Background history:

'Sandra Elizabeth' is a dormant tetraploid introduced in 1983 by Stevens-D., 1983.

It has earned the following AHS awards:
Honorable Mention: 1993
ESF: 1993

This plant can be found in our Plant Database at:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Sandra Elizabeth') .

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Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Sandra Elizabeth')

Hardy and flowers late, sometimes a bit too late, but lovely when it manages to finish all the flowers before the first freeze.

I always seem to forget about Sandra Elizabeth until it blooms. It is very reliable and is most welcome due to the late bloom time. It has huge fans so give it plenty of room! It is not the latest daylily I have but it may be the latest tetraploid. I only started adding more late tetraploid daylilies last year so I have yet to be able to say anything about it being pollen or pod fertile.

I created a very-late-blooming daylily garden in August, 2017 and am awaiting the first blooms in this garden. Scapes have yet to appear on Sandra Elizabeth.

I have 3 daughters of Sandra Elizabeth by Robert Seawright, all late, tall, vigorous and red. Scarlet, Carmine, and Catherine Elizabeth. All excellent.

Sandra Elizabeth is the only daylily I have in 4 different places. The last to bloom for me and welcome fall color.

This plant already bloomed for me and it's first year to bloom. Didn't get much out of it. This plant had short scapes and a few fans. I will wait a couple more years to x breed and such. It still needs time to develop.

Oops, never mind. I have a yellow noid that looks similar to Sandra Elizabeth that already bloomed. Never mind.

I got my original Sandra Elizabeth from Seawright who inherited all their stock directly from Don Stevens, the hybridizer. When I bought it, I was actually told to buy the plant by Bob Seawright who claimed that ( at that time in the late 90s), it was the absolute last Daylily to flower in the garden. And it was! For many years! Eventually, that plant got lost when I was moving things around but when Seawright was going out of business ( 2012) I bought another one. It has formed a large indestructible clump on Lower Daylily Hill. Great Plant!

Sandra Elizabeth was absolutely the best yellow daylily in the drought-prone hilltop garden of very-late blooming daylilies at the farm where I used to live. It was a very reliable bloomer and clump former, and its blooms were attractive. If I could choose only two very-late blooming daylilies for that drought-prone garden, Sandra Elizabeth would be one of them. However, I now live in a place where daylilies actually rebloom (!!!) very late in the season, and I have discovered some rebloomers that would probably be a better choice for limited garden space than Sandra Elizabeth.

This summer 2021 was a great show for Sandra Elizabeth on Lower Daylily Hill. I also found my original SE, blooming in the Island Bed.

There is some possibility that both, or either group, got dug up when I was cleaning out Fula and Kwanso this Fall. I'm hoping that I still left a good chunk, it's a strong plant that should recover quickly.

2022…Yes, most of my Sandra Elizabeth was dug out and tossed ( not by me!) during the cleanup of Lower Daylily Hill. But plenty of it remained and I'm sure will form new strong clumps. The Island Sandra Elizabeth is going strong. This year she began blooming August 12 and went until September 13. That's usually a pretty empty period for bloom in my yard, so her late habit is still much appreciated.

2023 update…Sandra Elizabeth was moved to the new bed in front of the house in June, in advance of the new Terrace Bed being built. It didn't slow her down at all, I got plenty of bloom from July 28 to September 11.

I've only had Sandra Elizabeth since May of 2021 and am already impressed with this daylily. The scapes hold the pretty, yellow blooms well above the foliage and branching is such that each bloom has room to shine. I've not seen rust on it. It bloomed in mid August in 2021, but in 2022 and 2023, it bloomed from the second week of July through at least the first week of August. It is registered as very late and this one definitely starts much later than many of my other daylilies. August Flame and Sandra Elizabeth bloom about the same time in my zone 6b garden.

I did not measure the scapes, but I think it gets taller than the registered height of 28 inches.

August 12, 2021 - three months after planting in my garden.


July 20, 2023 - two years later - it has multiplied very well!


July 10, 2023 - branching is awesome and bud count is maybe between 15-20, but I don't have a true count of either.


July 31, 2023 - no rebloom, no polys, and no fancy frills with this one. But it is a beautiful yellow with bouquets of blooms in the late garden.