I never got why daylilies (Stella or otherwise) are (or were) used in large plantings for commercial landscaping.... The blooms close after one day, and for the most part, in order for the planting to look good, the dead blooms need to be deadheaded. Who's going to do that job?

Getting back on topic, I find it curious that the "color disasters" here frequently mention pink and yellow. I was looking at one bed this morning (which has had some deer depredation, sigh), and most of the daylilies in that bed are in shades of lavender, pink, or melon. There is one yellow daylily in there, moved last year next to 'Elizabeth Salter', and it struck me that it looks out of place. I suppose that I'll have to move it, though I am not sure where to. (Sorry, no pictures.)

(In that same bed I also have three 'Flower Carpet Amber' roses. They are offset behind the row of daylilies, though, and the roses themselves are a color blend of soft yellow and peach tones, so they fit in the bed better, colorwise, than the yellow daylily.)

I find Stella to be care free, robust and reliable. Have divided my initial gift clump several times over and now enjoy bright splashes of gold throughout my beds. Perhaps not a 'wow' flower but certainly useful to tie things together. I don't have ( or particularly want) the fancy ruffled multi colored DLs and leave those for the collectors.

Just sticking up a bit for Miss Stella. She is a work horse.

@Polymerous - deadheading would be a major job in large plantings. Or, folks could do like a neighbor used to do - leave the deadheads to "give them another chance". Very deep sigh.

I agree with Jo Ann - boring.

@pirl - As I said, who's going to do that job?

I never heard of "give them another chance"... I echo your sigh.

@Bonehead - I don't think that anyone disputes that Stella puts on a long show, and if the color and plant habits fit in well with your garden scheme, then great!

I personally prefer my daylilies to be much taller and with larger flowers, and while I have (and very much like) a few gold colored daylilies, they are all single clumps with large flowers.

Deb is right about the hardy reliability of Stellas.
Thats why they are used in commercial landscaping. I see a doctor and his suite is in a cluster of professional buildings all have the same scape. The landscapers put down weed barrier then planted the stellas and some other plant that is struggling.
OHH forgot to mention they used pea gravel instead of mulch. Makes me sad to see the DL nubs trying to stem and bloom. ALL landscaping is for the convenience of the ease of labor and therefore cost.

I plead temporarily being brain dead when I thought this Iresine, on the right, would blend in with the others. As soon as I get to a nursery I'll remedy the arrangement.


The pot does match the hosta!

A hardy reliable bloomer is a wonderful thing, and if Stella is what you like, Stella is what you should have. I personally am driven to find and plant unusual things in my garden.
And I too always wondered about how those huge rows of daylilies in commercial landscapes are maintained. I now limit the number of daylilies I have because I find them a bit messy and labor intensive.

Even deer won't deadhead the daylilies but will devour buds a day or two before they're due to open.

Sadly, that is true. If only we could train the deer...

Nothing worse than waiting a year to see a bloom and having some critter chomp it off!!! I love animals, but not when they ruin my flowers.

ge1836 said:We inherited Stellas and I have one blooming now. What a bore. I dont know where it came from but it looks nice with the tall grey planter combo.
The rest of the propertry has beds of them. I agree with Jeanie. Looks like Medicaloffice building landscaping.

I don't believe that is Stella. The petals are not shaped right? I have Stella and the petals are more rounded, not pointed like that. I love Stella, it adds color often times when nothing else is blooming and does not take over the whole place with its size or seeds. It always returns.

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Nutmeg Elf')

or similar

Frillylilly. I had tried to get an ID for the early yellow lily years ago. No one had a clue but all believed it wasnt Stella. I guess I am back where I started.
These buds have purple on the backs of the petals as they open. I havnt checked them later in the bloom period.
Here is a pix from today
The dark petal back stays thru the bloom period

Maybe one of so many small flowered daylilies. We were given, as bonuses with daylily orders, so many including Forever Stella, Irish Elf and others.

This lily was here when we moved in. Huge displays in outer border gardens where I dont go.

When we bought this house we had to remove numerous huge, overwhelming plants like Wellington Thorn, but as for flowers we had 1 tulip, 1 nice peach daylily, 1 Ozark Sundrops, 1 Shasta Daisy that we gave the carpenter who loved it, two hostas. I'd rather have it that way than too much to remove or be stuck with vast spreads of plants I didn't like.

Warning: the following images may cause seizures; viewer discretion is advised

My only explanation is that I threw a bunch of things together in a grand crap-shoot of an experiment--really had no clue what would live or die, or what would seed where and eat everybody else, or what color some of these plants were even supposed to be and when they would bloom, etc. Can't recommend the method
Here is the problem area--or, the worst problem area, I should say because it's not like this is the only one.
This was May 2nd

not too bad from this angle, but you can see the various pink things competing with each other.
I don't mind this too much. The darker lavender pink in the middle is a perennial verbena that wanders everywhere and starts blooming early and goes all summer 'til frost and I really do like the plant. It does look better to me the other direction by a black rock and silver leaved plants (below). The light pink blob lower right is aethionema and only blooms in the spring and the lavender fleabane in the upper left is also a once blooming early spring thing. Creeping thyme lower left is yet another pink and is just starting up there in the pic and starts to get my pink meter pegged. The monster penstemon in the upper left is a garish hot pink and pushes me over the edge. Then, there are some dianthus--the green cushion blobs in the center there--that bloom red and red/white and a yellow heterotheca and a few more hot pinks and my head explodes

Here is the other direction

That big sandstone actually started out more of a light yellow with pink swirls and has taken on a distinctly reddish-orange patina and I'm not really fond of all the pink stuff with it.
Here is the penstemon May 12, before it got all storm smashed and a view from the street (this is a street corner garden and please ignore the projects in the background)

I keep it, even though I hate the color, because it is such a righteous plant and the hummers love it (even if I can't catch a good one to prove it)

so, now with the other hot pinks and red and yellow and some orange--ack! This is a color disaster:

It will subside soon, and the agastaches and salvias will take over, but I don't really want to see this again next year.

Suggestions?
The penstemon should get the axe? I don't think I can successfully extract it from it's rock den with enough roots to relocate it, plus, I don't really have anywhere else I think I need a giant hot pink hummer station. I am just loathe to kill it, but it might be what I need to do.
The dianthus I can probably relocate without killing.
I don't mind the red with the erodium, even though it is really not a match

and the red doesn't bother me with the white and blue thing either--but it does bother me with all the pinks.
I have thought about eradicating all the pinks from around that sandstone...but that's kind of an overwhelming garden re-do and I haven't been able to embrace that idea fully. And there is a special daphne there that I can't move, so I'd have to say all pinks except the daphne and the lewisia that is both orange and pink (?proving that orange and pink can coexist)

The verbena I rather like with this dianthus and for the long show, but perhaps it and the red should go?


please, tell me what you think!
aside from painting the rock--or moving it--I am open to all suggestions

Dirt, I don't think it's all that bad. If it were me, I would relocate the verbena and maybe the dianthus and find some interesting foliage or evergreen/juniper type things to replace them; perhaps you could find a juniper that would pick up the sandstone hues a bit. I would leave everything else. Would that be manageable?

ha-hah! well, it is not exactly what one would call a medical office...
Thanks Jeanie--so you vote for keeping the hot pink? Mr. Hummer says and the cats say (do you see how they lounge on the rocks like they own the place, looking all subdued? They are really hunting...) and I shudder to think of the continued perennial assault on my delicate sensibilities Really, I thought someone would shout-out the courage to ditch the hot pink.

Yes, relocating verbena and dianthus is certainly possible and manageable. In fact, that bigger verbena clump set itself up right in the pathway up the hill.
I wish that we were not so very alkaline and zonally challenged here and I could grow some of the fabulous foliages that thrive elsewhere. Maybe I can find a cute little juniper that won't turn into a shrub. I thought I had one once but it died the first winter. I have many semps that would be happy to move in.
There is already a dwarf-dwarf mugo there at the sandstone. The daphne is just a baby, but with any luck will become the evergreen shrub that it wants to be, and there is also a buckwheat that I just put in last year that will become a shrub too. It is ever-red in the winter and looks pretty cool with the sandstone.

This spring I had these fabulous new little squaty tulips by the sandstone and they pleased me so much that I really wanted to get rid of all the pink and move my oranges and reds over to this side.

there is one with the sedum tortuosum

Dirt, not too bad. I like the Krapshoot garden style. My neighbor is a Thug Gardener.