This is a deeper, darker variety of the common daylily – that ubiquitous orange beacon currently blooming along many roads and ditches. The plant pictured here has been growing at my parents’ house for at least three decades. For some reason, they always struck me as gorgeously exotic when I would see them in banks and ditches in my childhood. The blooms and foliage would be relatively unremarkable – perfectly fine and pretty, but not of particular note among the variety of grasses and plants that grew beside them – but when they started opening their bright flowers, they were all I would notice.
Andy and I don’t currently have any daylily plants in the garden, and I am always claiming that I’m going to rectify that. Despite the fact that each bloom lasts but a day, they are produced in such profusion that the entire blooming period should last a couple of weeks. Some varieties even deign to re-bloom, extending the season even further. And that foliage remains green and fine for the entire summer.
