Great color in daylilies! | Defining what IT is...

<posted May 23, 2013>  I swear the daylily foliage in my garden this year is the best it has ever looked.  Or could it be that my eyes are just so sore for green, lush sights that I am imagining it?  Either way, it is awesome out there.  I'm dreaming of the days when the clumps of leaves are covered in an umbrella of bloom.  Dreaming of the days when I search for the sight of the day that takes my breath away - something in the daylilies that makes me whisper an "ah" upon discovering it.  If you need a chart to feel what I'm describing, here:

Its usually color that does it for me first.  Saturated, sunfast and sexy color.  Like Bill Waldrop's 'Red Sapphire.'  It means to be pink and it is PINK - not a muddy mauve - but PINK.  Here it is:

Sometimes its clarity of color that strikes me.  Below in Kimberly McCutcheon's 'Baby Pinwheels' or the classic 'Julie Newmar' I see clarity and cleanliness of color.

And again with another Bill Waldrop introduction, 'Kennesaw Mountain Hayride' there is a deep saturation that looks like wet paint.  I find that when I go on garden tours of other daylily-centric gardens, if I happen to "connect" or "have a moment" with a particular cultivar, I seek it out to grow in my own yard so I can relive that moment of excitement - that blip on my heart chart.

What I love about Tim Bell's 'Valdosta Again' (below) is not just the dependable pattern, but the chartreuse beacon at the center of the flower.  If that were more dull, if it weren't so wide and repeated on the sepals, that pattern would not be so fantastic.  This one was my gift plant for attending the 2010 AHS Convention in Valdosta.  What an amazing time that was...

And it doesn't have to be complicated color to be amazing....look at Barrie Matthie's 'Bonibrae The Freak.'  This has Richard Norris' 'Substantial Evidence' in its pedigree.  LOOK AT THAT GREEN!  This photo was taken outside at 1pm in Georgia heat when I visited Kennesaw Mountain Daylilies last summer.

Enough of this...I could go on forever.  But you should go now and think about what it is in your garden that makes your heart chart BLIP!  I'm going to continue to enjoy the hummingbirds feeding today during a light rain...

hummingbirds drinking-

the soft rain coating their backs.

they don't seem to mind.