Daylilies!

The daylilies are blooming with gusto now, even with the high temps and no rain that we have been having.  I would reckon that is why you see them at the old homesteads, cottage gardens and even growing alongside the roads.  They are one of the most dependable, carefree and hardiest of all flowers.  Not to mention they're also pretty!  I've got one yellow plant but the majority of mine are the oldtimey orange ones.  A batch of them, in reality the back of a pickup full, was given to me from a good friend.  The other batch were from dad and mom's old place, where mom had planted them running along her split rail fence.  My dad cussed every time he had to mow that area because he had to be careful and not cut down mom's daylilies.  Dad thought mom had a habit of planting flowers where he needed to mow!  They still make me smile thinking about dad.

Daylilies are in the lily family, but are not true lilies.  There are a little over 100 genera in the lily family which include onions, asparagus, hyacinth, red hot pokers, daffodils, trillium and solomon's seal with the hemerocallis, the daylily, being one of them.  Hemerocallis is the latin name given to daylilies, hemera being Latin for day and kallos meaning beauty.  Daybeauties!  This is referring to the flowers only lasting for one day.  The flowers of the daylilies look so much like a lily, that the names became interchangeable to most people but there are some distinct differences.  Daylillies grow from thick, tuberous roots whereas the lily is grown from a bulb.  The daylily has long, flat leaves that grow in clumps from the center of the plant whereas the lily has one central stem, with the leaves growing around the entire length of the stem, with the flowers at the top of the plant.  All parts of the daylily are edible, the lily... you need to check which kind because some contain alkaloids and are not advised to be eaten.  True lilies are in the genus Lilium.

Dayliles are native to China, Japan, Mongolia and a few other countries.  There are Chinese records that date back to 2700 bc that mention daylilies.  In fact, the Chinese were the first to take the daylilies out of the wild and put them in their gardens.  They used the plants for a source of vitamin c and protein and thought the plant benefited the mind.  And supposedly the plant was to help with willpower too, but for us naturally stubborn people...it would be hard to tell if it worked or not!  The Chinese would also give daylilies as a gift to the grieving or if someone was sad, which is such a nice thought.

Growing daylilies....not much to say on this subject.  They'll take about any kind of soil, have never fertilized mine but I'll give them a drink when it's really dry.  Not that they're struggling any, I just figured they'd like a drink as well as the next.  Give them plenty of sun though, or the blooms will really suffer.  There are only 20 species of daylilies but 45,000 varieties!  There are some really pretty ones, but when I was working at the garden center, I had so many people ask for "the plain orange ones".  Afraid there not sold in too many places because I guess the plant guru's think they're too plain.  More than likely you'll have to get yours from a gardening friend or neighbor.  Which, if they're any kind of gardener, they would be more than happy to oblige!