I have been reading about gardens of daylilies and mixed with other perennials and must say I have seen many pictures of such mixed gardens that are truely spectacular. I admire the look of daylilies with other flowers but it is something I have never been able to manage to do. If I try the results were always a disaster. Either the perennials died or tried to take over the entire daylily bed.

The closest I come to this look are some annuals like snapdragons in sections of two beds and zinnias which I have in sections in back of some daylily beds. I realise that is hardly the same thing!

I am working on the spring bulbs around the daylily beds and that is working out pretty good for me as the bulb blooms were stunning this spring. I mostly go for tulips and daffodils. And it also works with lilies again in back of sections of daylilies. This late spring I planted shorter lilies in between some of my daylily sections. We will see next year how that works out.

I use sections of daylilies and then sections of other plants like my Tall Beared Iris beds and my zinnia sections. Of course lots of rose garden bed sections. But I can never mange to actually mix plants like many (or is it most) people do. Something I am a complete failure at no matter how many times I have tried. Years ago I used to have much more mixed gardens and I must say they looked terrible.

I don't know how people manage to design those mixed beds and actually carry it off.

I completely understand what you are saying. Initially I had tall bearded iris in the back, then daylilies in front of them. It looked good on paper! And the first year, it worked great. But I just spent a part of my summer separating my iris from daylilies, now they are in "solo" beds, and I have a feeling that both will be much happier over the long run.

I know you have mentioned that your gardens are terraced, and perhaps if I had done something similar, the TB/ daylily bed may have worked out better.

I also have hosta with coral bells, and yanno,l that is not working out so well either, the hosta are overpowering the coral bells. Just yesterday I was thinking about "separating" those two next year - but then I will have yet MORE solo beds......

I think your idea of terracing, or otherwise having them together, yet separate is probably the best idea, perhaps for those of us like myself (and you?) that don't seem to be able to figure out how to truly mix different perennials and have a more carefree, cottage garden type look. ~Jan

I now live in the house I grew up in as a child as I moved back here (from another part of the same town) after my mom passed away.

So the point is my dad loved to grow roses, dahlias and gladiolas and had them in what is now my south side rose bed which runs along the south side of the house. So that was a rose bed and now so many years later is again a rose bed although the roses are newer ones. Day loved tulips too and we always had those. My mom was an aweful flower gardener but a great veggie gardener. We always had a large veggie garden with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, carrotts, peas, parsley and dill, strawberries, rasberries, currant and gooseberry shrubs. I am sure there was more I am forgetting to mention.

I started off gardening here with the more typical mixed beds (no roses at that time) some daylilies and I wanted flowers to attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Plus just fIowers that appealed to me. Just sort of mixed things up. My efforts never looked great. Really just looked like a jumbled mess. Eventually I learned to focus on plants that worked for me. Got the rose crazies and the daylily crazies and made my bed sections more of the one thing only look. Works for me.

I do have lots of shrubs mostly of the kind to attract the backyard songbirds and the birds love it here. The garden is quite diverse only in sections instead of all plants mixed together.

Once I got the hang of it I started planning for lots of bloom season. So that when one thing stopped blooming something else would start up and the garden would always be interesting. I put the sections near and around each other but they were mostly seperate. The fact that there is a lot of terracing here and raised beds made it easy to be able to use this plan.

For instance looking from the sidewalk to the front yard. Look at the right side. There are roses and lilies in sections, Tall beared iris in sections and daylilies in sections. Also spring bulbs of daffs and tulips. Bloom starts from the bulbs goes to the TB iris then roses then daylilies. By the time the daylilies are finishing up the roses rebloom in August. Similiar type idea in the other side of the yard.

In fact I use the same plants all over the place. Bulbs, Daylilies, lilies, roses,TB and Siberian iris and shrubs along with honeysuckle vines are the backbone of my gardens. Add lots of annuals which I love like zinnias. I have lots of zinnia areas and one they start blooming they never stop.

I do have perrenials and have managed them in a few places. Ones that really work for me are Catmint. Love Catmint and Hummingbird mints. Coneflowers , butterfly weeds, columbine and very few others. The garden really does look wonderful now and it is very much my own style.

I really am making progress on my photo organization. For now, I did find these two examples of how I mix the daylilies into the perennial beds.

I have rows of daylilies in beds, but I also use daylilies in my perennial borders. I find that they mix well - but some of the reds, pinks, purples do not. When you get the best red daylily up against a bright red rose or bright red monarda, the daylilies just can't compare. I love yellow daylilies, and I tend to use them more than other colors with the perennials. Peach tones too.

Mary Ethel Anderson is planted in front of an Astillbe and I really like that combo. Between my front walk and my house is about 5-6 feet of shade bed with hosta, astillbe, hellebore - all kinds of shade plants. But, right along the walk, there is about 1 foot of full sun. I put mini daylilies in there. That is where this photo was taken.


Leprechaun's Lace is planted in the same area.

Looks like you were doing some pollinating with good old Mary Ethel, eh? Did you ever get anything you liked? I think it's a really beautiful daylily and remember seeing it before and thinking that was one I would like to get -- it's sure a beauty with that incredible deep red eye!

Nope - I **thought** it was a tetraploid. Once I realized it is a diploid, I didn't have anything to cross with it.

Bummer!

I had planted all kinds of things in the daylily beds in the early years but everything seemed to take over the beds. When I put something in the beds now it is in a pot so it doesn't spread. The pot is burried in the ground so It can be easily removed.

That's a great idea!

I took a lot of things out of the beds too such as Iris and made a seperate bed for them. Still have 6 or 7 in 1 bed I will move next year. I love Astilbe and that combo is so pretty. I may have to put a few here and there with certain ones just to have less harsh look in the beds. The buried pots once again is a great idea.

I love your Astilbe combo, Julie!! Great job!