Want To Extend Your Bloom Season? Go with Late Bloomers. Here's How

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Posted by @Newyorkrita on
Daylily bloom season never seems to last long enough to please us all, but around here it lasts for months longer than it used to when my garden was first planted.

That is because I have garden beds and bed sections in full bloom and ones not even started or barely started. I have heavily added late and extra late bloomers to the garden -- not just here and there, but in whole sections.

Most of us don't have nearly enough late and extra late blooms. Often a daylily listed as late in the AHS database simply does not bloom late once it is established in the garden, but you can have true late blooming daylilies. You just need to know where to look.

My first piece of advice is to expand your horizons. Be willing to add many different flower forms, not just the well-known round forms. Take a second look at plainer flowers. All can be stunning in a clump once they are established. Here are my recommendations for late and extra late bloomers:

1- Olallie Daylily Gardens
Yes, I know these are plainer flowers, but they are very dependable truly late bloomers. Choose the ones listed in their catalog as daylilies blooming in September or later.

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VT Butterscotch Harvest blooms here in early September.

2- Tranquil Lakes Nursery
I also added a batch of late and very late blooms from Tranquil Lakes Nursery. These are old or old-fashioned looking, but they bloom late, so those blooms are fine for me.

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Goodbye Columbus starts blooming here very late in July.

3- Woodhenge Gardens
There are many late and extra late introductions by Jim Murphy and Margo Reed.

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Last Chance For Romance blooms in late August or early September here.

4- 5 Acre Daylily Farm
Other late bloomers I recommend are the introductions of Dr. Wesley Whiteside, who uses the Charleston Harvest prefix. I bought my Whiteside introductions from 5 Acre Daylily Farm.

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Charleston Harvest Autumn Bronze FFO open on August 31st.

5- Dale Thomas introductions
Other season extenders are the Dale Thomas introductions sold by Perfect Perennials. This hybridizer should be far more well known for his work creating late bloomers -- really pretty flowers and lots of late bloomers to choose from.

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Dancing With Sandra in late July.

6- Isabel Hibbard
She is a local Long Island hybridizer with many little-known late blooming daylilies. Almost all Hibbard introductions are late to very late blooming. Sadly, she passed away in July 2012 and her introductions are now almost impossible to find.

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End Of Season in mid-late August.

7- Judy Davisson
Judy has many late blooming introductions, plus she often sells unregistered late and extra late blooming seedlings that are stunners. My garden has many of them growing here.


Last Blast

While you can plant your late blooming daylilies in various daylily beds, I feel that they give you lots more impact grouped together. Plant your late bloomers in a special bed and watch them explode with color after the other gardens have finished blooming.

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Late blooming daylily section here in my garden on the last day of July.
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Comments and Discussion
Thread Title Last Reply Replies
Late bloomers by csandt Sep 28, 2014 5:29 AM 0
Very Nice! by blue23rose Sep 27, 2014 5:55 PM 8
Late Bloomers are great - but where??? by ndantonio2 Sep 27, 2014 3:33 PM 1

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