
Daylilies: The Effortless Perennial That Blooms All Season Long!
Types
There are thousands of beautiful daylilies to choose from! Combine early, midseason, late blossoming varieties, and repeat bloomers to have daylilies in flower from late spring into fall.
Daylily flowers may be fragrant and come in many colors, shades, and color combinations. Some flowers are full and round, others have wide petals with ruffled edges. Daylilies called “spiders” are spider-like in shape, while “doubles” have double the number of petals and sepals. Some new cultivars are even night-blooming and very fragrant.
Some of our favorite cultivars include:
- ‘Stella de Oro’ has numerous yellow flowers per scape and blooms all summer.
- ‘Little Grapette’ has small purple flowers and blooms in early summer. This daylily is only 12 inches tall.
- ‘So Sweet’ has yellow flowers. Its leaves remain green over winter.
- ‘Ruby Spider’ has large, up to 9 inches wide, scarlet-red flowers with golden throats.
- ‘Catherine Woodbury’ blooms in mid- to late summer with fragrant lavender-pink flowers.
- ‘Indian Giver’ has large rich-purple flowers and blooms early to late summer. It’s semi-evergreen.
- ‘Siloam Double Classic’ has fragrant, salmon-pink, double blossoms in early- to midsummer. It’s ideal for containers.
Reblooming daylilies have the ability to re-flower during the growing season:
- ‘Good Fairy’, ‘Mini Stella’, ‘Happy Returns’
Evergreen daylilies have leaves that remain green over winter:
- ‘Wind Frills’, ‘So Sweet’, ‘Joan Senior’
Looking for a specific color? No problem! Here are a few options:
- Pink: ‘Lullaby Baby’, ‘Chicago Candy Cane’, ‘Halls Pink’
- Lavender/Purple: ‘Mountain Violet’, ‘Velvet Shadows’, ‘Summer Wine’
- Red: ‘Hearts Afire’, ‘Oriental Ruby’, ‘Red Mittens’
- Orange: ‘Rocket City’, ‘Carrot Top’, ‘By Myself’
- Yellow: ‘Lemon Lollypop’, ‘Mini Stella’, ‘Paradise Prince’
- White: ‘Crispin’, ‘Ice Carnival’, ‘May May’, ‘So Lovely’
Cooking Notes
Daylilies are edible and have a long history in the kitchen. The tender foliage was eaten as a spring green, the buds and flowers were eaten raw and added to soups, and the swollen portions of the root were boiled and eaten. All parts have a mild peppery taste and act as a thickening agent when cooked in stews, soups, or sauces.
- Try sautéeing daylily buds in some butter and garlic. They taste like a cross between green peas and asparagus.
- Dip daylily buds in a light batter and deep-fry them. Sprinkle with salt, and you have a special summer treat!
Yes, daylilies are salt-tolerant. You’ll see they are popular perennials planted near roads and sidewalks.
Are the orange day lilies good for bees? Are they good pollinators?
Hi, Peggy. Bees and many other pollinators love orange daylilies. They are an excellent choice to welcome nature’s beneficial insects (little heroes!) to your garden.
Re: Orange Daylillies good for bees ? I have triple and double petaled orange daylillies. I really don't see bees going into them for nectar but I do see those large bumblebees laying on their backs sleeping in my daylillies ... so cute ! FYI - I always let my lillies die off, letting them go completely brown which sometimes does not happen until mid-winter in the Northeast ... afterwards I just pull on the dead leaves which give way very easily and you are then set for the next year's growth.
Another consideration (at least in Central Maryland) is that Daylilies (and any Lily for that matter) are like candy to White-tailed Deer. We went away for a few days one June as our Daylilies were budding. When we returned every bud had been nipped off by the deer. I must constantly use Deer Repellent to keep our lilies intact.
I was just about to leave a comment about the deer factor (I'm in upstate NY) but you got here first!
Daylilies are on the list of invasive plants in our area (Ontario Canada). It’s a good idea to check to make sure any non-native is invasive in your area, before planting. There is a lot of good information out there about how invasive plants are a real problem. There are also many beautiful native alternatives to these invasive lilies - the Michigan lily, for instance. Native plant species tend to benefit a much wider range of native fauna without harming the environment.
Enjoyed the read! Planting my first day lilies soon
How do you winterize day lillys? Do you have to cut them back?
Hi Nancy,
There is not anything you need to do for your daylilies before winter. Once the flowers have died back, you can cut the stems and foliage to the ground in the fall or in the spring. There is no benefit to leaving the foliage until the spring, so if you want a more tidy look to your garden area, cut back in the fall. The foliage just needs to be removed before new growth emerges in the spring.