Do you prefer polymerous, spider or sculpted? We're talking about daylilies

Our warm season perennials have been blooming hard and for flower lovers, that is a lot of fun. My shasta daisy just put on a great show in my yard. Black Eyed Susan are starting to explode with her yellow and black finery and the ubiquitous daylily is showing her glory.

I have always loved daylilies. When I bought my first home, my mom shared some of her daylilies with me from our family’s home place near Toccoa, Georgia. There were a couple of breaks in the sidewalk next to my picket fence in front of my house where I added some soil and planted those heirlooms. They were perfect for that location and when they bloomed, they were fantastic.

Botanically known as Hemerocallis, daylilies aren’t just the old fashioned, tough and country road perennials anymore. With selective breeding, daylilies have developed into some of the most magnificent flowering perennials available. Native to Asia, daylilies are considered by many as the perfect perennial. Although the blooms literally only last a day, daylilies make up for this small deficiency by the many buds that are available for a long lasting series of flowers. Hemerocallis are available in a wide variety of colors including orange, yellow, cream, purple, scarlet as well as many combinations of these colors.

The forms of the flowers also vary. Some are frilly while others are more traditional. The American Hemerocallis Society has some very unique names to describe the shape of daylily flowers like polymerous, spider, sculpted, recurved and star. Spider form is a flower whose petals have a length-to-width ratio of 4 to 1. Polymerous is used to describe the normal numbers of segments in each floral whorl. That is a mouth full. The size of the plant and leaf thickness can vary as well. Some dwarf varieties are as small as 6 inches while some of the larger forms can reach more than 36 inches.

Daylilies are some of the most drought-tolerant perennials available. They don’t have many problems with pests either … except for deer. Deer think of daylilies as candy.

Daylilies are clump forming with fibrous or somewhat tuberous roots. They grow as masses and can be divided into individual plants. This is a great way to share the plant or spread them around to new areas in the landscape. These plants are herbaceous so if you want to divide them, make sure to mark where they are before they die to the ground come first frost. I like to divide and replant in the fall. It is kind of fun to deconstruct a mass of daylilies and turn them into a bunch of little daylilies.

When planting daylilies, make sure to plant them shallow. There is a little bit of white on the base of the plant where the leaves intersect with the root system. Make sure that white is showing when planting. Burying them too low seems to stunt blooming. They make for great massing plants in most any landscape with full sun. They also need good drainage, so if you have a soaking type area they will probably rot.

Stay cool. Summer is going too fast.

Reach Campbell Vaughn, the UGA Agriculture and Natural Resource agent for Richmond County, by emailing augusta@uga.edu.