Growing and Caring for Daylilies (2024)

FAQs

Growing and Caring for Daylilies? ›

Light: Daylilies are sun-loving plants and require full sun (> 6 hours sun) to part sun (4-6 hours sun) in order to thrive. Light afternoon shade will keep brightly colored flowers from fading. Water: After planting, water daylilies daily until established, then water once a week.

Reblooming daylilies flower continuously, more or less all summer long. The keys to keeping rebloomers blooming are watering and deadheading. Drought will slow down flower production, but deadheading is even more important. Every third day, religiously deadhead not just the blossoms, but the ovary behind the bloom.

Daylilies prefer full sun (six or more hours per day) and moist, well-drained soil to thrive. Amend the soil with compost before planting.

Daylilies are adaptable to a variety of soil conditions, but slightly moist, well-drained soil high in organic matter will give you better results. Prepare new planting areas with Miracle-Gro® Garden Soil for Flowers.

In most areas, you can plant daylilies in the summer (here at our nursery we plant straight from March through October), just be sure to give your newly-planted daylilies plenty of water.

How can I keep them blooming all season long? Remove the faded flowers to encourage repeat bloom. This allows the plant to put its energy into re-blooming instead of forming seeds. Established plants benefit from regular division.

If you fertilize only once a year, do so in early spring as new daylily top growth emerges. Spread a handful of any general purpose fertilizer such as 5-10-10 or 10-10-10 around the base of each daylily clump. In areas that receive regular rainfall, the fertilizer does not have to be watered in.

I collect all my coffee grounds and tea bags to bury into the beds. My daylilies seem to be happy with that. Any left over cold coffee I pour onto anything that looks thirsty. The capsules are time consuming to open, I usually collect them in a bucket and save for a "rainy day" to open and empty.

"Whether from rainfall, irrigation, or a combination of the two, daylilies thrive with about an inch of water a week," says Myers.

New plantings of daylilies will benefit from a little drink of this a couple weeks after planting. Why does it work? The Epsom salts and molasses both supply micro-nutrients, and help the plant absorb other nutrients from the soil, and the baking soda helps ward off fungal diseases.

How many years do daylilies last? ›

As stated above, each daylily flower only lasts about one day, while the plant itself can produce blooms up to three years. While they may not be long-blooming, they are jam-packed with large, colorful blooms that are easy to care for during their showy season.

Deadheading and Seed Pod Removal

However, daylilies look their best when spent blossoms are removed. The removal of wilted blossoms also inhibits seed set. If maintaining a neat garden is not a priority for you, the spent blossoms will usually fall from the scape in a few days.

In groups of 3 or 5, daylilies are ideal for landscape plantings, especially when paired with ornamental grasses and small shrubs.

Daylilies tend to spread quickly on their own, given the opportunity in the form of open space. To prevent them from taking over your garden, it's prudent to divide them regularly, as we describe above.

In average garden soil you should not have to water your newly planted Daylilies every day. More often than not, this causes soggy soil conditions that can lead to root rot and other plant diseases. In the absence of sufficient rainfall, water only as needed to maintain a damp to moist root ball and surrounding soil.

Daylilies are strong performers in the garden.

If you deadhead them (cut off the old flower stalks at the base) you will get even more blossoms than if you leave the stalks up to form seed pods which over the summer will ripen and burst in the fall. While it isn't necessary, doing it will get you better performance.

As with most bulbs, lilies only bloom once per year. They need a cool winter dormancy period of at least 8 weeks in order to reinitiate the flowering cycle. Each plant blooms 2 - 3 weeks out of the year. By selecting varieties with staggered bloom season, it is possible to cover the entire summer (June - August).

Deadheading lilies will encourage more flowers to form and prolong their display. It will also divert energy away from seed production, which can reduce flowering performance in subsequent years. If you're growing martagon lilies, don't deadhead these as these will gradually self-seed.

Fertilizing with a balanced granular or liquid fertilizer, such as a 10-10-10, is recommended. If using a granular fertilizer be careful not to apply the fertilizer directly on top of your daylilies, as it can burn the foliage. Apply fertilizer each spring after the risk of frost has passed.