This past spring I was searching for a good, white daylily for my mom for her shade garden. So many of the white daylily cultivars are really cream or even pale yellow. I wanted real white and I wanted to be able to buy it locally in a pot, not bare root, so it wouldn’t need a year to get established before blooming. It took a bit of searching, but I finally found a nice cultivar called ‘Heidi Edelweiss.’ What I didn’t know is that I had my own true white daylily right under my nose.
I’m not fond of white anything, but nothing lights up a shady area better than white flowers so I do make an exception to my I-hate-white-rule from time to time. In July I noticed a very large white bloom shining from across the yard so I went over to investigate. As I got closer, I realized it was a daylily. The tag was buried in the soil so I uncovered it and could barely make out “Gentle Shepherd” in faded black marker. The poor plant had been dug up and moved (and thus never bloomed) so many times in the last few years that I’d completely forgotten about it. I’m glad it finally got the opportunity to bloom because the flowers are striking.
If you’re looking for a daylily with big, crisp, pure-white blooms, ‘Gentle Shepherd’ does not disappoint.