Last year I cleaned out from around our storm shelter. It was very overgrown with blackberry bushes, saw-tooth briars, orange lilies, and all kinds of random weeds. The lilies are very invasive but didn’t grow densely enough to crowd out the unwanted weeds and grass. The shelter was built into a hill and the lilies were planted beside it to help prevent soil erosion. The soil has remained in place but it’s hard to know whether it was the lilies that kept it there or a combination of lilies plus everything else that was growing. Anyway, everything was dug out last summer – or so we thought.
An Orange Daylily’s roots are actually a tangled mass of tubers with some tubers extending outward from the parent plant underneath the surface of the soil. When the sun warms the soil in the spring the lilies begin to produce new growth from these tubers. It’s practical to say that you can set out one plant this year and have 5 or more next year. These root systems can become so massive that removing just one plant can leave a huge gaping hole a foot deep and wide in its place.
While digging out the daylilies last year, I was careful to get as much of the root mass as I could but because I didn’t want that huge gaping hole, I felt that I was leaving some pieces of the tuber behind. Yep. This spring those beautiful new Orange Daylilies have begun to pop up right beside the storm shelter. I dug up at least 30 of them today and set them at random places along a tree line where a few weeds won’t matter so much.
I think the Orange Daylily is the most beautiful flowers in my entire yard. It’s the first flower to bloom each spring and it is always faithful to give a beautiful orange show. The daylily scent freshens the air and early bees just love them. I wouldn’t recommend them for flower beds or garden plots but if you want a beautiful bright glow early in the spring, this is the flower that can give it. I’ve even read they’re edible.
RockyCrop Farm 