Daylilies (<i>Hemerocalllis</i>) are the perfect flowers for the lazy gardener. They’re tough, drought-resistant, and colorful during the difficult high-summer period. They can be transplanted even while in full bloom, and you don’t need to dig a really deep hole either. Finally, since the blooms last for only one day, the unambitious among us don’t need to feel guilty about not bothering with indoor flower arrangments.
Note to Lily: All parts of the plant are edible, even for humans. My dog Zevon says the fresh blossoms are best, but the damp rhizomes (roots) are not to be despised in a pinch.
(Don’t try this with “real” lilies — Asian or Oriental lilies, class <i>Lillium</i>, the ones with the tiny leaves all up the flower stems. Those guys are poisonous. The edible kind, the ones that show up in <i>moo shi</i>, have “strap-like” leaves like ornamental grasses.)
Mnemosyne
Warning for cat owners: lilies are HIGHLY toxic to kitties and can cause kidney failure within 24 hours. I of course remembered this after Keaton decided to take a few nibbles out of one that G. brought home. Fortunately, all it cost us was $1,000 and several days at the vet getting his kidneys flushed out.
KRK
Going to have to disagree with you on this one. Daylilies always look scrubby to me. For a floriferous, nigh-on-indestructible mid-summer perennial, I vote hollyhocks. And all their parts are edible as well.
AnotherBruce
Dammit, Anne Laurie. I want flower porn with a post like this. I don’t want to have to google any seductive pictures that might not be work safe. (As a certifiable macho dude, I don’t want my co-workers to discover me looking at pictures of Lily not related to the Who song.)
But I did look up day-lilies, and they seem like kinda an east of the Rockies thing, perhaps some Northwest gardeners can straighten me out on this. But when it comes to flowers, I’m just not totally straight. I love them all unconditionally.
Church Lady
I absolutely adore daylilies Our backyard is extremely shady and, surprisingly, daylilies thrive, even though they are sun loving plants. My favorite is the ruby stella – gorgeous! We are always so disappointed when the last bud blooms and the show is over until the next summer.
freelancer
not a big flower blogger, I mean, to be honest, I’m not a flower blogger at all, but I do kind of like Aravosis’ orchid blogging. However I’m more of a Bullshit blogger. I find shit and lies and I shine a light on it.
J. Michael Neal, where you at? This movie is amazing.
hamletta
In addition, I have been told by daughters of builders and soil conservationists alike that day lilies are an efficient way to block erosion.
hamletta
Do tiger lilies count as day lilies?
Because I love them. They’re so beautiful, and I always loved throwing the dried out stalks like javelins.
slag
@AnotherBruce: Seconded. More deets for those not in the know, pls!
Delia
I am feeling upset and sad this evening. I got home around five this evening and my next door neighbor told me a strange pit bull had gotten into his backyard and had just killed his cat. He had just called animal control and she got there while we were talking. She went into the yard with her catch pole and brought out two pits, a female and a male, who was the one who had killed the cat. They were pretty submissive and friendly to the animal control officer and she was doing a “good dog” routine on them while she put them in her van. The teen-aged girl who lives on the other side came out, too. I know all the dogs on the street because I’m always walking mine, and I didn’t recognize these two. The officer went back to check on the cat, and she told the owner she’d take care of the body. He was pretty upset. She was talking to him for a while after I went in. I was worried about one of my cats who stays out in the garden during the summer, but I’ve made my fences secure enough to keep Mr. Escape Artist inside, which keeps other dogs out, fortunately.
The cat was a big gray stray who turned up in the neighborhood three or four years ago looking for someone to take him in. He tried to get me to take him at first, but I had a full house, so I was really glad the guys next door gave him a good home. He would still come over sometimes and sleep on my driveway. He was really a sweetheart.
People who don’t take proper care with large potentially aggressive dogs make me really angry (and I say this as a dog lover).
AnotherBruce
My favorite edible flower plant is the Nasturtium. The flowers have a beautiful and somewhat exotic shape. They are very easy to grow from seed if you get them started early and with good drainage and lots of sun can grow quite prolifically. The leaves and flowers are delicious on a summer salad. They have a nice subtle peppery flavor.
KRK
@AnotherBruce:
There are lots of daylilies growing in the PNW. They’re popular in commercial landscaping for the same reason that AnneLaurie recommends them for the lazy gardener: mid-summer color for no fuss. And they don’t mind our dry summers/wet winters.
protected static
For softcore hemerocallis pr0n, how about… this?
In the interests of disclosure, I’ll just say that I’m related to them and leave it at that…
(Edited to add – their previous site was a lot more pr0nographic.)
Arachnae
Day lilies’ blossoms only last a day? What are those things I sometimes purchase at the grocery store’s cut-flower section, that are called day lilies? they look like lilies, they scent up the whole house (which is why I buy them – the scent is divine) and they last and last.
freelancer
@Delia
I’m sorry, that is just a bohica situation to be in. I’m not much of a cat person anymore (a latent allergy to cat hair is the most likely explanation) but growing up, I had a cat named Figaro who was a “2-pet” cat to everyone else in my family, but she loved me almost unconditionally. Cheer up, there are good dog people in the world, you just don’t have any tangible evidence right now.
I’m dog-sitting for my folks, and though I work midshift, these two dogs are on a very set schedule. The older one wakes up at 530am on the dot and starts howling til she’s taken out. Once she’s back in, she barks for no reason for the next 3 hours. Lying in bed, I have thoughts of punching her in the face, but when I get up and see her, my heart still melts. It’s wednesday and I’m very sleep deprived. It’s going to be a long week, but it’s worth it.
AnotherBruce
@KRK:
I probably don’t notice them much because commercial landscapes tend to bore the hell out of me. Which of course is not meant to be a condemnation of Day-Lilies! I’m still learning this stuff and don’t necessarily know the names of what I see.
Steeplejack
@Delia:
So sorry to hear about that. I hate it when innocent animals are harmed.
When I was a teenager, I used to be embarrassed by my mother because if we were driving around and she saw some animal abuse she would stop the car and get into it with the owners. I remember in particular one time when she saw a dog chained up in a yard in the sun. It had turned over its water dish and gotten its chain wrapped around a tree, so it was just panting in one spot with no mobility. She knocked on the door and gave the owner a talking-to until he came out and took the dog inside.
Now I’m just like her in that regard. Let’s see, last time it was some idiot who left a small dog in the car in the heat with the window cranked down about 1 inch. Ugh. If you can’t treat a pet right, don’t get one!
Mornington Crescent
Here’s Mrs. MIller singing The Girl From Ipanema
Linkmeister
We don’t have lilies, but our damned plumeria is dropping blossoms into the pool, and the mango is in one of its “I can produce more than you can eat” seasons. That happens about every five years.
The neighbors’ avocado tree is also dropping fruit, often onto the roof of our shed. That can make a rather startling noise.
ruemara
my garden is wholly given over to food or medicinals. I’m happy to report the heirloom corn is getting taller, as is the moon and stars watermelon vines. Strangely, so is the pumpkin, which I wasn’t expecting so early. As of now, the first slender white teardrop of eggplant is ripening, so this week looks like I’ll be grilling some eggplant and the baby zukes that are bursting forth. Unfortunately, the arugula & cherry tomatoes are still overwhelming the house and I’m all out of people to feed. thus ends my gardening blargh.
MelodyMaker
I have hundreds of these. The orange ones. I call them “Oh, yeah, I did rake there.”
Anne Laurie
AnotherBruce, between the recent malwarez, WP’s recalcitrance, and my own tech-illiteracy, I’ve been hestitant to post at all. But as a sop, these are my favorite hemerocallis-farmers, and not just because they’re a 20-minute drive from our house: R. Seawright Gardens.
KRK, “scrubby” — or, as we call it, “charmingly tousled” — is not a drawback around here. I am not kidding about being a deeply Negligent Gardener; the backbone of our various little bits & patches of dirt are daffodils (narcissi), generic / Siberian irises, and daylilies. The iris and daylily leaves hide the ‘aging’ daffodil foliage, and all three species help disguise the fact that I don’t mow the grass often enough. Also, since I keep ’em crowded, any weeds that do manage to come up are harder to spot. Hollyhocks are nice, but the one time I tried them, they sulked & died within a week. My fault, not theirs, I’m sure.
Hamletta, yeah, tiger lilies are the “generic” daylilies — what all the fancy particolored specimens will revert to, if neglected to interbreed amongst themselves for long enough. Fifteen+ years ago, I bought my first designer hemerocallis because there were tiger lilies growing against the north side of the house we’d just bought, and I figured if they could survive on effectively a couple hours of filtered sun, it was worth experimenting. Those original tigers are still there, too.
Ruemara, you’re making me jealous — I’m still waiting on my first ripe tomato, dammit! Tomatoes & a few herbs in planters are about the limit for our 75-foot-square (less the house, shed, driveway & brick back porch) lot… especially since we’re on 2 different Superfund sites, and the “soil” is heavy clay-ey NE construction fill.
Comrade Kevin
My first Dahlia of the year. I’ve got a couple more which will be opening in the next couple of days.
bago
So myself and a friend had escargot yesterday. The foot of the snail was curled up in a rather Georgia O’Keefe fashion. This made the line from Spartacus that much more amusing.
geg6
I love lilies of all kinds. My second favorite flowers, after tulips. And I hate to bring politics into the thread, but Gail Collins’ column today is a thing of beauty almost as beautiful as a day lily. But much, much snarkier.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Nerd Note: Day lily buds are slightly carcinogenic so they should be eaten in moderation. (Steamed like green beans, yum!)
2th&nayle
@Anne Laurie: I know what you mean about waiting impatiently for tomatoes. I have six potted mater plants that would not set blooms (probably imbalance of nitrogen). Finally applied an apple juice solution and they started to produce blooms within about a week. After reading your post from this morning I was inspired to go check on them and give them a drink of water and imagine my surprise when I found about a dozen 2-3″ baby tomatoes laying on the shade cloth I put under the planters (the plants were too top heavy to stake). While I was at it I filled up my bird feeders and the bird bath, then came in a got a cup of coffee and went out on the porch to watch the sun come up. Only then did I realize all I had on was a pair of boxer shorts. I’m sure my neighbors think I’ve gone completely around the bend.
madmommy
As an extremely neglectful gardener, I can attest to the fact that day-lillies are quite self-sufficient. I planted 3 bulbs in my front yard, south facing, three years ago. I now have nearly 40 plants that will need separating this fall. I live in the tropical south, and my lillies bloom in late April-early May. Though for some odd reason one plant has just put up a stalk with buds that should bloom out in the next few days. Very strange.
DBrown
You missed the easiest flower to grow that is eatable – dandelions. Both the flower and leaves are eatable as a salad and are even nutritious. They’re easy to grow (I always seem to have a large crop in my lawn) but for some reason this summer I can’t find any (not because I used a damn weed killer, either.) This reminds me of last year when the trees across the East provided no acorns. I’m not seeing any dandelions around and wonder if this is occurring elsewhere.
J.
Speaking (or writing) of dogs, was very sad to hear that Gidget, the erstwhile star of many Taco Bell ads (“Yo quiero Taco Bell”), died Tuesday night. Ay chihuahua, yet another celebrity death!
Steeplejack
@2th&nayle:
This is how you start to build your reputation as the crazy old guy on the block.
evolutionary
Tiger lilies are true lilies with leaves all the way up the stem and little bulbils in the leaf axils which will grow into new plants if they are detached and placed on the ground. They are not day lilies (i.e. Hemerocallis of various cultivated varieties.
Both are invasine non-natives which should not be let out of gardens into the wild.
Dork
My favorite flower is that which makes pizza crust.
2th&nayle
@Steeplejack: Yes, fortunately over the years, I’ve laid a firm foundation on which to build that reputation. I’m fairly established as ‘that crazy old hippy’ around the community, it’s only the relatively new arrivals that require indoctrination. Fairly sure the neighbors that happen to drive by going to work probably thought I was out watering my ‘herbage’. For whatever good effect or bad, I gave that up years ago.
bob h
Gardening is a sore subject with me now as many of the new plants I put in this Spring seem to have just rotted and died in the Summer rains afflicting the NE. The soil just cannot dry out.
A Mom Anon
I know they have a rep as a funeral flower(so do lillies now that I think about it),but I love gladiolas. I have one called “Comet”that is purple and yellow that’s so pretty.
I also have a thing for purple coneflowers(echinacea),they seem to thrive on neglect. Instead of a bulb,they have a little rhizome like thing,so there’s no seeds/seedlings to contend with.
Cris
On the topic of edible, low-maintenance flowering perennials, I heartily endorse Monarda. The foliage smells like oregano (to which it is related) but the blossoms have a nectar that is sublime.
HRA
Twenty years ago my brother-in-law gave me 2 buckets of daylilies. Today I have what could easily be stated as a daylily farm. Every year I dig and transplant daylilies. I found out the best place to transplant them is around tree trunks.
Since we are sloped from the back boundary, I planted an abundance of them across the fence line to help control the drainage. They have been blooming for 2 weeks.
I have 9 large flower beds and several potted plants as well. I go through phases of what I buy to add to them. The last 2 years I have been buying ornamental grasses. This year I added more hydrangeas.
Right now the trumpet vines are producing huge flowers. The asian lilies have gotten very tall and huge, too.
Steeplejack
@2th&nayle:
For me it was the gazing globe in the front yard and the weird carpentry projects in the driveway. That and the absence of wife, kids, dog, SUV, etc.
rachel
@DBrown: Just be careful how many you eat. The Middle English name for dandelion was “piss-a-bed” for a reason.
NutellaonToast
Pics or GTFO (of the flowers I mean) :).
BongCrosby
You have a dog named Zevon?
Be still, my beating heart.
Anne Laurie
A 15lb rescue papillon who earned that name the hard way — he’s a very cool wolfy-lookin’ dude, but we have to stay alert for his crazy self-destructive streak.