Garden And Landscaping Transform Your Property   

Barbers’ Garden, July 2008: Daylily / Hemerocallis

Image by bill barber
It came out of the camera dark. Rather than pitch it, I opened it in PS edit, and added a sandstone texture. The result was a pastel on fabric effect.

From my set ewntitled “Lilies”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157607186495368/
In my collection entitled “The Garden”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760718…

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Daylilies comprise the small genus Hemerocallis of flowering plants in the family Hemerocallidaceae. They are not true lilies which are Lilium in Liliaceae.

These plants are perennial. The name Hemerocallis comes from the Greek words ἡμέρα (hēmera) “day” and καλός (kalos) “beautiful”. The flowers of most species open at sunrise and wither at sunset, possibly replaced by another one on the same stem the next day. Some species are night-blooming. Daylilies are not commonly used as cut flowers for formal flower arranging, yet they make good cut flowers otherwise as new flowers continue to open on cut stems over several days.

Originally native from Europe to China, Korea, and Japan, their large showy flowers have made them popular worldwide. There are over 60,000 registered cultivars. Only a few cultivars are scented. Some cultivars rebloom later in the season, particularly if their developing seedpods are removed.

Daylilies occur as a clump including leaves, the crown, and the roots. The long, often linear lanceolate leaves are grouped into opposite flat fans with leaves arching out to both sides. The crown of a daylily is the small white portion between the leaves and the roots, an essential part of the fan. Along the flower stem or scape, small leafy “proliferations” may form at nodes or in bracts. These proliferations form roots when planted and are the exact clones of the parent plant. Some daylilies show elongated widenings along the roots, made by the plant mostly for water storage and an indication of good health.
The flower consists of three petals and three sepals, collectively called tepals, each with a midrib in the same or in a contrasting color. The centermost section of the flower, called the throat, has usually a different and contrasting color. There are six stamens, each with a two-lobed anther. After pollination, the flower forms a pod.

Daylilies can be grown in USDA plant hardiness zones 1 through 11, making them some of the most adaptable landscape plants. Most of the cultivars have been developed within the last 100 years. The large-flowered clear yellow ‘Hyperion’, introduced in the 1920s, heralded a return to gardens of the once-dismissed daylily, and is still widely available. Daylily breeding has been a specialty in the United States, where their heat- and drought-resistance made them garden standbys during the later 20th century. New cultivars have sold for thousands of dollars, but sturdy and prolific introductions soon reach reasonable prices.

‘Kwanzo’ – a triple-flowered triploid cultivar
Tawny Daylily Hemerocallis fulva, and sweet-scented H. lilioasphodelus (H. flava is an illegitimate name), colloquially called Lemon Lily, were early imports from England to 17th century American gardens and soon established themselves. Tawny Daylily is so widely growing wild that it is often considered a native wildflower. It is called Roadside or Railroad Daylily, and gained the nickname Wash-house or Outhouse Lily because it was frequently planted at such buildings.

Hemerocallis is one of the most hybridized of all garden plants, with registrations of new hybrids being made in the thousands each year in the search for new traits. Hybridizers have extended the plant’s color range from the yellow, orange, and pale pink of the species, to vibrant reds, purples, lavenders, greenish tones, near-black, near-white, and more. However, a blue daylily is a milestone yet to be reached.

Other flower traits that hybridizers develop include height, scent, ruffled edges, contrasting “eyes” in the center of the bloom, and an illusion of glitter or “diamond dust.” Sought-after improvements in foliage include color, variegation, disease resistance, the ability to form large, neat clumps and being evergreen or semi-evergreen instead of herbaceous (also known as “dormant” — the foliage dies back during the winter.)
A recent trend in hybridizing is to focus on tetraploid plants, with thicker petal substance and sturdier stems. Until this trend took root, nearly all daylilies were diploid. “Tets,” as they are called by aficionados, have double the number of chromosomes as a diploid plant.[1] Only one cultivar is known to be triploid, the brilliant orange ‘Kwanzo’ or ‘Kwanso,’ which cannot set seed and is reproduced solely by underground runners (stolons) and division. Usually referred to as a “double,” meaning producing flowers with double the usual number of petals (e.g., daylily ‘Double Grapette’), ‘Kwanzo’ actually produces triple the usual number of petals.

The flowers of some species are edible and are used in Chinese cuisine. They are sold (fresh or dried) in Asian markets as gum jum or golden needles (金针 in Chinese; pinyin: jīnzhēn) or yellow flower vegetables (黃花菜 in Chinese; pinyin: huánghuācài). They are used in hot and sour soup, daylily soup (金針花湯), Buddha’s delight, and moo shu pork. The young green leaves and the tubers of some (but not all[citation needed]) species are also edible. The plant has also been used for medicinal purposes. Care must be use as some species can be toxic.

Article by Jeff Halper

Garden and landscaping services transform your property into a work of art. Like any work of art, there are key points of interest, unique variations of color, and calculated interplays of light and shadow. This makes your yard look multi-dimensional in its expression of beauty.

It also provides you with more opportunities for Houston outdoor living, because the many elements that evolve from garden and landscaping services ultimately become hotspots for entertainment.

Your lawn is an important part of garden and landscaping design that requires professional attention and skill. Your lawn is like a canvas. It serves as the backdrop of your garden and landscape design and establishes the degree of openness that your back yard or front yard communicates to guests.

The more grass in your yard, the more a sense of vastness. The more hardscape and conscious cultivation of softscape elements, the more isolated points of interests become.

Different garden and landscape methods are used in yards of varying sizes. In larger yards, the property is divided into zones of interest. Although interconnected in terms of overall theme, each zone is uniquely individual in terms of the individual motifs and designs used to develop it.

Not only does this make the property look less overwhelming to guests, but it also increases opportunities for gathering, recreation, and entertainment.

For example, we could take the first zone in a large lot and build an arbor with an adjoining garden pergola. Both structures could be lit to provide a very private, exclusive seating area for residents or special guests. In the second zone of the property, we could build a larger, hand-laid stone patio and a lighted natural swimming pool nestled underneath forest-like trees.

Even more public space could be created in a third zone, where a swimming pool and flagstone patio could function as a transition area between the house and the rest of the back yard. The fourth zone could be developed into a garden courtyard centered on exotic vegetation and a custom fountain. This could be a place purely for conversation under the stars.

There are also just as many garden and landscaping methods that can be used to make a smaller property look much bigger than it is. One method is to build smaller patios and limit the physical size of gardens in order to give greater emphasis to the grassy parts of the lawn.

In areas where shade trees might have killed patches of grass, shade resistant grasses and flowering plant plants can extend the greenery up to the bases of the trees.

As far as planting trees themselves goes, there are several things to consider. Trees of any size can be introduced to any Houston landscape. However, one must be careful not to have trees installed too close to a garden that needs a lot of sunlight to survive.

If trees are a deliberate component of a custom garden and landscape plan, they either need to be planted in conjunction with shade resistant species, or they need to be planted in a location where they can complement the garden’s aesthetic without completely overshadowing it.

On a larger lot, it is possible to plant a veritable forest of large trees near the back of your yard and still have plenty of room left over for formal garden and landscaping work in the middle and front portions of the yard. Smaller yards do not afford this luxury however, so we have to develop workarounds to the limited space.

We can use smaller trees, such as Japanese maple or Japanese Yew, as actual garden elements, or we can plant gardens parallel to the shade line of the trees so that flowering plants always remain in the sun. A third method that is also very popular is to plant a shade garden under the trees themselves using plants that grow better with minimal amounts of sunlight.

About the Author

Jeff Halper has a passion for landscaping and Houston Landscape Design. For more information on Houston Landscape Design or Garden and landscaping