Daylilies: Lost Forever?

Red-headed ‘Annette’ is a spunky little World War II daylily with curling, ribbon-like petals and a wide-open heart of pure sunshine. At just 20 inches tall, it’s perfect for small gardens or the front of a perennial border. It’s one of the most enduring legacies of Texan H.M. Russell who at one point was growing more daylilies than anyone else in America. Early-mid summer, zones 4a-8b(10bWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Here’s the beginning of daylilies as we know them today. Introduced in 1893 by schoolteacher George Yeld, ‘Apricot’ was the first hybrid daylily and its success opened the door for the 60,000 others that have followed. Spring-blooming (starting in early May here in zone 6a) and often reblooming in the fall, it has vivid little flowers of orange-yellow peeking above a fountain of leaves — making it well worth growing even if it weren’t so historic. 28-34”, early, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(10aWC), from Ann Arbor. Last offered in 2015 and we hope to offer this variety again someday. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Our longest blooming daylily, ‘August Pioneer’ opens its bright, graceful trumpets for up to eight weeks. Its color is something special, too, a softly glowing orange with hints of apricot that blends in harmoniously yet will draw you across the garden. And it multiplies quickly. All in all, it’s a masterpiece from A.B. Stout, the patriarch of daylilies. 34”, mid-late, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(9bWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Tall, tall, TALL – with bloom stalks up to 7 feet! – this remarkable daylily may get you and your garden visitors babbling. Up close its spidery, gold and chestnut flowers are nothing special, but when you see them held high against the sky on their strong, slender stalks – often with hummingbirds flitting about – they’re magic. By A.B. Stout, from the wild H. altissima, 5-7’, late blooming, lightly fragrant, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(10aWC), grown by us here in Ann Arbor. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

True stock! Like that energetic rabbit, ‘Autumn Red’ keeps going and going and going, blooming for weeks on end from mid-summer on. Its slender, gracefully curling petals are cherry red with sunny yellow midribs for a look that’s exuberant but never too much. You’ll wish it bloomed even longer! 36-40”, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(9bWC), from Ann Arbor. Last offered in 2014. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Cute as a button, this Texas-bred heirloom combines petals of cool, pale, lemon yellow with lightly ruffled petals of old-rose-to-burgundy brightened by a wide yellow midrib-line. Its extended blooming habit means its profuse flowers stay open longer than most, giving you more time to enjoy them. AHS Award of Merit winner, 32-36”, mid-season, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(10aWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Back in the day, ‘Black Falcon’ was celebrated as the darkest daylily of all, and 70 years later it’s still a stunner. A glowing center of molten gold makes its rippled, mahogany-red petals seem even darker. It’s free-flowering, easy-growing, mid-summer blooming, 32-36”, deciduous, for zones 4a-8b(10aWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2019. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

This great little daylily has a lot of famous friends. Ken Druse first urged us to offer it, Christopher Lloyd called it a “first-rate AGM winner,” and Pamela Harper in Time-Tested Plants writes, “I doubt that any daylily will ever please me more than ‘Corky’.” Its small, wildflowery blooms are shaded with bronze on the outside, and since every wiry stem holds up to 40 buds, they open for a long time. 34”, mid-season, deciduous, zones 5a-8b(10bWC), grown by us here in Ann Arbor. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

With up to 30 buds per stem, this Nebraska-bred classic will brighten your mid-summer garden with six weeks of star-like, jewel-toned blossoms that are as graceful as wildflowers. Named for a hit movie that later inspired Pirates of the Caribbean, it’s another masterpiece from the great Henry Sass whose family introduced so many enduringly popular iris and peonies. 30-32”, mid-season, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(10aWC), from Ann Arbor. Last offered in 2019. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Exceptionally early-blooming, this cheery little daylily opens its fragrant, cinnamon-shaded flowers just as spring is turning into summer (and when it’s happy, it often reblooms). It’s also one of the oldest daylilies, by the very first person to breed them, English schoolteacher George Yeld, who crossed the classic lemon lily with the Japanese H. dumortieri to get this enduring charmer. Just 24-26”, very early, deciduous, zones 5a-8b(10bWC), Missouri. Last offered in 2019. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Thousands of yellow daylilies have come and gone, but ‘Hyperion’ endures. Its fragrance, carefree vigor, and classic, lily-like flowers make it the only daylily from the early 1900s that’s still widely grown today. Indiana-bred and winner of an RHS AGM, it’s named for the Titan father of the sun god. 4 feet, zones 4a-8b(10bWC), Missouri. Last offered in spring 2009. Widely available elsewhere.

“Did you see that?” everyone asked when this unusual daylily first bloomed here in our trial garden. With its long, thin, curling petals, a clump in bloom may remind you of fireworks bursting in the summer sky. A landmark daylily, it was the first “spider,” a form that’s now in vogue after decades of scorn. 24-36”, mid-summer blooming, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(10bWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2019. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

With three sets of petals tucked neatly inside one another, this opulent daylily is quirky enough to appeal to Victorian gardeners yet “handsome” enough (to quote taste-maker Louise Beebe Wilder in 1916) to earn it a leading role in the sumptuous Red Borders at England’s famous Hidcote Gardens. 36-40”, early summer blooming, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(10bWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2018. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

At just two feet tall, this abundantly blooming, mid-century pink is perfect for small gardens or the front of the border. It’s a soft peachy pink with a lemon yellow throat, as cool and summery as pink lemonade pie. 18-24”, mid to late-mid, deciduous, zones 4a-8a(10aWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2016. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

When we asked the experts, this pastel gem topped the list of heirloom daylilies we just had to offer. Its pale, melon-pink color was an exciting advance for the 1950s, and – enhanced by a cool green throat – it’s still exciting and lovely today. Winner of the Stout Medal, it was bred by Edna Spalding of rural Louisiana who grew her seedlings in the vegetable garden and culled the rejects with a kitchen knife. 32”, mid-summer blooming, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(10bWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

This exuberant daylily is one of our favorite reds. We like its long, pointed petals, its big, bright, star-like center, and that breeder Hooper Connell of Baton Rouge named it for his grandfather. 34-38”, mid-season, evergreen, zones 4a-8b(10bWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Much more than just another yellow daylily, ‘Ophir’ has unusually long, trumpet-shaped flowers – almost like an Easter lily – making it one of the most graceful and distinctive daylilies we’ve ever seen. It’s also one of the first American-bred daylilies, by Bertrand Farr, and the great Elizabeth Lawrence grew it, writing in 1943 that it was “more beautiful than ever this season, and the only attention it has ever had is a mulch of cow manure each fall.” 38-46”, mid-season, semi-evergreen, zones 4a-8b(10aWC), from Ann Arbor. Last offered in 2017. We’re building up stock and plan to offer it again in the future. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

We can’t understand why everyone isn’t growing this great little daylily. It blooms remarkably early – with the first bearded iris of May – and profusely, even in the half-shade of our old grape arbor. Its graceful, star-like flowers are a cheery yellow-orange that’s somewhere between mangoes and California poppies. And it’s one of the oldest survivors from the very dawn of daylily breeding, by school teacher George Yeld. 24-30”, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(9bWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

“I may be old-fashioned,” writes daylily connoisseur Sydney Eddison, but this “big handsome daylily with flowers the color of orange marmalade is still a striking plant.” Others call its abundant flowers “bronze orange” or even “cinnamon,” but everyone seems to agree that this vigorous, drought-tolerant, Stout Medal winner is far from ordinary. 36” mid-summer blooming, evergreen in warm zones, zones 5a-8b(10bWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2011. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

We love how profusely this charming little daylily blooms, and how its small, rusty red flowers glow warmly in the summer sun. Bred by the great A.B. Stout, it was named by globe-trotting “lady botanist” Mary Gibson Henry in memory of her youngest son, Porteous. 26-32”, early-mid to mid, semi-evergreen, zones 4a-8a(10aWC), from our Ann Arbor micro-farm. Last offered in 2016. We’re building up stock and plan to offer it again in the future. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

With its red-violet undertones, this Stout Medal winner was an exciting color advance for its time, and although no one today would describe it as “pansy purple,” it’s still a striking flower. And potent – it often develops small plantlets called proliferations on its bloom stalks which you can root and grow into new plants! 36-42”, mid to late-mid, deciduous, zones 4a-8a(10aWC), from our Ann Arbor micro-farm. Last offered in 2016. We’re building up stock and plan to offer it again in the future. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Bred by Ophelia “Bright” Taylor, winner of the AHS’s highest award for hybridizers, this purple-shaded, wine-colored daylily has slender petals curling back gracefully from a vivid yellow throat. It’s been a favorite oldie of our Missouri growers for over 40 years thanks to its “rich color, recurved petals, and beautiful foliage.” 32-36”, mid-season, semi-evergreen, zones 5a-9a(10aWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2019. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Winner of the Stout Medal, the AHS’s highest honor, this sophisticated beauty is a subtle, peachy-orange and copper-tinted color highlighted by a glowing, golden throat and midrib-lines. We love its unusual form, too, which combines three narrow, curling petals with three broader petals that are pinched at the tips for an angular, asymmetrical look. Often reblooms if cut back, 30-36”, early-mid, evergreen, zones 4a-9a(10aWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Small-flowered, early blooming, and one of the oldest daylilies of all, this cheery little queen is lemon yellow lightly shaded with chestnut on back. It was bred from the wild lemon lily and H. dumortierii by George Yeld, the founding father of daylilies, and it blooms today – as it has for decades – in the restored garden of Mississippi author Eudora Welty. Yellower and taller than its sibling ‘Gold Dust’, 28-30”, deciduous, zones 4a-8a(10aWC), from our Ann Arbor micro-farm. Last offered in 2016. We’re building up stock and plan to offer it again in the future. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

This rarely offered, landmark daylily was bred by A.B. Stout, the New York Botanic Garden scientist who unlocked the amazing potential of daylilies, setting them on the road to superstardom. Although Stout introduced 92 remarkable daylilies, he’s said to have been especially proud of ‘Theron’, whose mahogany blooms made it the first “red” daylily. 30”, early-mid blooming, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(9bWC), grown by us here in Ann Arbor. Last offered in 2020. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.

Unlike most daylilies that wane as night approaches, this pale yellow beauty opens late in the day and then stays fresh and beautiful all evening — when you’re home to enjoy it — and the following day. It was bred by the remarkable Elizabeth Nesmith who hybridized hundreds of daylilies, iris, and other perennials and sold them by mail, in an era when ladies just didn’t do things like that. Often reblooms, 34-38”, early-mid, zones 4a-8a(10aWC), from our Ann Arbor micro-farm. Last offered in spring 2015. Due to our very limited growing space, we may not offer it again – but if you’re dying to have it, please email us.

What sets this mighty classic apart — and why should you give it a try? It’s more fragrant than its famous parent ‘Hyperion’. Its Chicago breeding makes it extra tough. And its lily-like, moonlight-yellow flowers stay open longer than most, making it especially beautiful in the evening garden — when you’ll be home to enjoy it. 36” mid-summer blooming, deciduous, zones 4a-8b(9aWC), from Missouri. Last offered in 2011. We offer a rotating selection of daylilies. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, sign up for an email alert.