day lily dead heading

The Internet is wonderful.  It answers questions you haven't even asked.  I was just gadding about on line when I came upon a post about making your day lilies bloom longer.  A lady spends an hour a day snapping off the spent flowers on her hundreds of daylily plants, and swears they bloom for a longer time when she does that.  Snapping off the spent blossom means it can't make seeds, and the plant will continue to produce flowers as it strives to reproduce itself.

Don't try this at home, unless you know the difference between a spent flower and a bud that hasn't opened yet.  The spent flower is long and wrinkled.  A new bud is hard, shiny, and pale green.  Snap it off just where the flower is attached to the stem, and it should make a satisfying pop sound.  Try not to take a new bud with it.

So I've been deadheading my daylilies every day for two weeks, and I am not seeing any improvement in bloom time.  But the plants definitely look neater!  I usually cut off the stem close to the ground once the flowers are all done, but this year I will leave them for a while and see if any more appear.

While I'm waiting for that to happen, here's a tour through my daylily collection:

here's my two least favourite ones:

I wish this guy had more colour.  It's a bit washed out.

I don't like double flowers.  The bees have a hard time getting nectar and pollen because of all the petals, and the plants are often hybrids that don't even produce nectar and pollen.