Daylily
Hemerocallis fulva
Flowers ride bare scapes above the leaves — the scapes come off as they finish, the foliage stays until autumn.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Orange
- Sunlight
- Full sun through to light shade.
- Watering
- Water regularly, and especially while it is in flower.
- Feeding
- A balanced feed in spring, and something lighter once flowering is over.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Pruning
- Take out the spent scapes, and cut the foliage back in autumn.
- Mar–Jun Spring Growth
- Jun–Sep Flowering
- Sep–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 23.6 in
- In-row spacing
- 23.6 in
- Between rows
- 2 ft 6 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Swollen storage roots
- Working depth
- 8–20 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 24 in–3 ft across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 14 in of soil
The fat roots are the larder and the thin ones do the feeding. Lift them or mulch them deeply where the ground freezes hard, and handle them by the crown: a snapped storage root rots rather than heals.
Fleshy storage roots that let a daylily survive almost anything, including being left out of the ground for weeks. That toughness is why an unwanted clump has to be dug out completely rather than sprayed or smothered.
The habit is Daylily’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats
- Recorded toxic
- Dogs
- Not on a list we read
Recorded as toxic to cats by ASPCA.
Changed for cats under the genus rule. The ASPCA row Day Lilies (many varieties) is printed at Hemerocallis spp., it is about the genus rather than about one dangerous member of it, and it plainly covers Hemerocallis fulva. It records toxic to cats, so cat goes to toxic on a genus-level row. The same row records non-toxic to dogs and a genus row may never clear, so dog stays unlisted. The Daylily row in the UC Davis poisonous plant garden is Hemerocallis hybrids, not our species.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Slugs & snails
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Centipedes ChilopodaHunts Slugs & snails
Flat, fast, one pair of legs to a segment — and a predator, unlike the slow round millipede it is constantly confused with. It hunts slugs, cutworms, springtails and woodlice by night under mulch and stones. Learn the difference and leave this one alone.
- Frogs & toads AnuraHunts Slugs & snails
A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Slugs & snails
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Ground beetle CarabidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.
- Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeusHunts Slugs & snails
A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
- Salamanders & newts CaudataHunts Slugs & snails
Damp-loving hunters of slugs, worms, woodlice and beetle larvae that spend the day under a log or a stone and work the beds at night. Companions to the toads: they want the same damp shade, the same log pile, and the same absence of slug pellets.
- Snakes & lizards Colubridae & PhrynosomatidaeHunts Slugs & snails
A garter snake works the beds for slugs and voles and a fence lizard clears grasshoppers off a sunny wall. Almost every snake a gardener meets is harmless and useful; give them a log pile, a warm flat stone and a bit of cover and they stay.
Grasses, Agapanthus, Crocosmia, Geranium
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com