Last August I decided it was time to cull out some of the older daylily varieties in my flowerbeds and spice things up with some new plants. At one time I was growing 500 different daylily cultivars, but I would estimate that the number has dropped to about 375 or less. Over the years I’ve replaced some of them with other, especially bee-loving, perennials.
During the pandemic years I ordered a handful of new daylilies via mail order, but other than that I’ve been growing the same cultivars for 10 to 15 years now.
I also must confess that some of my daylilies had been growing many years without being divided. It’s a wonder that they were still blooming!
Thankfully a daylily society in our area was having a sale in August where I could choose from hundreds of cultivars at very reasonable prices. I stopped myself at 24 plants. That meant I’d have to choose 24 of my own daylilies to get rid of, plus I had at least 60 plants that needed dividing. That’s 84 daylilies to dig up/divide! Thankfully my husband volunteered to help me or I’d probably still be out there. There were daylilies everywhere! This is the first bunch that we dug up.
Most of the plants probably could’ve been divided into 3 or 4 beefy chunks. I should’ve had my own daylily sale! I don’t like sending unwanted plants to the compost heap, so I was worried about trying to give away all these cultivars, but thankfully my husband rescued me again. His office flowerbeds needed some perking up, so he took most of the plants there. The rest I planted elsewhere in our yard.
First the new plants grew in drought conditions for the remainder of summer and fall. Then we had a very mild winter with little snow cover to protect them from the bitter cold that finally arrived in January (but only lasted about 2 weeks). Our high and low temperatures have been well above normal for the last month or so and many of my perennials—including the daylilies—are already peeking out of the ground. They may be sorry. Winter can last into April around here.
It’s hard to kill a daylily so I’m confident the new plants will survive, but I’m not expecting much of a flower show until next year!