How to Grow The Best Daylilies

These tips for growing daylilies will ensure that yours are the stars of your neighborhood. They are easy-care and even deadheading daylilies is a simple task!

Daylilies are one of those perennial bulbs that everyone should try to grow somewhere in their garden. I have several patches of them.

The flowers are showing and dramatic and always bring a smile to my face. 

If you love garden tours, be sure to check out daylily gallery and my post on the Daylilies of Wildwood Farms.  It’s a great place to spend the day if you are in Virginia.

Tips for Growing Daylilies – Easy to Grow Bulb with Huge Impact

Follow these tips for the best looking daylilies on your block

Sunlight needs for daylilies

Daylilies love the sun and prefer full sun but will also grow in part shade conditions.  Here in my NC garden, the plants with the biggest blooms are actually out of all day sun.  The darker varieties particularly like some shade during the day.

Soil and planting daylilies

Bury the crown (area where the leaves and roots meet) about a half inch below the surface of the soil.  They like to be spaced them about 10 to 12 inches apart for best effect.

Well drained soil is preferable. Amend your soil with organic matter or compost when you plant the bulbs and add it during the growing season for great blooms.

Daylily watering requirements

Water well.  This is the most important thing about caring for daylilies.  Water helps to ensure that you get as many blooms and as large blooms as possible.

This is especially important in the sprint when buds are setting and when  you are trying to establish a new plant. They will grow with less water but the blooms will be smaller in number and size.

Add some composted leaf mulch around the plants. This will help to retain the water and will eventually add to the soil composition.

Make sure the soil drains well.  If you have poor drainage, they will grow well in raised beds.

Division of daylilies

Daylilies will multiply on their own over the years. This is a great aspect of them, since it means you can share them or divide them to place in other garden areas around your home.

If your plant stops flowering, it may be time to divide it. This should be done about once every three years. Late summer is a good time to tackle the task of dividing daylilies.

They will settle in before the shorter days and cooler temps arrive.

Flowering time for daylilies

Depending on the variety of daylilies that you grow, you can have blooms from spring right through until fall. This is in contrast to Asiatic, Oriental and Easter lilies, which have a more limited bloom time.

Deadheading daylilies

Remove wilted flowers when they are done.  Deadheading encourages new flower stems for daylilies that have the ability to re-bloom. It also helps to keep seed pods from being produced.

Once the flowers are done on a scape, (flower stem) use garden shears to cut it down to the base. Cut them back, don’t pull on them which could uproot the bulb.

Daylily photo gallery

Here are some of my daylilies that have started to flower this year:

Red Vols Daylily.  A Better Homes and Garden winner of the year.  This one is a gift from a special friend of mine!

This gorgeous plant is daylily Earth Wind and Fire. It is a re-bloomer with blooms that can get up to 7 inches across! See my tips for growing Earth Wind and Fire here.

This one is actually an ornamental lily not a daylily.  I bought it last year at a huge reduction from Lowe’s after the flowers all died and they marked them down. A bargain!

This beauty is growing in a shade garden.  It’s so delicate.  Lots more buds opened up today.

This is my largest clump of day lilies. It doubled in size this year.

Just added from Facebook page fan Jennie Ayala’s garden.  Lilies and Phlox.Growing daylilies will ensure that you have long season color all summer long. Do you grow day lilies?  What colors do you like the best?

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