Daylily Patience

When you hybridize daylilies, rain can change your plans.  When I walked outside this morning to see what was in bloom, I saw the gray clouds moving in and a rainbow caused by the low angle of the sun at 6 am.  The first drops fell a few minutes later, then a steady shower spoiling all the live pollen.  I didn't want to spend several hours using frozen pollen after the showers passed.  There were competing priorities, you see, and so I excused myself for later in the week.

Patience is hard.  I didn't use to have it.  If a new daylily didn't do well in its first season in my garden, I would lose interest and put it in the plant sale.  This is a form of insanity, but I excused myself, as no one else would think to do so!

I hope I have learned my lesson.  Here is Nicole DeVito's CALL ME BLUE, which she kindly sent me last year from her Central Florida nursery.  I love the white flowers with blue eyes, so this was a welcome addition.  Nicole posted this photo on her web site.

This is what my plant looked like when it bloomed in my garden last summer a few weeks after arrival here.

It's nice, but it lacks the pizzaz of Nicole's photo.  A decade ago I might have been disappointed, but now I know to just leave the plant in place and let it build a root system.  It's in a full-sun location where I water a lot, so it has all the right conditions to thrive.

This morning I saw the payoff for patience.  After a year, the plant now produces a flower easily as bold as Nicole's photo.

Worth the wait, I assure you!