New daylily shoots are a few inches tall now – the perfect size, I think, to divide large clumps and spread the joy around the garden or with friends, if you’re able to tread lightly in the garden.
That last point is crucial – if your soil is still mushy from spring snow melt or if spring ephemerals are still emerging you don’t want to be clomping around with big boots, compacting soil, destroying the structure that many organisms need and thrive in.
Probably the most vigorous daylily in these parts is the much maligned Hemerocallis fulva – also know as a ditch daylily, tiger lily, orange day lily… The main complaint is that the orange is too bright. Huh? Orange is supposed to be bright! People also say it’s too prolific, spreads too much, is too tall, the leaves flop after blooming….the litany goes on. Me, I look forward, every year starting the last week of June and lasting throughout July, to driving along country roads and seeing large clumps of the cheery, welcoming flowers. Like any plant they should be properly situated. So no, don’t plant them if you have a really small garden. Even the cultivated varieties will spread, but possibly not with the same speed as Hemerocallis fulva var fulva – the more common, single variety that easily spreads and can be seen in ditches and at the edges of woodlots all over. These plants are so often seen in natural settings here people may think they’re native; they’re not. They originate in Asia.
Plant them with the expectation they will spread! Plant them where they will be seen by passerby! Plant them where you want a huge swath of colour mid summer! Take joy in their exuberance!
County Gardening 
They are certainly prolific and in your face colourful. They are quite impossible to get rid of so one might as well enjoy them.
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Exactly!
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There’s a tiger lily at work that was flowering until November! Thank you for your homage to this plant that keeps on giving. Where some people see a reason to complain – too bright, too tall, too prolific – I see superlatives and great potential. Wonderful post.
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Thanks! and yes – that ‘double’ daylily variety, as I like to call it, can keep blooming through October here as well. It really adds to the whole fall foliage thing.
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Good point. I’ll have to give mine a little TLC to get them flowering.
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We don’t have that ‘problem’. We must work to grow daylilies. We do have those naked ladies though. They are too bright pink! Ick! (I like them anyway.)
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I will never say “no” to an offer of any daylily. Oddly enough, I find that here only the orange ones tend to spread too much. Variety doesn’t matter. If it’s orange, it’ll be a spreader.
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Something in the orange chromosome eh?
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That is a lovely double lily up top there. Before I grew my own I often raided those ditch Lillies so I could have a bouquet for the table.
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