Because there are over 60,000 registered daylily cultivars, some growers collect plants with a specific theme in mind. On a daylily tour last summer, I noticed one homeowner had planted an entire bed of daylilies with names that referred to dancing. There was ‘Music Box Dancer’, ‘Dance Ballerina Dance’, ‘Flash Dance’ and many more. I thought it was a really fun idea.
One of my best-performing daylilies is a cultivar called ‘Cedar Waxwing.’ I never thought anything of the bird name until I saw a bright, red daylily on a garden tour that I just had to have. Its name was ‘Scarlet Tanager’. When I looked it up on Tinker’s Gardens daylily database, I was excited to discover that ‘Scarlet Tanager’ was created by the same hybridizers that made my beloved ‘Cedar Waxwing’. They also registered dozens of other daylilies with bird names. I’d found my theme!
The cultivars were all registered in the 1970s. I have to admit that the blooms aren’t as exciting as some of the daylilies being bred today, but they are all care-free, robust, long-blooming plants.
In addition to ‘Cedar Waxwing’ and ‘Scarlet Tanager’, I’ve already added to my garden ‘Heron’, ‘Screech Owl’, ‘Ruby Throat’, ‘Tree Swallow’, ‘Canadian Goose’ and ‘Mallard’.
