All flower growers are familiar with daylilies, planting and care in the open field for which it will not be difficult even for beginners. The plant is characterized by 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 herbaceous plant native to East Asia. Daylilies have been bred in gardens since the 18th century. According to the description, the perennial has a dense rosette of two-row basal leaves that diverge in the form of a fan. Belt-shaped petals are pointed at the end. Rhizome is powerful with cord-like roots.
Daylily Forgatten Dreams
On a note! The name of daylily in Greek means “day” and “beauty”. This emphasizes the excellent flowering of the plant, which lasts 1 day.
There are about 20 natural species of perennials. They are decorative, unpretentious, can grow on ordinary soil.
The most famous types:
- red lemongrass;
- yellow;
- lemon yellow;
- Dumurier;
- Middendorff.
Everyone is familiar with the usual orange daylily (Hemerocallis fulva), which can often be found in summer cottages, in parks and squares.
Red daylily
Before flowering begins, the plant throws 5-20 peduncles, with a height of 40 cm to 1 m, depending on the variety. On each peduncle 10-30 flowers bloom, buds do not bloom at the same time. The color of the petals is the most diverse (excluding blue shades).
What daylily flowers may look like:
- triangular;
- star-shaped;
- rounded
- arachnids.
The shape of the petals is corrugated, fringed, terry. Through the efforts of collectors obtained two-tone varieties, with a pleasant aroma of flowers, remontant hybrids.
Currently, more than 60 thousand varieties and hybrids of daylily have been bred. American and Australian breeders, authors of the latest innovations, are striving to create large, densely-terry flowers of the original colors.
Known varieties and hybrids:
- Thin Man is a new hybrid variety with huge flowers up to 25 cm in diameter, on peduncles 1 m high. Thin petals are coiled, red at the edges. The pharynx is bright yellow. Each peduncle forms up to 30 buds.
- Mildred Mitchell is a bush 70 cm high. Flowers with a diameter of 18-20 cm of pink-purple color with a pronounced aroma.
- Moses Fire - a plant 70 cm high, a repairing variety. It blooms in July-August with large terry flowers of a brick-red color.
- The Black Prince is a bush up to 80 cm high. 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 are 15 cm in size, scarlet with a yellow middle, with a sweet aroma.
- Jordan - bush height 60 cm, dense rosette of leaves is dark green in color. Corrugated raspberry-lilac flowers bloom in August-September.
Daylily grade France Hals
Landing location, soil
Daylily prefers open, well-lit places. Varieties with dark colored petals in the sunlight quickly burn out, for such plants it is recommended to create partial shading at noon. When planted in the shade, daylily will bloom poorly. Perennial can be grown in containers.
Attention! For successful flowering daylily need to be in the sun for at least 6 hours a day.
The plant loves loose fertile loam with a neutral or slightly acidic soil reaction. If the land is heavy, humus and sand are added to it. Light sandy loam soil is composted. Perennial has a root system with thick roots, 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
For perennial to grow for many years in one place and blooming profusely, you need to know how to plant daylily. Planting is carried out in May when the weather is warm or in early autumn.
How to plant daylily? The landing procedure is as follows:
- 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.
- The roots of the plant are lowered for several hours in a weak solution of mineral fertilizer.
- Inspect the root system, removing dry, rotten roots.
- The foliage is cut to a length of 15 cm.
- Planting material is placed in the well. They carefully monitor that the root neck is 2-3 cm below ground level.
- Delenka plants are covered with soil, carefully, but densely compacted soil around the stem.
- The bush is watered, the planting circle is mulched with sawdust, peat, needles.
Before you start planting daylilies, you need to consider what place an adult plant will occupy in the garden. Some spreading varieties grow more than a meter wide.
Outdoor landing
Watering and loosening the soil
Perennial unpretentious, drought tolerant, tolerates temperature extremes. Caring for daylilies is not difficult. The plant should be watered rarely, but abundantly. Watering is carried out under 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 next year.
It's important to know! Overmoistening has a bad effect on the plant, can lead to decay of the neck and roots.
Regularly weeding and loosening the topsoil. At the same time, they try not to hurt the root system, which can rot.
Breeding methods
Daylilies can propagate vegetatively and by seed. The most convenient way is dividing the bush. It is better to carry out the event in the spring so that the plant has time to take root well before the cold weather. Some varieties of the plant are easily divided by hand, but more often you have to use a sharp knife or a shovel.
The bush is divided into several large parts. Each pruning should have a part of the root tissue, 2-3 buds, several leaves. You can simply cut off the side of the mother bush. An adult plant is not watered for several days after the procedure so that the cut does not rot.
Reproduction by dividing the bush
Proliferation (rooting of inflorescences) is a method of vegetative propagation of daylily. The peduncle is not removed until the upper part dries. At this time, small rosettes of young plants form at the site of inflorescences. The flower stalk is cut off, the foliage is shortened by a third. Seedlings are placed in water for the appearance of roots. Root formation is stimulated by adding 1-2 drops of Epin or Zircon.
When the roots grow to 3-5 cm, the shoots are planted in small pots. Leave for the winter at home. Planted in open ground in May, when the danger of frost is over.
Seedlings are rarely used for seedling reproduction. 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.
Interesting information! With seed propagation, the varietal qualities of the mother plant are lost.
Seed propagation rules:
- Seeds are soaked in a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution (15 ml per 1 liter of water), closed with a plastic bag and put in a dark place. Germination takes 5 to 15 days. It is necessary to periodically check whether the seeds have not hatch.
- When the roots appear, the germinated seeds are laid on a layer of small pebbles and put into the light.
- The seedlings form a root system and small leaves appear. Young bushes can be planted in separate pots.
- Plants are planted in open ground when the leaves reach a size of 15-20 cm.
Sowing seeds is carried out in March. If there is a backlight, you can sow seeds early - in January-February.
Feeding 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. Excess nitrogen leads to an increase in green mass to the detriment of flowering.
During the formation of buds, 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 surrounded on all sides by small divisions that are difficult to take root. Large bushes are difficult to transplant.
A plant transplant is best 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 prepared substrate.
Daylily pruning
Care for daylilies consists in the regular removal of wilted flowers, pruning flower stalks after flowering so as not to weaken the bush. In the autumn, the bush is inspected, dried leaves are removed. The yellowed foliage is cut to a level of 5 cm from the ground when cold weather occurs.
Pests and diseases
Daylily bushes can be affected by fungal, viral diseases. Root of the root necks is a fungal pathology carried by pests. The disease can develop with a deep landing, poor soil aeration. To prevent the disease, water stagnation and overfeeding of plants with nitrogen are not allowed.
Striped leaves are caused by fungus. Yellow stripes appear on the foliage, browning and drying of the aerial part of the bush occurs. Affected leaves are removed, daylily is treated with fungicide.
Rust - red spots on leaves and flowers. Plant growth slows down and flowering intensity decreases. The disease is not subject to treatment.
Note! Non-infectious diseases appear in adverse weather, violations of the rules of planting and care.
The main pests of daylily:
- thrips - small sucking insects 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 - activated in arid hot weather;
- root tick - damages leaves, inhibits plant growth.
At the beginning of the growing season, preventive spraying of flowers with systemic insecticides and acaricides is carried out.
Thrips of the leaf
On a note! The most popular remedies are: malathion, int-vir, fitoverm.
In rainy years, many slugs appear on daylily leaves. To combat them use the tool "metaldehyde". Blue granules are laid on the surface of the soil, 3 pieces per plant.
Preparing for the winter
Daylily flower is characterized by high winter hardiness. Young plants need shelter for the winter in the first year after planting, valuable hybrids that are more moody in leaving. The exception is cold, snowless winters when the temperature drops below -20 ℃.
Before wintering, plants need to be slightly humped, cut off the aerial part, leaving 5-6 cm. Top cover with spruce branches, straw, leaf litter.
Flowering period and care after
Daylily throws flower stalks, each of which contains 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 begin to bloom in June, later - in August-September. Having picked up a collection of varieties, daylilies can bloom in the country from the beginning of summer to late autumn.
Flowering perennial
Interesting information! There are nocturnal varieties of daylilies, the flowers of which bloom in the evening and wither by morning.
Many gardeners are interested in how to properly care for flowering daylilies. To keep the plant decorative it is necessary to pluck withered flowers regularly. This stimulates the opening of new buds. A groomed plant with wilted petals looks messy.
Use in landscape design
Unpretentiousness, duration of flowering and decorativeness throughout the growing season opens up great opportunities for the use of daylilies in landscape design. The plant is suitable for a single planting, goes well with other plants.
Daylily looks good in group plantings next to astilbe, phlox, irises. The composition frame with plants with decorative foliage - hosts, geykhera looks beautiful. Daylily leafy rosettes go well with late blooming perennials - asters, chrysanthemums. A flower bed with blooming daylilies looks interesting when planted in the background and between bushes of decorative cereals.
Flower in a plant composition
Many flower growers love daylilies for the simplicity of planting and care, beautiful and long flowering. Beginning gardeners can be advised to start acquaintance with the flower by growing natural species and well-known varieties that have proven themselves to be hardy and hardy.
