DAYLILIES ARE AMONG THE MOST REWARDING FLOWERS

For easy summer delight in the flower world choose daylilies.

Beautiful with their bold colors, they are one of the most rewarding flowers of the garden. Best of this flower's excellent qualities is the fact that it is loveliest during the hottest time of the year when other garden flowers (and humans) are wilting.

Bloom displays are not ruined by a day of scorching sun, beating rain or wind, for each morning a completely new set of blossoms opens, fresh and unspoiled. Each remains open only one day, then withers and drops, but every scape or flowering stem carries buds of various sizes that open in sequence over a period of two to three weeks.

Some plants even send up a second or even third set of scapes, provinding reblooms. One can pick individual blossoms and mount them amid green foliage for a startling one day arrangement.

Daylilies can create a striking summer picture in any situation. There is a bank of them blooming on college property above a parking lot on North Henderson, that is a colorful sight. Two or three plants of the same variety will make a clump of color anywhere.

Daylily colors include soft yellow, cream, pink, gold, rose, melon, peach, lavender, purple, red, wine and near white. They bloom from late May into early October.

Their foliage is ornamental all through the growing season, being slender and rising from the ground in graceful form.

Perhaps the nicest thing about daylilies is that they are carefree. Once planted properly in well drained soil in a reasonably sunny location, they are happy with no more attention that just a little fertilizer in the spring. Extra water is a help when the plants are in bud (like now) or during our summer drought.

Another big factor in their favor is that, if blooming time is considered when selecting them, they will brighten your garden for a long period of time. Many catalogs offer groups that will guarantee bloom all season.

Daylilies are ruffled and plain varieties, as well as the so-called "spiders" that open from narrow segments. There are tall daylilies, medium, short ones and dwarfs. The blossoms are "eyed", plain or bi-colored. Some have fragrance, too, an extra bonus and there are also night bloomers making them ideal to take inside for an evening party.

The heights of daylilies very from dwarfs only 18 inches tall to back of the border giants that are six feet tall.

The botanist Arlow B. Stout spent more than 30 years at New York Botanical Garden studying and hybridizing daylilies and was responsible for the breakthrough that produced the first red daylily. Being adventuresome, I had to have a red dwarf one, and found it in Wayside catalog. The billing for it read "Hemorcallis--Pardon Me". At first, that took a bit of thought.

The very first Stella de Oro, which received the 1985 Stout Medal award, was also a surprise. This little lemon yellow dwarf grows only 12 inches in height and sends up scape after scape packed with these charming flowers. A border of Stella was growing around the little cottage at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga., and I felt I just must have some for my own garden. Before they were dug, I inquired the price--$18.50 each. Needless to say, none came back to Missouri.

Like all popular plants, the more there are of them as they are developed, their price comes down.

There is an outstanding planting of Stella de Oro at the First Presbyterian Church Garden on Broadway near downtown.

Some varieties stay popular for many years, such as Hyperion, the ever popular old-timer with large, fragrant lemon yellow blooms on tall scapes. Perhaps it is the best known of all garden hybrids and was created in Fort Wayne, Indiana, by Franklin Mead in 1924. Priced now it is only about $5. The ones in our yard along the back fence came from my mother's garden some 40 years ago.

A story in the recent issue of Harrowsmith Country Life, tells of Daylily farm in Sherman, Connecticut, where a couple ship 20,000 each year. There are many hybridizers and persons who sell daylilies locally.

Daylilies are members of the lily family, but they do not grow from bulbs. They are classified as herbaceous perennials. Their plump, finger-like roots and underground stems form a crown on which the foliage forms a crown from which the foliage and later the flower scapes emerge. As the mounds of arching foliage increase in number, so do the flower stalks.

It is not necessary to divide and transplant old clumps unless they are so crowded they do not bloom well. However, to increase your stock or share plants with friends, all you need to do is dig rooted portions from your old clump.

Enjoy this top perennial for summer color in the garden.