Understanding the Abbreviations

Daylily descriptions on this site are generally taken from the registered information of the American Hemerocallis Society.  The AHS uses standard abbreviations to give general information about the plant.  Here are some common ones:

Hybridizer's Name and Year Registered:  For example, (Stamile 1993)

Foliage:  dor=dormant (foliage dies back completely in the winter), ev or evr=evergreen (foliage stays green unless frozen as here in central Kentucky),  sev=semievergreen (somewhere in between).  The foliage type does not always indicate hardiness.  For example, some evergreen daylilies are hardy in northern winters while others are not.  However, dormant daylilies need a certain amount of cold weather to survive and will eventually die in warmer climates.

Bloom Season:  E (Early), M (Midseason-the height of bloom season), La (Late), Re (Reblooms-this varies.  Some daylilies put up new flower stalks, known as scapes, after all the flowers have finished.  Others grow new scapes while the old are still blooming.)  There may also be combinations like EM (early midseason) or MLa (mid late season).  Take the listed bloom season with a grain of salt as it may vary according to where the hybridizer of the plant lived, the weather that year, etc.

Ploidy:  This is useful information for the hybridizer.  Dip=diploid (The daylily has the number of naturally occurring chromosones.)  Tet=tetraploid (The daylily has been chemically altered to have double the chromosones which allow for more startling differences in the offspring.  These daylilies tend to have thicker scapes and heavier flower substance).

Flower size:  I show this as two numbers such as 24 x 6.  The first number is the registered height and the next number is the registered width of the flower.  These often vary greatly in the garden so your plant may be a little shorter or the flowers smaller, etc.

Buds and Branching:  The number of buds somewhat indicate how long the daylily will bloom since each daylily bloom lasts only about one day.  The daylily's scientific name, Hemerocallis, actually means "beauty for a day".  The branching indicates how the scape grows.  More is better with branching and bud count.

Parentage:  The daylily "parents" that were crossed by the hybridizer to create this daylily. 

Planting Your Daylily

When you buy your daylily, it may come bare-root as at least a two-fan division with the leaves and flower scapes cut down to a few inches.  If so, you will be able to see where the leaves (fans) meet the crown with the roots below.  The crown is the part of the plant that connects multiple fans. 

To plant a bare-root daylily, prepare a hole wider than the roots.  They love soil that is rich in compost but will grow in almost any soil.  Make a mound of soil in the middle of the hole and set the daylily on it with the roots spread out around it.  The crown should be just covered with soil when you fill the hole in.  Water well and within a few days you will see it put out fresh new leaves!  It may take until the next season to bloom, so be sure to use some type of permanent label so you will remember which one it is.  (There are over 60,000 registered daylilies, so it is almost impossible to figure out what a daylily is once separated from its name!)

After a few years, if the clump gets big and doesn't seem to bloom as well as it had been, you may want to divide the clump.  This is fairly easy.  Dig the clump.  You may want to wash some of the dirt off the roots to make it easier.  You will see the individual fans that make up the plant.  Find a place where there is space between the fans.  It is almost like parting your hair.  Cut down until you feel you've cut through the crown, then try to wiggle the two sections apart so that you will save as many roots as possible.  It is best not to divide into less than two-fan divisions so the new plants will be strong enough to thrive.  Plant the sections as you originally did or share with friends!