I have never grown daylilies on purpose (the bright orange wild ones used to grow on a property I had in Kentucky).

To be honest, until joining this forum I had no idea that there were so many bazillions of colors and shapes and sizes of daylily.

This coming spring I am interested in getting a variety or two to plant. Browsing the catalogs is pretty confusing because there are soooo many choices.

Can somebody recommend some varieties that grow tall, have a relatively long bloomtime, and are not plain orange or yellow? Those are the things I'm looking for.

I will look into anything that people suggest, but without knowing where to start it is pretty overwhelming.

Jack

https://garden.org/plants/grou... is a wonderful search tool for locating by characteristics.
It looks overwhelming and can be if you let it. A tip is to keep your search simple by filling in maybe 1 or 2 factors.

Do you have a preference for a color?

Hi! Some tall ones that I grow are

Creature of the Night
Origin Stories
Heavenly Starfire
Magic of Oz - though not as tall as others, it has good height and just awesome flowers

Jack, Welcome to the world of daylilies! It can be overwhelming when trying to narrow it down to just a few out of the tens of thousands.

Not sure how 'tall' you are talking, but here are a couple that I like that are 26-27 inches tall. I wouldn't say they have a long bloom season, maybe 2-3 weeks.

I would recommend a reblooming daylily, which these say they are, but I don't have a lot of luck with rebloom. You might want to get one that blooms early and one that blooms late.

Moonlit Masquerade is an oldie, but a goodie
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Moonlit Masquerade')


Persian Market is nice. It is described as a deep rose color. It is definitely not orange.

Just how tall does a daylily need to be for someone to consider it tall? For me I would consider anything over 30 inches as tall. I did not realize I had so many tall oneS, I show 30 that are at 30 inches tall and I know I have a few taller, but not many. I have not yet developed a taste for the really tall ones(I consider that over 36 inches).

Just my two cents...

2-3 weeks is, imho, much too short of a bloom period for any daylily, even if the cultivar reblooms later in the season. With very few exceptions (for outstanding color, and the like) my "red line" is for at least a bit over one month of bloom (that's 4.5- 5 weeks, more or less) for a mature clump. Plants have to earn their garden keep.

I've been trying to draw the line at 30" minimum height for any new daylilies, but again, there are exceptions. (Apart from the "gotta have it" daylilies for the color pattern or whatever, small and miniature flowered daylilies are generally going to be shorter than 30", to keep a pleasing proportion. For the most part I don't care for miniatures, but small flowered daylilies are valuable in any size garden.) I do have some of the "real tall ones", and I like them; they just have to be placed carefully for best effect.

Finally, there's nothing wrong with yellow daylilies. (I do not understand or sympathize with the seeming prejudice against them as being "too common".) They fit in well in the garden, they are cheerful, and many of them are great beauties. There is such a variation in colors that can be deemed "yellow" (cream, lemon, golden, polychrome, and so on) that how can you blanket put a moratorium on them? (Orange daylilies, I admit, can be a bit more difficult to place in the garden. But again, depending on what you consider to be "orange", there are some that are beautiful and may change your mind.)

An afterthought (though it should really be a forethought)... unless you like spraying fungicides, you should try to get cultivars that have at least some degree of rust resistance. (Rust may winter kill in your area, but you may still have to deal with it the first year a new plant comes into your garden.) You can use the database here to look into any suggested varieties. (Not all cultivars have data on rust resistance or susceptibility, more's the pity.)

Thank you all. There is a lot of good advice here!

I don't mind spraying fungicides. I grow zinnias and gourds, both of which benefit from weekly(ish) fungicides. Would the same kind of fungicides be used on daylilies?

As for "tall," I guess I mean around 30-40", the same height of my zinnias. Anything around that height would be fine by me.

I don't want yellows because I already have tons of yellow represented in butterfly weed, coreopsis, dahlias, and others so it's getting to become too common in my garden. Nothing personal against yellow.

Ah, okay then, carry on!

I have an area with yellow-flowered Euryops, a yellow bearded iris ('Luminosity'), and a yellow Osteospermum ('Blue Eyed Beauty') that I put a yellow daylily in. It got too yellow even for me! (The yellow daylily got yanked and replaced with a lavender one... we'll see how that color combo goes.) So now that you have explained it, I can understand (and sympathize with) your reasoning.

There are a surprising number of people who disdain yellow daylilies simply because they are "too common"... enough so that (being a lover of yellow daylilies) I now have a kneejerk reaction when somebody says that they don't like or want yellow daylilies. I guess I misjudged you as being one of them. Sorry about that!

Haha. No worries. My butterfly weed was "supposed" to be red and orange when I bought it, but it's the purest, brightest, most powerful primary yellow and all by itself it screams "LOOK AT ME!" Each year in my mixed zinnias I also tend to get lots of yellow, and with nasturtiums, marigolds, cosmos...I have a lot of it. As a matter of fact, last year I did an all-yellow arrangement for somebody. :)

I also have some cream-colored nasturtiums and zinnias and I have found that (in the vase) next to the bright, powerful, yellow of the butterfly weed they actually look dirty, not creamy.

In some ways I think it's actually harder to plan a single-color garden (yellows with yellows, purples with purples, etc) than it is to just mix it up.

I felt the same way initially about yellow until I saw blooms of Look Here Mary, Sherwood Gladiator, Genesta Among others.



Sears Tower @ 67"


Thin Man - recommend this one.


Beautiful Edgings


Cameroon Twister


Heavenly Breeze


Ram - seeing this one bloom makes my jaw drop.





King Of Camelot


Freewheelin
The possibilities are endless.


Grape Slush

One of the daylilies that started my addiction was Ruby Spider. It is a large bloom with a bold red color that doesn't melt away in the sun. My two clumps that I have along my sidewalk had many polymerous (extra petals) blooms this past season. I have about 400 daylilies, and it still remains on my top ten list.

Poly blooms:


A softer pink colored one that does well is Mystical Rainbow


In the purple family-Trahlyta


As mentioned above, there are so many to choose from, and everyone has differing opinions about 'the best one'. One thing I did when I first started was to look to see how many members here owned a particular cultivar. If twenty or more people owned it, and they were geographically spread out, then I felt like the plant would do well for me too.

I included the three above because I've grown them for a number of years and they have performed very well here in SC. You may want to check with others in or near your state to see what they may suggest. I also picked ones that were in the $10 or less price range, as that is what I wanted when I first began. I did not look up their heights to see if they were in your preferred range.

I'll look through some other pictures tonight to see if anything else jumps out to me. You can also click on a member's name, then scroll down to see the link for their plant list. From that list, you can choose 'daylilies only' to look through, and it may give you some ideas.

There is also a daylily of the day feature here, which I'm sure someone can provide a link to (I can't seem to get this to work on my iPad).

Check out the AHS Popularity Poll for region 3, which PA is in. http://www.daylilies.org/PopPo...

Jai, one of my main criteria for daylilies is height . I dont grow anything less than 26 inches tall as it would just get lost in the gardens . That goes for any kind of plant I grow as I dont have a " specimen" garden with mostly mulch. I grow more like an English country garden .



I have a number of daylilies that are more than 50" tall. Some as tall as 72 inches like Eli Murphy ,52'' Heavenly Dancing Fairies and 70" Rognavaldur

It would be almost impossible for someone else to pick daylilies for you. It all comes down to what you find attractive . Shape , height , color , eye , no eye ,edge , no edge , fragrant or no fragrance , season of bloom , ploidy and price all come into your decision. Anyway there are many thousands of tall beauties that fit your 30 to 40 inch criteria . Just check out different growers daylilies lists for height . You could search " daylilies & state you live " and it should pull up lots of websites . Then decide if you like the look of the bloom and if it fits your criteria in terms of the above factors. Be careful it can become an obsession . I know it has for me LOL !

signet said:It would be almost impossible for someone else to pick daylilies for you. It all comes down to what you find attractive . Shape , height , color , eye , no eye ,edge , no edge , fragrant or no fragrance , season of bloom , ploidy and price all come into your decision.

This is very true. My daylily "collection" would be absolutely boring to most daylily people, yet it pleases me. Or rather, many of the plants therein please me. Others will eventually get phased out - because they were gift plants that I gave a chance to, but didn't like, or because they didn't perform, or because the reality did not meet the hype.

(The "eventually" part pertains to finding a better plant (better by my criteria), and in some cases, coming up with a seedling that retains the good traits of the parent, but is an improvement in some respect, such as rust resistance.)

Therefore, another starting point for you (beyond Regional Popularity Poll lists and the like), is to look at a whole lot of daylily pictures (until the daylily season, when you can actually (hopefully) go to nurseries or local gardens and see the real thing), and see what kinds of daylilies consistently capture your interest or spark your imagination. For example, you make like eyes with matching edges - or you may not. You may like golden edges - or you may not. You may like spiders, or doubles - or you may prefer more traditional "single" blooms. You may like some of the Unusual Forms. And so on.

It is not just about color and height, but also about flower forms and color patterns. Once you get those narrowed down ("I'd like to try a -") then you can look for info, or ask for help, about daylilies meeting your likes that will also be healthy and good performers.

Beyond Thunderdome
Alabama Jubilee
Jerry Hyatt
Websters Pink Wonder
When We Kiss
Purple Kaboom
None Like You
Web Browser
Tuscawilla Tigress
Regency Heights
Hello Screamer
Heman
Swallow Tail Kite
White Eyes Pink Dragon

All of these are taller and are easy to grow, and increase well.
All of these have nice color and make a great show in a clump.

Thank you all. I really appreciate ALL these responses. I called one of the daylily vendors and the lady told me there were 75,000 varieties. That's why it's so difficult to choose! Haha.

From what I've seen, I do really like the "Mystical Rainbow" pictured above. I'm a guy but it looks so soft and feminine that I bet my mom would love it!

Whatever you decide on be sure to look it up in the NGA database to see all of the pictures posted for true colors. A LOT of daylily websites have enhanced pictures and when they bloom they look nothing like the picture. I learned the hard way Good luck 👍

Yes, no kidding about the "enhanced" pictures. Apart from that, though, how the blooms look is subject to regional variation (soil, temps), so daylilies grown in places of high heat and humidity (FL) may not look so great in PA (or northern CA).

I recommend oldies and very affordable ones for beginners. You can add more expensive ones later if you like. Honestly I have some I paid a lot for and some I got for $5 and those cheapy ones end up being my favorites. The price will have no bearing on whether you like it or not. I had some pricey ones I didn't like the looks of and tossed 'em out !
Here are some links to nurseries I've used and are very affordable and have a great variety of nice things.

http://www.homesteadfarms.com/
http://saksadaylilyfarm.com/t/...
http://keastdaylilygardens.com...
http://www.ogdenstationdaylili...