Daylilies and flowering lilies are gorgeous, but they can also do a number on your clothing if you happen to brush up against their pollen-bearing anthers.
The worst thing you can do when you discover pollen on your clothes is to try to brush it off with your hand. It only grinds the pollen into the clothing fibers and makes a messy yellow stain. Plus the oil from your hands can actually cause the stain to set.
When pollen gets on an area of my clothing that I can reach, I first try to blow off as much of it as possible with several quick, forceful bursts of air. Obviously that’s a bit of a challenge if I’ve backed into a daylily…
Next I make a beeline for my boar bristle hairbrush making sure not to allow the pollen to get rubbed or smeared on the way. Any stiff brush or hairbrush does the trick. If the pollen area is wet or even damp, I wait for it to dry before using the brush.
I have several hundred daylilies, so pollen and I are well acquainted. I finally added a brush to my bucket of garden tools this summer so I wouldn’t have to run in the house every time I had a pollen mishap.
If there’s still a visible stain after brushing off the pollen, I have one last trick. In fact I had just learned about it from a lily catalog a few weeks ago when I had an opportunity to try it. I had come in from the garden to retrieve a load of laundry from the dryer. I washed my hands before handling my clothes, but I did not realize that I had a big blob of pollen on my elbow. When I grabbed the hulking load of laundry I inadvertently smeared that pollen on a pair of khaki pants. Some of it came off when I used the brush, but there was still a noticeable stain.
I folded my pants so the stain was on top and then set it on the porch in the sun for a couple of days. Voilà! The stain faded like magic.