My Three Favorite Daylilies
At this point in the summer, I am reminded that I like daylilies. They are not my favorite perennials, but I do like them. They are useful and undemanding. Also, they often have bold, striking flowers. Finally, they have an astounding variety of color, form, and other qualities.
‘Eye-yi-yi’, my earlierst daylily, has passed its peak, but is still blooming. Others are just now coming into their own.
My favorite daylily varieties are ‘Eye-yi-yi’, ‘Egyptian Spice’, and ‘Chicago Apache’. All of my daylilies I’ve purchased online from Oakes Daylilies in Tennessee, which I’ve found to provide very good quality.
What are your favorite daylily varieties?
gardeninacity 
What a wonderful selection! Their colors are magnificent!!!! I will be writing these down!
Daylilies are really useful. You get the widest selection when you order online.
I love daylilies too. My two favorites until this year were Barbara Mitchell and Strawberry Candy. I’m adding Bold Tiger to those two now. I’ve bought most of mine from Gilbert H. Wilde. I’ll have to check out Oakes. Yours are very pretty. Some are really magnificent, but expensive.
I find if you stick with the older varieties you are unlikely to get sticker shock. I’ll have to check out Gilbert H. Wilde.
Hey Jason,
Have heard great things from the owners of American Daylillies and Perennials, which is right out of Kansas City, about ‘Eye Yi Yi’ . Jack Roderson is the breeder of ‘Black Eyed Stella’ which sold 750,000 fans in the first year of its introduction.
I’m nuts about dwarf daylillies with what I call distinctive eyes. I have a bed full the Rodersons were kind enough to give me but haven’t had anyone to photograph it at the right time. Bummer, right?
My far out favorite is ‘Pandora’s Box’ sporting a green/yellow throat rimmed with dark purple and the rest mostly creme, In the center I placed a taller variety, Canadian Border Patrol’ with similar markings in the center for height.
There are three other dwarfs grouped in the island bed and at Jo Roderson’s suggestion the whole thing is rimmed in ‘Little Grapette’.
It’s a pity I haven’t been able to share it on my blog or enjoy it in all its beauty. By the time they can get me up, ‘Little Grapette’ has already burnt out.
But I’m sure it brings much joy to others, my friend.
Hey Patrick. I have never tried tried dwarf daylilies but can imagine they would be excellent for edging borders. I love the name ‘Canadian Border Patrol’.
I don’t have any day lillies but yours are gorgeous. I’m really impressed with the way they managed to phonetically spell “Eye Yi Yi”. I would never have known how to spell that had I heard it!
It’s also a play on words – “eye” – get it?
ohhhhh lol 🙂
My day lilies are mostly finished now, just a few deep orange ones still making their presence felt. I like them because they survive the drought without complaint. I wrote about mine here: http://myhesperidesgarden.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/my-thoughts-hemerocallis/ and here: http://myhesperidesgarden.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/colourful-hemerocallis/
Thanks for the links! You do have some very striking varieties. Your summer is much further along than ours, I suspect.
I have 6 different daylilies now, but I only have the name for 2 of them. Crimson Pirate has a lovely dark colour, and Pretty Fancy has frills and a great rosy colour. This year has shown them from their best side, and I will definitely look for more, as there are so many different ones.
I like the sound of Crimison Pirate.
Mine has to be in the spring ..Citrina,followed by Corky …and now Scarlet Oak and Gentle Shepherd.They make such a good splash of colour just as the summer is burning all the roses off…
For me, they fill in the blanks left by the Asiatic lilies.
I have several varieties but don’t have all their names. I think they are all beautiful but some do take your breath away with their unique coloring.
The unusual color was what drew me to Egyptian Spice.
they are beautiful! I don’t really have a favorite. I keep meaning to order the Salem Witch lily that I saw on Northeast Ohio Garden a while ago…
Not familiar with ‘Salem Witch’, I’ll have to look that up.
Your ‘Chicago Apache’ is a stunner! My favorite is the common Lemon Lily with it’s sweet fragrance.
I’ve never planted daylilies for fragrance, I should keep that in mind.
I have several cultivars in my garden but I’m still partial to the good old common orange daylily. I have a cultivar called Watermelon that looks a lot like your Eye-yi-yi.
I like most things that are orange. Eye-yi-yi is mostly orange but I like the drama of the red eye.
I love my Strawberry Candy (that is planted with Russian Sage) and the later blooming Royal Palace Prince. I got most of my varieties from the Morton Arboretum annual plant sale or a local nursery. I stumbled on the Oakes daylilies website and it looks wonderful, so good to know you’ve had good success with their plants. I’ve recently written about mine here http://stephigardens.com/daylilies/ and http://stephigardens.com/daylilies-part-2/
Thanks for the links! I didn’t know the Morton Arboretum had an annual plant sale. A little far for us but I might try to make it next time.
omg!!! lilies and daylilies are my favorite of all flowers!
Do you (or anyone who might be reading) have any idea where I can order the plain old orange ditchlily? Had I realized I couldn’t find them in Florida I would have dug up a bunch of clumps and brought them along when I moved! I miss that plant so much!
I didn’t think that any of the fifty states was without ditch lilies. I don’t know if anybody sells them, but maybe you should just buy the cheapest orange daylily you can find in the catalog.
Yours are really vibrant, lovely!!! I find mine only last a day, two at most which is a real shame as they are such a colourful addition.xxxx
As the plant gets more established they usually have new buds opening every day to replace the faded flowers.
I love your daylilies choices! For as reliable and showy a plant as they are, for some reason I have none in my garden. I think it’s the foliage. Just as they come in to their main flood of bloom, the yellow leaves start to show up…. I might need to re-think that. When I visit my parents during daylily season I revisit my daylily past. This might be the fall when a few follow me back to Pennsylvania!
I’m also a fan of Oakes. At one point I grew Egyptian spice and loved it, I also loved Orange Vols and By Myself… Both of which were huge obscene gobs of color in the landscape…. I think I need them back again!
You could try putting some low mounding plants in front of the daylilies to hide the foliage …
I have quite a few new varieties from a local breeder and will have to get back to the question of a favorite after they go through two summers here. I do have a leading contender tie with Orchid Surprise and Steve Trimmer.
Time is the great test of plant love: a passing fancy or enduring passion? Nice that you have a local breeder to supply you with new varieties.
My favorite daylily is a lemon yellow one given to me by a friend many years ago. I’m not positive of the name but I’m fairly certain it is Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, which I’ve read was first listed in gardens in the 1500s. Very early-it blooms with Siberian Iris-and also very fragrant witha citrus fragrance. We’ve always called it lemon lily.
Sounds very nice. Old varieties are sometimes the best varieties. I’ll keep an eye out for it.
I have tons of daylilies and I love them all. However, I just pulled up a huge chunk of them and there are more on the chopping block. A dry, miserable daylily is an ugly daylily so they’re headed to moister homes. I really love my ‘Minnie Pearl’ and ‘Buttered Popcorn’.
I have never had them in really dry soil, but here they always seem to roll with the punches.
I enjoy them, too–partly because they’ll grow in sun or partial shade. I have several varieties, but the tags are long gone, so I don’t know what varieties they are. I even like the orange Ditch Lilies. The only Daylily I don’t like is Stella d’Oro–because it’s overplanted on just about every block in town. Blech. Love the name “Eye-yi-yi”! Reminds me of my grandmother, who used to say that all the time. 🙂
My grandmother always said “Vey iz mir!” (Woe is me). I agree about Stella D’Oro, I think it is the victim of its own popularity.
Jason i can see why you love these. I think my fav is the middle one and I love the name!
That is a fun name.