First day lilies were discovered in my very first house in 1991. I felt so lucky to discover the huge clump of orange ditch lilies huddled in a corner of the yard. The following spring I divided them and ran a line the whole length of backyard fence. In the 8 years we lived there and raised our two babies I transformed that yard on a meager budget. Since then we have new house and I have a small collection including David Kirchhoff, pardon me, Chicago Apache, Mabel Nolen, Lavender Stardust, Big Kiss, an unnamed yellow and an unnamed red from friends. And I'm confident those orange ditch lilies are still going strong at our old house.

As usual, I am late to the forum. I have been traveling for work and missing the fall gardening and finishing planting a couple thousand seedlings before winter, but will share with you all on this topic.
My grandfather was always a gardener. His dad, who came to Oklahoma during the 1889 land run was a hunter and fisherman. I heard my grandfather say that when living by hunting and fishing, there is no telling what may be for dinner. So he became a gardener to have more predictable meal choices. (something other than opossum or crow). I was told he started one of the first paper shell pecan groves in our state when he was a teenager. He grafted paper shells on to native pecan trees. In the 1940's he became very interested in daylilies and started attending garden club meetings where he offered to help the senior members in their gardens. Those work days would end with a truck load of daylily divisions that were given to him for helping. He collected over 600 registered cultivars by the 1970's. We still grow several of those in our gardens today. Unfortunately we have lost too many of the name tags over the years, but Ashton has been on a mission to identify all of them.
I have a daylily that I think is species H. dumortieri (they always called it old and early) and we still grow today that was brought to Oklahoma on the covered wagon by my great grandmother in the land run of 1889.

Terry

GDJCB said:My first was Stella, had it for years before I realized that there were Daylilies other than Stella and the orange Ditch Lily. I saw a small purple bloom at Lowes in 2012, I believe. I still have it, don't know its name. My eyes were opened by doing a google search for Daylilies, I was in awe. Now I have over 125 Named, a few NOIDs, and around a couple hundred seedlings.

Gale

I just saw this. If no one else has said so already, I can almost guarantee it was Little Grapette.

Terry, that is very interesting about the covered wagon and daylilies. I am sure it helped them feel more at home once they settled somewhere.

A bit of home to plant.

My grandparents owned a cottage in western PA that backed up to a daylily farm. So my first experience with DL was in the 60's. Since then, that property has been inserted via my parents and is now owned by my sisters and myself. The original daylily farm was split up, and a portion of it was purchased in the 80's.

Those daylilies have been growing wild and self hybridized get for decades. In fact, they do very well in the shade of the Wild cherry trees and other brush that has sprung up.

My first daylilies were transplants to WI from PA. When I dug them up, I had no clue about color or form, since it was October when I did so.

These are older unnamed cultivars or hybrids of. Man, are they robust! They just grow and grow! Some are beautiful, some Are simple, most are just nice daylilies. In fact I brought one home with me last week and transplanted it (yellow and orange) that was blooming in a corner by itself - haven't a clue if it is just a late, or reblooming.

One of the first registered daylilies I purchased, and cringed at the $40 I spent at the time, was Primal Scream 7 years ago. Amazing daylily, that outdid itself this year ( and it's always been good) I even have a pretty seedling fro it, and the way the seedling glows with its orangish red color, it easy to see PS as the pod parent! ( don't know who the daddy is, I was just playing with dabbing!) ~Jan

This is an awesome thread! And you're proving my insanity. I'm in a new home with no gardens. I have a bed and a border at this moment and am in the process of building 2 raised beds. This is all to house the 105 dayliliy varieties I've acquired just since March. Reading the history of how you all became addicts is fascinating!

Moved so had to start over
Red volunteer
White snow
Purple doro
Siloam little girl

Just like eating chips one is never enough

@Bluegrassdigger

@Bluegrassdigger
Lotsa good folks and info here!

I got my first daylily, Stella d'Oro, 24 years ago. The next year I went to a daylily farm and bought four. I still have two of them, Royal Braid and Firestorm. Teresa, I'm surprised you only have 240. Didn't you used to have a lot more? I have in the 600 range - stopped counting five years ago.

I have around 350 now Debra, I have sold some older ones or less favored ones. Adding more this year
I am thinking about going to the Northern Mecca will you be going?

My first daylilies were Little Grapette, Purple d'oro, Firestorm, Hyperion, & what the tag said was Autumn Minaret. Last year, after at least 15 years, I realized Autumn Minaret isn't correct, shorter than AM. I gave away Purple d'oro, it never bloomed as well as the others, but the rest are still here.

Back in about 2000 I had someone do a landscape plan for our previous yard and they incorporated Stella d' Oro daylilies for drifts of color. At the time I liked them but then I visited a daylily farm in a neighboring town and they would dig whatever you wanted for $5 each! I now have 206 daylilies I know names for and several NOIDs!
My first ones, and I still have them, were:
Wings of Chance
Dancing Shiva
Daring Deception
Edge of Darkness
Emerald Dew
Gato
Gordon Biggs
Janice Brown
Little Grapette
Bright yellow ruffled NOID

Then I just kept adding from there. When we moved to the new house I dug starts of almost all of my daylilies and brought them along (I didn't bring Stella d' Oro and missed a couple others it seems)!

Poor old Stella is such a workhorse, but it doesn't get much respect. I planted it early too and just sold clumps of it to a local nursery. They gave me a gift certificate. Lots of landscapers still use it heavily.

I just prefer the brighter yellow color as opposed to the orange yellow color. If I want a drift of color I have switched to Going Bananas.

My very first daylily was 'Mikado', by Stout, which I got at a local hardware chain nursery center. (I no longer have it.)

Then I discovered Wilds, and bought a bunch of daylilies from them. The only one of those that I still have is 'Lavender Dew', and that is because I am partial to clean lavenders which really are lavender.

I have a picture from our last house in Lakewood, CO. Pretty yellow daylily. That was 1983--34 yr ago. Since then we have moved 8 times. I don't even have anything from our 9 yr of living in Marietta, GA because everything I grew there was dormant and it won't grow here!

My first daylies were 'Chicago Sunset' and 'Pink Damask', I still have both. Some of Pink Damask also went to Dad's garden but I brought it back after he died for sentimental reasons.

Keep rethinking of moving Chicago Sunset out to make room for something newer but it is a great performer and my elderly neighbour keeps saying how much she likes seeing it in my garden so I'll keep it longer.