Peak Bloom Time: Last three weeks of June and first three weeks of July. Intermittent bloom into fall.
Sometimes nature’s beauty is a collaborative effort, and this cooperation can be seen in the formal plantings of the genus Hemerocallis, or the daylilies. While each daylily bloom is an intricate and striking work of art unto itself, a truly dramatic piece is revealed when the entire canvas of the Jenkins Daylily Garden is painted in daylily pointillism.
For six weeks in June and July, the daylilies produce a show of blooms, seemingly coordinated to last for weeks. Members of the lily, or Liliaceae, family, daylilies are a reliable producer of summer color. The Garden displays over 2000 specimens, with over 1800 in the Jenkins Daylily Garden alone. Of those hundreds of plants, there are over a dozen species represented and over 1700 different hybrids, 31 of which have been created by the Garden’s own Jason Delaney.
Many of the species examples are planted in one arcing bed (bed R1). Early blooming species include H. minor, a dwarf yellow daylily that blooms as early as the second week of May and on into June; H. middendorffii, also in early May with its showy orange tea cups, H. citrina, which produces lemon-yellow blooms the first three weeks of June; and H. lilioasphodelus, another yellow, fragrant yielding species. The first two weeks of July H. fulva produces tawny-orange blooms. The Daylily Garden contains other species types, which all range in the yellow to orange color family and hail from Asia.
Most of the specimens in the Jenkins Daylily Garden are hybrids, bred for showy petals in flashier and more unique colors, a broadening of the color palate. An early bloomer is ‘Gracilis’ (beds R1 and O1), which yields sunny yellow cone-shaped flowers as early as the first week of May. Other hybrids of note include the American Hemerocallis Society’s (AHS) 2008 Stout Silver Medalist, ‘All American Chief’ , which produces an open-faced red and yellow blossom, and recent AHS Award of Merit winners ‘Francois Verhaert’ (beds R05, S03), ‘George Jets On’ (R3, 16), and ‘Mynelle's Starfish’ (R3). Other daylilies brushing their way across the canvas include the mauve ‘Darla Anita’ (R03, S03); the rosy faced and yellow-green throated ‘Dena Marie’ and ‘Dena Marie's Sister’ (both in R2), the pink and chartreuse 'Adams Street' (bed 6), and the purple-petaled, green-throated 'Phoenician Ruffles' (R3).
The spider-form daylilies paint with a thinner brush, having more narrow and widely spaced petals. The July-blooming 'Almost Paradise' (R5) features greenish-gold, spider-shaped petals; 'Curly Rosy Posey' in the Kemper Apple Allee has pink flowers with dark rose eyes and yellow-green throats; 'Easy Ned' (R2) produces flowers that are all vibrant lime-green; and ‘Skinwalker’ (R6) has spidery chartreuse and lavender flowers.
Tiny points of colors come from the miniature daylilies. While short in stature, neither the species H. dumortieri (R1) nor the cultivars ‘Spacecoast Tiny Perfection’ (Kemper Apple Allee) 'Purple d'Oro' (Kemper Border Garden) lack color.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are the double daylilies, such as the burst of sunny yellow and orange that is ‘Scarlet Marie,’ the pale green-throated, peach petals of ‘Scatterbrain,’ and the warmly apricot ‘Savannah Debutante’ (all in bed R1).
Visit the Missouri Botanical Garden in early summer to see the masterpiece created by the flowers of the daylily. |
