Daylilies - planting and care in the open field

All flower growers are familiar with daylilies, planting and caring for them in the open field will not be difficult even for beginners. The plant is distinguished by its extreme unpretentiousness and endurance. Daylily bushes look spectacular in single plantings and as an element of landscape design.

Daylily description: varieties and varieties

Daylily (Hemerocallis) is a perennial herb native to East Asia. Daylilies have been cultivated in the gardens since the 18th century. According to the description, the perennial has a dense rosette of two-row basal leaves, which diverge in the form of a fan. The belt-like petals are pointed at the end. The rhizome is powerful with cord-like roots.

Daylily Forgatten Dreams

There are about 20 natural perennial species. They are decorative, unpretentious, and can grow on ordinary soil.

The most famous types:

• lemongrass red;
• yellow;
• lemon yellow;
• Du Maurier;
• Middendorf.

Everyone is familiar with the usual orange daylily (Hemerocallis fulva), which can often be found in summer cottages, parks and squares.

Red daylily

Before flowering, the plant throws out 5-20 peduncles, with a height of 40 cm to 1 m, depending on the variety. 10-30 flowers bloom on each peduncle, the buds do not bloom at the same time. The color of the petals is very diverse (excluding blue shades).

What daylily flowers might look like:

• triangular;
• star-shaped;
• rounded;
• arachnids.

The shape of the petals is corrugated, fringed, terry. Through the efforts of collectors, two-color varieties with a pleasant aroma of flowers, remontant hybrids were obtained.

Currently, more than 60 thousand varieties and hybrids of daylily have been bred. American and Australian breeders, the authors of the latest innovations, strive to create large, dense double flowers in original colors.

Known varieties and hybrids:

• Thin Man is a new hybrid variety with huge flowers up to 25 cm in diameter and 1 m tall on peduncles. Thin petals curl up in a spiral, red at the edges. The throat is bright yellow. Each peduncle forms up to 30 buds.
• Mildred Mitchell is a 70 cm high bush. Flowers with a diameter of 18-20 cm are pink-purple in color with a pronounced aroma.
• Moses Fire is a 70 cm tall plant, a remontant variety. Blooms in July-August in large double flowers, brick-red.
• The Black Prince is a bush up to 80 cm high.It blooms from mid-July with red-burgundy flowers with a yellow center with a diameter of 15 cm.
• Frans Hals is a medium-sized bush of 40-50 cm. Flowers 15 cm in size are scarlet with a yellow center, with a sweet aroma.
• Jordan - bush height 60 cm, dense rosette of dark green leaves. The crimped, crimson-lilac flowers bloom in August-September.

Daylily grade Frans Hals

Planting site, soil

The daylily prefers open, well-lit places. Varieties with dark color of petals in sunlight quickly fade; for such plants, it is recommended to create partial shading at noon hours. When planted in the shade, the daylily will not bloom well. Perennial can be grown in containers.

The plant loves loose fertile loams with a neutral or slightly acidic soil reaction. If the land on the site is heavy, humus and sand are added to it. Light sandy loam soils are filled with compost. The perennial has a root system with thick roots that are prone to decay. With a close occurrence of groundwater, it is necessary to drain or plant flowers in high beds.

When and how to plant

In order for a perennial to grow for many years in one place and bloom profusely, you need to know how to plant a daylily correctly. Planting is carried out in May when warm weather sets in or in early autumn.

How to plant a daylily? The landing order is as follows:

1. A landing pit is made - a bucket of peat-humus mixture with 30 g of superphosphate and 30 g of potassium sulfate is placed in the hole. Minerals are thoroughly mixed with the substrate.
2. The roots of the plant are immersed in a weak solution of mineral fertilizer for several hours.
3. Examine the root system, removing dry, rotten roots.
4. The foliage is cut to a length of 15 cm.
5. The planting material is placed in the well. Carefully monitor that the root collar is 2-3 cm below ground level.
6. The plants are covered with soil, carefully but tightly tamped the soil around the stem.
7. The bush is watered, the planting circle is mulched with sawdust, peat, pine needles.

Before you start planting daylilies, you need to take into account what place an adult plant will occupy in the garden. Some sprawling varieties grow over a meter in width.

Landing in open ground

Watering and loosening the soil

Perennial is unpretentious, drought-resistant, tolerates temperature changes well. Daylily care is not difficult. The plant should be watered rarely but abundantly. Watering is carried out at the root, trying not to fall on the foliage. The plant can do without watering for some time, but it will bloom less intensively. It is especially important to water the bush in the second half of July, when the flower buds are laid for the next year.

Weeding and loosening of the topsoil are regularly carried out. At the same time, they try not to hurt the root system, which can rot.

Reproduction methods

Daylilies can reproduce vegetatively and by seed. The most convenient way is to divide the bush. The event is best carried out in the spring so that the plant has time to take root well before the cold weather. Some plant varieties are easy to separate with your hands, but more often you have to use a sharp knife or shovel.

The bush is divided into several large parts. Each pruning should have a piece of root tissue, 2-3 buds, several leaves. You can simply cut off the side of the mother bush. After the procedure, an adult plant is not watered for several days so that the cut site does not rot.

Reproduction by dividing the bush

Proliferation (rooting of inflorescences) is a method of vegetative reproduction of the daylily. The peduncle is not removed until the upper part dries. At this time, small rosettes of young plants are formed in the place of inflorescences. The peduncle is cut off, the foliage is shortened by a third. The seedlings are placed in water for the emergence of roots. Stimulation of root formation is carried out by adding 1-2 drops of Epin or Zircon.

When the roots grow up to 3-5 cm, the shoots are planted in small pots. Leave for the winter at home. They are planted in open ground in May, when the danger of frost has passed.

Daylily seeds are rarely used for propagation. This is a long process. Plants bloom only in the third year. Sowing seeds is justified for breeding purposes or when you need to grow a large amount of planting material.

Seed propagation rules:

1. The seeds are soaked in a 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide (15 ml per 1 l of water), covered with a plastic bag and removed to a dark place. Germination takes 5 to 15 days. It is necessary to periodically check whether the seeds have hatched.
2. When roots appear, sprouted seeds are placed on a layer of small pebbles and placed in the light.
3. The seedlings develop a root system and small leaves appear. Young bushes can be planted in separate pots.
4. Plants are planted in open ground when the leaves reach 15-20 cm in size.

Sowing seeds is carried out in March. If there is a backlight, you can sow seeds early - in January-February.

Top dressing and transplanting

Adult daylily bushes need to be fed three times during the growing season. In May, nitrogen fertilizer is applied under the bush. Overfeeding the plant is not worth it. An excess of nitrogen leads to an increase in green mass to the detriment of flowering.

During the period of bud formation, perennials are fed with mineral phosphorus-potassium fertilizer. A month after flowering, top dressing is repeated for the full laying of flower buds for the next year.

Daylily can grow in one place for 8-10 years. Old plants are difficult to rejuvenate, they are overgrown from all sides with small divisions, which are difficult to take root. Large bushes are difficult to replant.

Plant transplantation is better tolerated at the age of 3-5 years. In May or September, the plant is dug up, if necessary, divided into 2-3 parts, planted in planting pits with a prepared substrate.

Daylily pruning

Daylily care consists in regularly removing wilted flowers, pruning flower stalks after flowering so as not to weaken the bush. In the fall, the bush is examined, dried leaves are removed. The yellowed foliage is cut to a level of 5 cm from the ground when cold weather sets in.

Pests and diseases

Daylily bushes can be affected by fungal, viral diseases. Rot of root necks is a fungal pathology that pests carry. The disease can develop with buried planting, poor soil aeration. To prevent disease, water stagnation, overfeeding of plants with nitrogen are not allowed.

Leaf streak is caused by a fungus. Yellow stripes appear on the foliage, the aboveground part of the bush turns brown and dries out. The affected leaves are removed, the daylily is treated with a fungicide.

Rust - red spots on leaves and flowers. The growth of the plant slows down and the intensity of flowering decreases. The disease cannot be treated.

The main pests of daylily:

• thrips are small insect sucking pests that can be found on the inside of the leaves;
• aphid - often attacks flowers in hot weather, serves as a carrier of viral diseases;
• spider mite - activates in dry hot weather;
• root mite - damages leaves, inhibits plant growth.

At the beginning of the growing season, preventive spraying of flowers with systemic insecticides and acaricides is carried out.

Leaf damage with thrips

In rainy years, many slugs appear on the leaves of the daylily. To combat them, the "metaldehyde" agent is used. Blue granules are laid out on the soil surface, 3 pieces for each plant.

Preparation for wintering

The daylily flower is highly winter-hardy. Young plants need shelter for the winter in the first year after planting, valuable hybrids that are more capricious in care. The exception is cold, snowless winters when the temperature drops below -20 ℃.

Before wintering, the plants need to be slightly spud, cut off the aerial part, leaving 5-6 cm. Cover the top with spruce branches, straw, leaf litter.

Flowering period and care after

The daylily throws out peduncles, each of which has 10-30 buds. Each flower blooms in the morning and withers in the evening. At the same time, 2-3 flowers bloom on one peduncle. The flowering period lasts 30-45 days. Early varieties bloom in June, late ones in August-September. Having picked up a collection of varieties, you can achieve flowering daylilies in the country from early summer to late autumn.

Perennial flowering

Many gardeners are interested in how to properly care for flowering daylilies. In order for the plant to retain its decorative effect, it is necessary to regularly pluck out wilted flowers. This stimulates the opening of new buds. An unkempt plant with wilted petals looks sloppy.

Use in landscape design

Unpretentiousness, duration of flowering and decorativeness throughout the growing season opens up great opportunities for the use of daylily in landscape design. The plant is suitable for single planting, goes well with other plants.

Daylily looks good in group plantings next to astilba, phlox, irises. The framing of the composition with plants with decorative foliage - hosts, heuchers - looks beautiful. Daylily leafy rosettes go well with late blooming perennials - asters, chrysanthemums. A flowerbed with flowering daylilies looks interesting when planted in the background and between bushes of ornamental grasses.

Flower in plant composition

Many flower growers love daylilies for their ease of planting and care, beautiful and long-lasting flowering. Novice gardeners can be advised to start their acquaintance with a flower by growing natural species and well-known varieties that have proven themselves to be hardy and winter-hardy.