Flower Colors and Patterns
Early daylilies had a very limited color range that included orange, yellow and a muted red. Thanks to a century of breeding by talented hybridizers around the world, daylilies now come in every color except the elusive blue. It also used to be common for the pigments in the petals to progressively fade from morning until night, but newer cultivars retain their color all day. While most daylilies were solid colored in the past, many modern daylilies have an interesting contrasting-colored eye or edging on the petals.
Bloom Performance
Daylilies remain “day lilies” today, meaning that the individual flowers last for 24 hours. However, some have developed a trait called “nocturnal”, which means their flowers open in late afternoon and remain open through all or part of the following day. Many modern daylilies bloom more than once per season, and nearly all are heavily budded so they stay in bloom for months instead of weeks like older daylilies. While daylilies once had weak stems that carried less than ten flower buds apiece, newer daylilies have much thicker, sturdier stems that can carry as many as three times the flowers without flopping over from their weight.
