Daylilies are as common as lawn turf these days, and their displays are often about as interesting. They blanket medial strips at the mall, brighten business parks, dot roadsides and figure in nearly everyone’s landscaping plan at some point.
And no wonder. Daylilies are fantastic problem-solvers. They routinely survive harsh conditions, need virtually no care and provide oodles of color when it’s needed most, midsummer.
Even so, waves of Stella d’Oros and Happy Returns have lost much of their mojo for many of us. Let’s explore how else we can utilize daylilies, primarily through color, form, and companion plantings.
Monochromatic color blocks work well in public spaces but can be tricky to pull off in a private garden. Yet that’s how many of us display them; in rows and beds of a single color or dotted around the property, often by themselves.
There’s nothing wrong with the single color approach, to be sure. But it can get boring. We forget gardens are ideal spaces for experimentation not just with new cultivars, but for creative placement too.
Lily or not?
Let’s correct a common misconception: Daylilies are not actual lilies (lilium). They’re in the hemerocallis family now, but were once wrongly classified, leading to their misleading name. True lilies are indigenous to the northern hemisphere while daylilies are native only to East Asia. Daylilies have fibrous roots instead of bulbs, and they aren’t toxic when ingested like true lilies. (Deer know this.)
For centuries, the main Asian species (Hemerocallis fulva) spread around the world via the trade routes, including to Europe. They came to our shores with the colonists.
The orange “ditch” daylily seen along roadsides everywhere is the original Asian species, now naturalized coast to coast and considered invasive. It’s the ancestral parent of thousands of hybrids; 35,000 at last count, according to the University of Minnesota Extension. That’s a lot of daylilies!
Daylily Characteristics
As the name implies, each flower lasts about a day. Fortunately the scapes (stalks) produce successive buds that stagger the bloom period. Large stands thus appear to be in continuous bloom.
Daylilies’ primary requirement is six hours of sun. Beyond that they make minimal demands. I’m not going to cover care and maintenance; they’re so common, we all know how to grow them. Extremely versatile, daylilies are workhorse plants for borders, driveway entries, fences and difficult slopes. They’re wonderful poolside and make effective utility screens. So yes, we know how to use them functionally. It’s the creative part that often eludes us.
A word about cultivars
The vast majority of daylilies bloom in June and July. A few rebloom such as Stella D’Oro, Purple D’Oro, Pardon Me, and Happy Returns. Rebloomers tend to be smaller overall, the perfect size for tight quarters. That trait makes them easy to handle, too, and they work well in containers. Many people prefer them for these reasons.
The rest of the cultivars come in a dizzying array of colors, forms and sizes (remember, 35,000) and perform well in zone 6. Therefore it’s impossible to recommend certain ones over others.
Instead, I’ll talk about how to use them more creatively– through color, form and companion plants.
Ideas to Consider
My own garden is too small to illustrate everything mentioned, so I’ve supplemented my own photos with some from other sources.
Combine harmonious colors. Instead of massing all one color, use several groups of three to five specimens each. Pick light and dark, or bicolors and solids, in related shades. For instance, creams, yellows, oranges, reds and mahoganys all go well together. Try any combination of these warm colors together. If you have limited space, use just two colors side by side.
This strategy will produce a coordinated yet lively pairing.
Pick a novel color in several values. Most people go with orange and yellow daylilies or use random colors together. But a selection of only pink, peach and coral daylilies is refreshingly different. Or try pink and purple; you get the idea. At one time it was hard to find pink daylilies, but not anymore.
You could also use other perennials or even annuals to round out the planting. For example, purple fountain grass and nicotiana Lime Green (flowering tobacco) would look fabulous with pink daylilies.
Vary height and form. Contrast tall, spidery petal forms with fat ruffled ones, or interplant regular-shaped daylilies with starry, deep-throated specimens to catch and hold the eye. They should be either the same or closely related colors. It’s a subtle technique but quite effective. Just be careful not to use too many different singles.
Companion plants contribute even more contrast. Drumstick alliums, echinacea, phlox, salvia, and kniphofia are just a few fun possibilites.
Ornamental grasses and airy perennials like fleabane or Queen Anne’s lace will provide an airy counterpoint to the heaviness of daylilies.
Build layers of contrast
Contrasting forms and harmonious colors really crank things up. While we’re used to seeing massive displays in public gardens, a small bed twenty feet square is enough to pull this look off on a more manageable scale. Few of us have the space, funds or energy to tackle a large outlay anyway. You can group separate colors adjacent to each other or mix them randomly.
Add hybrids to natives. Who says meadows and semi-wild beds can’t contain hybrids? Be daring and buck convention. Daylilies in a naturalized setting can be delightful and surprising. I use this technique on my back slope, mixing them in at random. They bloom before most natives, introducing early color into a sea of green foliage. Their tenacious roots help prevent soil erosion, too.
Pair with another perennial in the opposite color. Opposite hues on the color wheel are blue/ orange, yellow/ purple, and red/ green. These combinations aren’t for everyone. But for sheer impact you can’t beat an opposite combination when it’s done right.
A few tricks:
- Stick to one pair of color opposites
- Make sure both choices bloom at the same time
- Use rich saturated tones
- Pair daylilies in one color with a very different form of the opposing color, preferably vertical
- Repeat the pattern to establish rhythm
Blue/ orange
Intense blue lobelia, delphinium, or salvia next to hot orange or gold daylilies is lively, even electric.
Yellow/ purple
Another interesting pairing is yellow/ purple, but it can be tricky to pull off without screaming “Easter”. Here, lemon-yellow Happy Returns is next to a pale lavender. The result is pleasant but lacks punch.
Success is achieved with stronger contrast. Below, mounded Stella D’Oro shows up well against purple salvia; Happy Returns kisses the feet of a dramatic purple clematis. Both use contrasting forms and rich color. Lovely!
Red/ Green
The third combination, red/ green, needs a range of values to really pop. Mahogany, burgundy and apricot with red will add sparkle and pizzazz. Bronze foliage will tone down a hot red lily, and white or cream cultivars will lighten it.
Solid backdrops like conifers, grasses, stucco, fencing or stonework make good foils for red daylilies without clashing, letting the red shine.
Don’t be afraid to mix it up. There’s no right or wrong here. Other winning color combinations are coral, magenta and light blue…strong orange with cool pink….deep purple with soft apricot. Play around and find your own special combination.
Pastels can rock
Up until now I’ve shied away from mentioning pastel daylilies. I find them harder to use because they often look washed out, especially in direct sun.
A sophisticated look can be achieved either with pastels alone, or by cleverly incorporating other flowers in the same shade. The trick is to limit the color to two similar shades like pink and peach, or pale yellow and apricot. The effect is calming and very beautiful.
This technique works well in formal and modern gardens alike. It can also make a small space seem larger than using multiple colors would.
Below, the cones of white echinacea echo the apricot daylilies, tying them together. Peach-pink bicolors and blends are stunning all by themselves. The peach grouping is especially effective because of the contrasting “eyes”.
Be careful placing “white” daylilies
The one pairing to avoid is white daylilies with other whites. There is no such thing as a truly white daylily; even the palest are cream-colored at best. Next to pure white companions like veronica (or even a white fence) they will “read” as dirty or nondescript at best. Save them for mixed borders in a wider range of values.
As for deer?
Short of an 8-foot fence or electrified current, you can try netting at night that gets removed during the day — so the buds don’t grow through it and get ripped off. (Yes it’s a pain…but it’s that or no buds.)
Spray repellants work up to a point; rotating different brands and formulas helps but isn’t foolproof. Companion plants unattractive to deer occasionally work but sooner or later, if they can reach a daylily bud, they will. Just resign yourself: Nothing is 100% effective. Sorry!
I hope I’ve convinced you to rethink your daylily bed. There are loads more ideas online and tons of cultivars for sale in every color imaginable. Even if you try just one new cultivar, or rearrange what you have in a new way, the refreshed look will brighten your summers for years to come.
