short rhizome with a thick bunch of thick roots similar to strings. The leaves are long like cereals, but all grow from the root. There are several flowers on a high peduncle. There are sessile flowers, that is, everything grows as if from one place, and there are, as I have, they grow on the side pedicels. Usually on young daylilies there is one or two peduncles, but with age the bush grows, the number of peduncles increases every year.
The life span of each flower is one day. On the one hand, this is a drawback - you will not have time to stop looking at it, and the next day a wilted flower already lies on the ground. But daylilies, whose age is at least three years old, have many flower stalks, that is, this shortcoming is compensated by the duration of the flowering of the whole plant as a whole (at least three weeks), unless, of course, it grows for more than three years. In daylilies growing for more than a year, it happens that the number of peduncles on one plant reaches 7-10.
What else I liked was that at my daylilies faded flowers in the evening or at night fall themselves, do not spoil their appearance with a bush of blossoming new flowers. But, if this does not happen, then it is necessary to pick off withered flowers. Seeds should not be allowed to form, as this can reduce the number of flowers, the timing of their flowering.
History of the appearance of modern daylilies
It turns out that breeders' real interest in daylily manifested itself when, after special treatment of wild varieties with colchicine, the first varieties appeared that were able to show decorative traits that evoke real admiration. This happened at the beginning of the twentieth century.
After that, the variety of varieties began to increase rapidly. Now the number of varieties, hybrids of daylily more than 70 thousand. But this is an inaccurate figure, as hundreds of new varieties appear every year. At the same time, the unpretentiousness of daylilies in the process of selection tests almost did not suffer.
I think that any florist who has such flowers in his garden cannot complain about their capricious disposition.
Growing daylilies - care, reproduction, planting
Caring for them is very simple, does not require much time. Daylilies can grow on any soil, except perhaps too acidic. But this is not a problem - just liming and boldly plant flowers. For planting, give preference to open, bright areas, otherwise flowering will begin two weeks later than usual. In addition, flowers will be larger in the sun.
But in the conditions of the Kuban hot, dry summer, I would not advise planting daylilies in the open sun. Let the sun illuminate them only half a day, at least six hours, it is better from morning to noon, and for the rest of the time they will be in the shade.
Orange daylilies are common in the Kuban, I don’t know what this variety is called correctly, most likely this is a wild bird. It is in almost every yard or front garden.
One warning! Do not plant varietal daylilies next to these orange wild plants, as pollination can occur and all daylilies will be wild.
I repeat once again that care for daylilies is minimal: watering, loosening, top dressing.
Remember, at the beginning I mentioned that my daylilies did not bloom for the first year, and this year they gave only one peduncle. I think this happened because I never fertilized them at all.
Experts advise in the period from August 1 to August 15, that is, after the daylilies have faded, add potassium sulfate, superphosphate so that their root system develops very powerful, so that the flower buds are laid in more than one peduncle (like mine), but in a few. But in spring, daylilies do not feed, otherwise we will get a lush bush without peduncles.
Daylilies reproduce by dividing the bush. This is best done in early spring. And if there was a need to do this in the fall, then the bush should be divided into larger parts, cutting off all the leaves before it, so that the plant better takes root in a new place.
Before planting, add 1 teaspoon of potassium sulfate to the planting pit.
By the way, daylilies are super perennial plants. In one place, they can grow well, bloom profusely for 15-20 years. Of course, daylily in the garden will look very impressive if the bush is lush, and there will be a lot of peduncles.
Daylilies - diseases and pests
I read a lot about daylilies. Everywhere the emphasis is on their unpretentiousness, resistance to disease, pests. Below you can watch the video - the opinion of its author is exactly the opposite. I will not retell the content, but I advise you to look through it. Useful information will help you avoid many troubles when growing daylilies.