Daylilies blooming in perennial garden
One day a few years ago, while I was busy preparing a meal for dinner guests, I walked out into the yard to see what flowers were blooming. When we have company for dinner, I usually just pick flowers from the garden for the table centerpiece. Well, it was July and, as you may know, July is the best month in Milwaukee for daylilies. They are absolutely beautiful and with our large yard, I had many to choose from. I also had a lot of rudbeckia and pink coneflowers that were just opening and looked fresh and plentiful.
I zipped around the garden, picking a little here and there until I had a large handful. Going back into the house, I chose a vase and carefully arranged my bouquet. Since I had a lot more cooking to do before everyone arrived, I placed the vase of flowers on the dining room table and went back into the kitchen. This was about 3 pm and I spent the rest of my afternoon cooking dinner and baking my mom’s favorite lemon pie.
Everyone arrived on time and after a bit, we moved the group into the dining room and I started to serve dinner. When I finally sat down and took a good look at my vase of flowers, I realized that while the rest of the flowers looked great, the daylilies had closed up leaving the bouquet looking very odd. It seems that daylilies take the their name very seriously! Each bloom really only lasts one day! Not one day and one night — just one day so I guess they were not the best choice for an evening event. Who knew? It ended up being a fun evening. Dinner was tasty, the company entertaining and after a few lazy flower comments, the daylilies went into the garbage.
For this entry, I decided to reconstruct my daylily drama. I picked 8 different daylilies from my garden and arranged them in a vase and took photos throughout the evening. The first bouquet in the photo below shows the daylilies at 3 pm, just after being picked. The second shows the same bouquet at 7 pm while the third shows the flowers at 10 pm. In staging this demonstration, I did notice that the newer daylily species lasted a bit longer while the old fashioned ones closed up in the early evening. That being said, the outcome was still the same – I had a sad little bouquet that had stayed up past its bedtime.
Daylily bouquet demonstration of flowers closing
Dear Genie,
However, I still love daylilies! What would summer be without them.
I know – I like daylilies too. They just can’t come to dinner.
Rather like — “You can dress those lilies up, but can’t take them to a dinner party or anywhere else.” LOVED the pics of the lilies!
HAH!! that’s too funny! Lazy lilies!