A Color Turn on With Daylilies By Thomas Fyrd

My experience with Daylilies began for me in my West Virginia garden. Although there had been gardening of the most delightful nature during the ten years we lived in Chile, South America, there had been no daylilies. When we returned to West Virginia the only daylilies I found at that time were the common roadside one and the sweet old lemon lily treasured for very early flowers. Each year they were among the first to bloom and will mingle sweet scented, light yellow flowers among nodding bells of snowflakes, spikes of white fraxinella and blue-starred spikes of camassia.

Then a friend who lived in their backyard landscape and garden selected for me a number to give successive bloom. That was a revelation, for previously I'd thought the daylily bloomed only in late June and for only a short time.

One of those selected was a good old-time variety cherished because it is in flower long before any of the so-called "early" ones of more recent introduction. This was the first to open of the list selected. It added so much interest among self-sown drifts of white sweet rocket.

An additional extra early sort was had which grew in grassy clumps and sent up bright golden orange to orange flowers along a border's edge.

Some years after I planted in my small backyard the first assortment I discovered two more early flowering varieties and hybrids. They were not so tall in the garden as many others. They flowered abundantly beside rich purple Iris virginica. Each flower of one variety added a dash of spice with novel black buds and stems among brown red flowers.

When established, 'Troy Hills,' a newcomer, rivaled many of the older ones for early flowering. This novelty was one of the most strikingly and vividly colored of the newer ones tried. The basic color is deep orange. Then there is a contrasting midzone of brown to deep maroon. Even on a small new plant the blooms have been plentiful.

Daylilies changed my world of outdoor gardening and the landscape with their beautiful bouquet of flowers allowing me to enjoy them from spring to fall.

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