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Daylilies Are A Delight

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By MONICA BRANDIES | The Brandon News

Published: April 17, 2007

Carol Robinson learned to love gardens and working outdoors from her mother.

A native Floridian, she grew up in the Land O' Lakes/Lutz area. Though she has a stressful full-time job and battles both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, she has a dream that she is making come true in her own yard: Daylily Delights Nursery.

Her husband, James, is both a great help and a great encourager.

He built raised beds along both sides of the front yard with landscaping timbers for sides.

Carol has marked each section by letter and each plant with a permanent label. The mature plants get metal ones. The seedlings are marked by pieces of window blinds on which she writes the information and dates with a permanent marking pen. She sticks these down until they are almost buried in the soil, so they are much less likely to be lost.

The Robinsons haul soil from Cypress Creek Landscape Supply on Florida Avenue. She checks the feel and smell to be sure it contains plenty of pine bark. Daylilies like that.

"They will grow in our sandy soil, but the more mulch, pine bark and loving care you give them, the better they grow and the more they bloom," Carol Robinson said. "They can be very low maintenance in the home garden, but since I'm trying to be a professional, I have to work harder."

Although the daylily flowers last only a day, each scape or leafless flower stalk has many buds and each crown can have many scapes, so the average plant blooms at least two or three weeks. Some are re-bloomers. Some are fragrant, some are not.

Carol Robinson caught the daylily obsession from one of James's cousins who belongs to the Daylily Society in Lake City. The Robinsons are now members of the Bay Area Daylily Society and the American Hemerocallis Society. The Bay Area Daylily Society meets from 1:30 to 3 p.m. on the third Sunday of every month September through May. For more information, call Linda Sample (813) 831-8294; e-mail glsample@verizon.net; or visit www.bads.us.

With other members Carol visited the greenhouse of Frank Smith in Apopka, who grows daylilies for Disney and Seelys Ark in Dunellon where rabbits and worms work together to produce rich worm castings that are very good in daylily soil.

Daylilies need six to eight hours of unfiltered sunlight a day. Some, particularly the reds, do best with partial shade in the afternoon. By planting early, midseason and late varieties, one can have blooms in Florida from April through September, even into October.

The daylily itself, known botanically as Hemerocallis, is an old flower used by the Chinese before written history. The Chinese used the flowers buds for food and the root and crown for medicine to relieve pain.

Many of us remember them growing as a summer perennial up north. The fragrant, bright yellow lemon lilies were a sure sign that spring had come. And the tawny orange ones escaped to the roadsides where they bloomed in great profusion. These were some of the ancestors of the hybrid that started with Arlow Burdette Stout in the early 1930s.

Robinson has already started to hybridize new varieties herself. Her nursery is now officially open for sales, but customers must call --681-7906 or 493-9153 -- and make an appointment. She also may be reached at daylilydelights@yahoo.com.

Monica Brandies can be reached at monica@gardensflorida.com.

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