Hi My day lily (Hyperion) that I have had for a very long time didn't bloom the the right time and the color and fragrance isn't right either . It was always a very pretty pale yellow and the fragrance was so nice, when I first got it ,, I divided it and put them along a fence so we could smell them on our patio It would bloom right around July 4 with the pink cone flowers and liatris .We move in 2012 and that year the deer ate them .2013 we put them in new raised bed with new soil and all that was needed to grow good ,,the first thing I notice was the color was off and I just thought it might be the soil and the crazy weather we had here last year ,,nothing grew right until the very end of August. This past couple of weeks they open late ,very little fragrances and the color is way off deeper shade of yellow instead of the pretty pale yellow . I have 3 other day lilies that are close by .(Cranberry Cove ) beautiful red (Pardon Me) red and my very favorite to have in perennial flower beds (Miss Amelia ) pale yellow ...... Can they cross pollinate ?? today I order some more Hyperion from White flower farms.. Should I move the red day lilies away from the yellows? Thank you very much This is a very nice site a lot of good info here ..

Hi Moonbeam,

I don't know anything about Day Lilies so I can't really help but I just wanted to say to All Things Plants! We have many members who are avid Day Lily growers and are quite knowledgeable about these beautiful plants so I'm sure someone will pop in soon to offer advice! I did find those you listed in our database ... really pretty blooms on all three!

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Hyperion')
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Cranberry Cove')
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Miss Amelia')
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Pardon Me')

Again, Welcome! Have fun browsing the forums and please don't hesitate to ask questions and share photo's of your plants!

Melissa, when you move or move daylilys, it can take time for them to settle in. Especially if you moved a distance - say to another part of the state or another state. You say the 1st year the deer ate them so they took a hit right there. Then the next year you moved them again when you put them in a new raised bed. They've had a lot of turmoil over the last few years. This could be the reason they don't have the fragrance & the color is off. And sometimes when you move them they just plain don't like that spot but I'm betting it's simply a matter of them having to adjust to the new place & "find their feet". It might take a few years --- 2 or 3.

I'm sure others with lots more daylily experience than I will be along to give you more advice.

Hi Melissa, welcome to ATP! I agree with what Ann says, and though neither of us would say we are experts, our experience is very similar when it comes to how daylilies can take some time to adjust after stress.

You are right that daylilies can cross-pollinate, too, so any insect that might visit two of them could create a fertilized pod by carrying pollen between them. When a fertilized pod dries and cracks, and seeds fall to the ground, new "hybrid" daylilies can grow from those seeds right next to their parents, making it confusing to tell the two apart. It would be easy to get those new daylily fans mixed in and not realize it during a move, after foliage has been eaten, or perhaps moved again to a raised bed.

It may also be possible that they are just performing differently due to changes in soil, weather, sun exposure, etc. Here are a couple of the pictures from the database that Lin was so kind to link to. You can see that, depending on where a daylily is planted, the color can change from very pale yellow to very deep yellow or almost more "gold." And, it may take a few years for flowers to bloom "true to form" after they have been moved or stressed - they can look quite different until then.

Grown in Southeast Texas versus grown in Ontario


With the possibility that you have some cross-pollinated flowers mixed in together, fragrance may be different also.

If you want to keep colors together in your flower beds, but avoid any cross-pollination, you might just want to "dead head" the flowers before they set pods, and clear away any pods that do set - before they ripen and drop seeds.

Thank you so much Lin,Ann&Tina the photos really show the difference that I am seeing The pic to left is what they looked like all the years I had them at my other house the pic on right is what they look like now ....That really is amazing how all the different things can affect theses beautiful flowers ..... That is what makes this wonderful gardening experience so much fun .... I'll put the photos up that I took the other day when my Daughter comes over after work Thank you so much

Melissa, why don't you join us over in the daylily forum? We're a friendly bunch.
http://garden.org/forums/view/...

There are threads on there where people have talked about how they moved a daylily (dl for short) from one spot in their yard to another & it acted completely different. Sometimes the change makes the dl much better & sometimes it makes things worse. Sometimes they end up moving it back to the original spot. And sometimes they may end up trying 3 or 4 different places in the garden until the find the place that particular dl does best. We talk about how it seems like some dl's just like to be moved & how sometimes dl's are best left alone to grow where they've always grown.

One thing you can do is to feed dl's with alfalfa pellets. Amazing things happen when you feed with alfalfa pellets!
Here is a link to one post about it
http://garden.org/thread/view_...
and this is a link to the entire thread
The thread "Alfalfa Pellets" in Daylilies forum

Hi here are a few photos of the Hyperion they are a lot darker but still pretty .I want to try using the alfalfa in few weeks (I just fed all of my plants Tuesday so better wait a little bit ). I just use bone meal - plant tone -and fish /seaweed then in the fall we put manure on too .... I'm one of those people that moves my plants around if I don't like it where it is ,,I don't wait for the right time or season ,,,,,my husband always says my poor plants quiver when I'm walking around the yard with a shovel in my hand but I don't lose any either because I make sure there is plenty of soil around the roots and the new spot is well watered and I watch it every day until it's settled in Life is too short to wait sometimes ,,,,most plants are very forgiving

Beautiful garden from what I can see Melissa!

As I understand it, Plant Tone has alfalfa in it. I was just reading about it today as a matter of fact. So you may not need the alfalfa Or you can try it in between the plant tone & see what happens.

Melissa: Wow, beautiful photo's of your daylilies, I really love the first photo of your garden!

Thank you Ann & Lin .....I'll take a picture of whole bed when it stops raining ...this is the time of season when I pull out plants from spring that are not looking good and I put in some potted annual in all the empty spaces .....I like queen Anna's lace ,,,, a weed to most people ,,, so I let some seedlings grow in the flower bed ,,,,,they got too big shaded my double pink rose And the roots on it were crazy big ,so won't be doing that again but I'd still like to have them grow somewhere in the yard the butterfly's and bees were loving them ....give them some fertilizer and they grow to 4' they also stay nice for a week in a vase of water ......

Yep, the flutter bys & bees go ga-ga over Queen Anne's lace.