Stella D'Oro Daylilies

These Stella D'Oro daylilies have to be one of the easiest and greatest perennials you could ever want to grow. In the summer of 2009 a friend gifted me a pot bound pot of Stella D'Oro daylilies when I purchased this house. The plants were compacted so tightly in the pot that I could not remove them from the pot with a trowel. I had to hammer off the pot from the plant mass, and then cut out a wedge of roots and leaves to make some root room in the pot for the root mass to loosen up. I divided up the plants from the wedge, and  it yeilded many plant units. There were enough plants to put nine clumps of about five rhizomes each, into a garden at the bottom of the walkway.  Those were planted in the summer of 2009. They made a nice start to the garden.  My oldest daughter suggested that I place the rest of them along the brick walkway to create a colorful summer house entrance. The proposal was sound, so I attempted to divide the remaining pot bound rhizomes to create new plants. I could not separate them for division, so I let them sit in the pot for another year. It was a good decision, the extended time allowed the roots to loosen up and move into the vacant wedge of space in the pot.  This pot of plants on the right is what is currently left of the pot that was so pot bound. There were so many plants in the pot that I couldn't separate the multitude of plants bound up in there.  If you look close you can see the spaces I removed plants from, but what you can't see is how many plants remain! It was like trying to separate hairs on a head, they were so compacted! As you can see, I did succeed in removing about half of the plants in the pot, and what they have wrought in two years is just amazing.

before: bare brick sidewalk with mulch and seedling daylilies

 There were so many plants in there that once divided they covered both sides of the forty foot long walkway seen to the left, and then another twelve foot long walkway...placed on both sides of the walkways!

The first summer they were divided off I had a pleasant bloom of yellow flowers and some additions to the green leaves. The photo above was taken at that time.                                          

This year, one year later, the growth is just phenomenal. The  nine plants first divided off, are pretty large in this photo at right. They are the ones on the left side in the ell of the sidewalk. In this photo at the right, they all are huge and full, and blossoming with an incredible number of flowers trumpeting the variety's bounty. The other plants that finish lining the walkway were wimpy in the photo above, but in the photo to the right, taken yesterday, they are full and blooming with lots of flowers, for the full length of the walkway. It is hard to believe that this amount of growth happened in one year. I find this soooo impressive...I am grateful! All that color really lifts my spirits.

Mind you, I still have that "mother load" pot shown at the top. It is still filled with a least a hundred count of rhizomes to start new perennials. Its a year later, they are now blooming in the original root bound pot, and I still have not planted all them out into the garden. I must say though, that these beautiful bright flowers seen to the left, are motivating me to finish up the job, so that next year the whole garden will be filled with carpets of yellow trumpets to herald spring and then continuing to carry on blooming for much of the summer season. Dividing off this pot has been like the parable of the loaves and the fishes, it gives and gives and gives!