Background history:

'Fairy Tale Pink' is a semi-evergreen diploid introduced in 1980 by Pierce-C..

It has earned the following AHS awards:
Stout Silver Medal: 1990
Award of Merit: 1987
Honorable Mention: 1984
PC: 1986

This plant can be found in our Plant Database at:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Fairy Tale Pink') .

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Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Fairy Tale Pink')

I have had Fairy Tale Pink for many years. It was one of the earliest additions to my collection of daylilies. It is very reliable but its color is not a favorite of mine. I think I might like it better combined with plants with deep, saturated colors and contrasting foliage.

I've had FTP for many, many years. It is in a location where it does not get sun until early afternoon. Probably, because of that, I have not had to divide it in all those years.
Here is a picture of FTP:

Here are three seedlings from Fairy Tale Pink X Indian Giver:

has a wishy washy color I didn't care for, it just isn't quiiiiiite pink, but like it almost gets there, and that bugged me so I tossed it.
It was a good performer for me though what I remember of it, it had good substance and bloomed above the foliage nicely.
Here is a pic taken 10 years ago

I guess I would actually describe the color as peach, so if you buy it thinking it will be a soft pink, it's not. At least it wasn't for me. I did grow it for several years. I love the name though!

Yes, I agree. The only pink I usually see is in the rib.

It's funny that people say the color of FTP is peach. For me it is a very pale pink. I grew it for years in a windowbox and it bloomed fairly well despite not having enough soil. I finally transplanted it to the ground last year. I'm looking forward to seeing how it blooms this year.

It was one of the first daylilies I purchased. I'm not a huge fan of the color now but it does blend well with other plants.

If you are looking for a tough plant for a border to blend with other colors I'd definitely recommend it.

Somewhere around 2004 I spent $2 for a daylily that was being tossed. It had only one bud which was showing some color. There was no name tag, so definitely "a pig in a poke" daylily. Said daylily was planted and did wonderfully well for us. I never did know the name, but a few years later, I purchased Fairy Tale Pink from a catalog. When it bloomed, I had the name at last of our mystery daylily--it was Fairy Tale Pink. In our garden, I would call the color pink-peach, and that's fine. It has always produced loads of beautiful flowers, rarely ever see a bad one. We will always have Fairy Tale Pink our our garden.


Fairy Tale Pink

FTP was one of my first daylilies, after years in the garden it was gifted to someone. While it did fine in my garden my preference in daylilies changed.

Sometimes, I'll admit to being puzzled about why such ancient daylilies are being evaluated. I grew this for about 15 years but that was at least 15 years ago. I grew it for the historical perspective , as it had won the SSM back in the day. At some point, I donated my entire Stout Medal collection to our club when we created an AHS Display garden at the Garden Council center. In fact, I took them all -about 60 -I had them all, and planted them there in chronological order. As I remember, this was one of the first cultivars I grew to exhibit "summer dormancy." It would bloom and then During really hot summers, the foliage would completely disappear. The first few times, I thought it had died but then a tuft of new leaves would always reappear each fall. Remembering it was good enough to win the Stout in its day, I found that in comparison to newer pinks, the color looked washed out and the foliage was ratty. LAst time I walked through the Display bed, they were all still alive there.

Fairy Tale Pink has been in my garden for 9 years and has flourished. It needs to be divided but I love the clump and probably twenty scapes it produces. I am in zone 6a. I also use it in my hybridizing and sets pod very easily. Even though the color is light or washed out I still like the form. Great daylily for one just starting out growing daylilies. First comment on the site-hope it is ok!

This was one of my first daylilies, and has always done well. The blooms are always nice, but I agree the color is not quite pink. Not a bad color, but if you are determined on pink, it won't work for you. I always like a good dependable day lily though and this is one

I grew FTP for many years and it left the garden about 10-12 years ago. It performed well for me in MD and NY. The one thing that I noticed by growing it in two different areas was the difference in color. In MD, with clay soil, the bloom was more melon than pink. For the life of me, I could not figure out why it was called Fairy Tale Pink (unless it was a fairy tale)? When I moved to NY, and saw it bloom, it was more pink than melon. My soil in NY is not clay, but full of river bed rocks. I amended the clay soil in MD, but was never able to get the pink to come out.

David (Zone 5)

I used to grow FTP many years ago, here in our CA clay soil. The color, as others have stated, was not pink... more of a pale peach, or a melon. (I lost the plant for some combinations of reasons, and never re-purchased it.)

I don't have any surviving photos, but years ago I took one image (I wish I could find it now) where the plant had two poly blooms on it in one day. That image showed me the promise in the poly form - how beautiful poly daylilies could be. (Of course, at that time I was already interested in polys. ) FTP didn't throw polys at a high %, but it did throw them.

I see this is yesterday's Daylily of the Day but I wanted to comment on Fairy Tale Pink as I absolutely love it!

Like many others it was one of the very first daylilies I grew and that was only because my mother in law gave it to me. I kept moving it here and there as the garden beds took shape and the poor dear barely had time to put down roots in any one spot. The last place it touched down must have been perfect as it bloomed a mass of scapes that year. I fell in love with it. I think it has the most delicate, subtle pink/peach flower that is always absolutely perfect in form! I admit I've always been drawn to the pastel colors (I've since branched out considerably) so what others call wishy-washy color was much admired by me.

I'll always grow FTP and because it performs so well I've divided it and gifted it to others!

After adding newer cultivars I find myself comparing the blooms to the perfect forms of the older ones and often find them lacking, I mean with one petal curled up or hung up and too often the perfect form is sacrificed for other traits. I think "beautiful" never goes out of style and Fairy Tale Pink is beautiful!!

Wow, I just took a look at the AHS database, make that ADS now I guess, and the picture of Fairy Tale Pink there looks nothing like the garden photos here. Makes me wonder where in the world that AHS photo came from.

So I took a look at my pictures of Fairy Tale Pink through the years 2009-2016 in my garden and found that it definitely looks more peach than pink. Very few photos showed a tinge of pink. I do love the midribs with the variations of color.

I purchased FTP in June of 2009 and every year I said I was going to get rid of it, but I still have it. What I don't like about it is not the bloom, but that it blooms just above the foliage. I wish it were just a little bit taller.

From the pictures, it appears to only have two-way branching, and I can't really tell how many buds but it doesn't look like more than 10. It does seem like there are a lot of scapes though. It begins blooming around mid-June and is done by the first week of July.

Even though it is supposed to be a rebloomer, I've never seen it rebloom here in my zone 6b garden. And I have never seen rust on it.










This picture is from 7/6/16 and shows how it blooms in the foliage. There are several scapes with bud scars so you can see the branching and about how many blooms there were.

I have FTP it is a good grower, plenty of blooms, does not rebloom for me. Barbara Mitchell & FTP are very close & I sometimes get them mixed up in the garden very close in color that peachy pink. Both a old standards that aren't fussy, good for anyone just getting into daylilies.

I planted Fairy Tale Pink in the Spring of 2019. It bloomed that same July. It's a beautiful flower, simple, somehow moonlike. It's sure pink for me! Even the ones that come out peachier are still a sort of Ballerina Pink. It hasn't had time to form a big clump but I suspect it will as it seems to like it's spot.

July 2019


July 2020, in front of Alnilam



A week later in July 2020

Blooming in two locations this summer, Fairy Tale Pink had a nice long season, beginning June 27 and ending July 29. I really love the cv in the front of the border where it's short size and large blooms are a bonus. I find it quite beautiful, the color being a pretty ballet pink here. The form and ruffles are usually perfect.

Fairytale Pink was overtaken by other perennials this year and only produced 1 bloom ( that I saw) in 2022. I freed it up, divided and replanted it, so hoping it comes back looking good next year. I can see a second bud in the photo but I never saw that flower as I left from July 3-6