Blooming Friday ~ Patterns

Daylilies. Like roses, iris, and dahlias, it's one of those plants that gardeners become obsessed with. My association with daylilies began innocently enough, and in a most commonplace way ~ I started out with orange daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva). In spite of being sterile orange daylilies have naturalized here in the U.S. and it's common to see them growing in roadside ditches, thus the common name ditch lily.

Then came the double orange day lily 'Kwanso', rescued from beside my parents' pond where another gardener had dug them up and thrown them out. Later I ordered a couple of named daylilies after seeing pictures online. I started with 'Ah Youth' and 'Buttered Popcorn'. Daylily beauties acquired in trades made their way into the garden, and more from daylily farms. I'm a cheapskate so I haven't paid more than $15 for one. Which doesn't mean I don't salivate over some of the $100 ones. :)

Daylilies have many different color patterns, some simple, some very complex. A self daylily has petals and sepals (the smaller "petals") that are the same color, although the throat is often yellow.

Blend of pink and yellow

Midribs can be a contrasting color, often white or pale yellow.

'Bleu Celeste' is bitone with white midribs. A reverse bitone has light petals and dark sepals.

'Lion in Winter'

Banding is contrast coloring above the throat that occurs only on the petals and not on the sepals.

A daylily is referred to as having a halo if the banding
or eyezone is faint or narrow. 'Ah Youth' has a haloed band.

Contrasting color above the throat is called an eye if it
occurs on both petals and sepals, as with 'Moonlight Masquerade'.

'Lemon Berry Frost' has light washy marks on the sepals which don't
show very well in this picture and is considered to have an eyemark.

A watermark is an eye that's often lighter than the flower's base color, and looks like watercolor paint blooming on wet paper.

'Avant Garde' x 'Maxfield Parrish'

Pencilled eyemark ~ 'Siloam David Kirchhoff'

Colorwashed with faint watermark ~ 'Smuggler's Gold'

A picotee daylily has darker or lighter fluting at the edges of the petals.

'Indian Giver'

'Fairy Tale Pink' a daylily with diamond dusting.

See the sparkle?

I hope you have enjoyed seeing some summer flowers again in the depths of winter.

Happy Friday and thank you to Katarina at roses and stuff for hosting Blooming Friday.