I have found that some flowers listed as fragrant are well...subtle. lol What are your favorite fragrant daylilies?

Thank you all for enduring the newb questions!

Hi Celene,
Daylilies do have a subtle fragrance, most of the time you need to stick your nose in the blooms to smell them. The most fragrant one I have grown is Hyperion.



Another, although not as fragrant as Hyperion, is Chance Encounter.


The AHS did have an award for fragrant dormant daylilies, but it was discontinued after being awarded in 2003. Here is a link to the list of the daylilies that were voted to be the most fragrant by garden judges.
http://www.daylilies.org/LErne...

I have five on that list. I have many that are registered as fragrant, but I have never (up to this point) felt the need to investigate. Last one listed in 2003.
Lavender Blue Baby

I have often seen daylilies listed as fragrant, but I do not recall ever having detected a fragrance to any of them.

Spanish Fandango, Yellow Ducky, and Early Fragrance are my most fragrant. I think daylilies in larger clumps would be more fragrant, so it might depend on how big the clump is to smell the fragrance in the air.

I've always wondered how fragrance is carried in the air. How does it travel? Does it attach to something? Or is some sort of molecule thrown off that flies on its own? I didn't notice any odors coming off my daylilies this year that I recognized, but sometimes the source of odors can be elusive. Has anyone noticed whether weather conditions such as high or low humidity affect the strength of a fragrance? Not quite on topic, I guess.

I decided to do a net search on my question. Odors of any kind are volatilized molecules that are carried in the air. It got weird pretty quick in that nearly anything is not just a liquid or a solid. When our dog smells us, it's our own volatized molecules that they perceive and identify as unique to us. I did not see any answer to whether some conditions enhance the detection of odors, but it may have been there. It distracted me to think nearly everything around me is emitting those molecules. I guess I shouldn't have been caught off guard so much. Everyone likes a 'new car' smell, don't they?

Most fragrant for just one plant would be Lexington, Hyperion, and Hudson Valley. Spanish Fandango has only been here two years and I haven't noticed the fragrance yet. For a mass planting there are two: Miss Amelia, a small flowered DL--there are 24 plants in this group. Then there is Imperial Lemon which is my favorite yellow DL. We do have four plants of Chance Encounter but have not noticed a great deal of fragrance. I believe most fragrance seems to come from the yellow daylilies, so would be interested to hear from others about this.


Miss Amelia


Hudson Valley


Imperial Lemon


Hyperion

Hyperion is by far my most fragrant.

My most fragrant daylily is Lilioasphodelus. Last year I visited Antony House in Cornwall UK which has a national collection of daylilies. It was a hot day and the fragrance was amazing, especially from the yellow ones. Unfortunately the labelling was not very clear so I have no idea of the names of the most fragrant plants.

Longfields Beauty is also quite fragrant and (as previously mentioned) Imperial Lemon which is one of my favourites.

When hybridizers register their daylilies they can check off if the blooms are fragrant or very fragrant. The AHS database is searchable for this and provides another listing to look at for fragrant daylilies. On the page below click the red letter "click here for Advanced Search" on the right, then scroll down to the check boxes for "Fragrance".
http://www.daylilies.org/Dayli...

Thank for that reminder, Char. I often forget that we can narrow down the search for really specific things.

The only registered one of mine that immediately comes to mind as fragrant is 'Osterized' - which is yet another yellow one.



I also have a seedling of lost heritage which is fragrant, but that one is a pink - lavender. I hope to acquire 'Hearts of Fire' this year, which is a red which is also supposedly fragrant. (I am not trying to get it for the fragrance - which I consider a lovely bonus - but because it has a rust digital score of 1.0.)



So it is not just the yellow daylilies that are fragrant, though maybe they are more likely to be fragrant than other colors...?

That is an interesting thought and a topic for database research, if one could trust the database to be complete, correct, and accurate in that regard (and if one had the time...). Of all the daylilies that are fragrant, what percentage of those are yellow? And does that percentage match the overall percentage of yellow daylilies among all daylilies, or are fragrant yellow daylilies represented out of proportion to their overall percentage in the daylily population?

(I have read (in more than one place), various people commenting that they would not have a yellow daylily in their garden, one reason being given was that they are "too common". While I would not go to the extreme opposite (only yellow daylilies in the garden), I find yellow daylilies to be pleasant and cheerful (particularly so in the ML-L garden), and would not be without some, regardless of how small my garden was. Maybe the possibility that "yellow daylilies are (more) fragrant" might encourage some of the nay-sayers to incorporate a few of the fragrant ones in their garden?)

I did a search of "very fragrant" and brought up over 2400 plants.

Although I don't work for fragrance in my seedlings I do notice on those HHH ( Hazy, Hot, Humid) days there is a stronger scent of daylily over the tightly planted seedling beds. This fits with what Vickie, Donald and Hilary said, larger clumps - more blooms, humidity - scent attaching to moisture molecules and heat. I wonder if daylilies registered as nocturnals would be more likely to be fragrant? Night blooming plants commonly use fragrance to attract pollenators.

Hudson Valley by far. I can walk by it and suddenly enjoy the fragrance without bending over and putting my nose in the blossom.......

Thank you everyone for your input! I'm considering where I can add some fragrant daylilies in my garden. I have a couple of places that other perennials died out that I want to use a daylily or two. Plus a couple of containers.

One I totally overlooked is Northfield. We also have a group planting of these and they are very fragrant. Northfield very often produces polys and in this picture, I believe this is called a fused bloom.

I think that'd be lovely in my large container with Verbena rigida and Symphandra or catmint around the edges.

There's also the very early H. flava which used to bloom in April in my garden in Salt Lake City with an amazing fragrance. It made a nice transition from the daffs and tulips to the early iris. Another nice delicate yellow flower.