Daylily Foliage

This post is inspired by Kim's Not in My Garden post. She says that she admires some blogs that show daylilies in the garden, but you won't find daylilies in hers because "daylily foliage leaves [her] cold."

First off, let me say that this is not a response in the sense of an argument or debate, where one-upmanship or formal objection is involved. Not at all. In fact, mainly I am writing this to express my surprise (think, incomprehension) at a point of view so different from my own, and yet equally valid. I guess it's sort of like dog people and cat people. Both can connect as pet owners, and yet there are fundamental differences.

I Am a Cat Person



Not to stretch the metaphor to the breaking point, it's time I got on with what I really meant to say. Which was, how can one talk about daylily foliage as if it mattered? With daylilies, it's all about the flowers. I mean, I could say -- quite truthfully -- that tulip foliage leaves me cold. But why on earth would that stop me from growing them when the flowers are so beautiful?

A Few Tulips in the Back Garden



Masses of Tulips in the Front Garden



As I said, the point of view is so foreign to me that I had to wrap my brain around it and actually start looking at my garden as if daylily foliage did matter. And all of a sudden I saw things a bit differently.

For example, my earliest plantings (before I became completely obsessed) seem to recognize daylilies as whole plants, and my instincts led me to create mass plantings, or treat a daylily as a specimen among hosta and heuchera and other interesting plants. In particular, I placed daylilies en masse under trees or beside rocks (or both), so that the foliage "worked" to some degree as foliage.

"Specimen" Daylily Spilling Over 'Tequila Sunrise' Coreopsis



Mass Planted Daylilies under the Camperdown Elm



Now that I'm completely obsessed, however, and any available space is space for new daylilies, I realize that aesthetically it's not working as well any more. I have plenty of planting space in my front garden, but not a lot of trees and rocks left to work with. It's all a big open bed. So much room for my daylily plants! But... what to do to make them work?

I Am Not Confident That This Is Working


Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without permission.

The daylilies are fine in the full sun of the south-facing front. It's terribly difficult, however, to find sun-tolerant hosta and heuchera to break up the clumps of grassy leaves that daylilies present to the world for all but their relatively brief bloom time. And anyway, there is not a lot of height variation available in that mix (the three H's of gardening: hosta, heuchera, and hemerocallis).

So next year, I plan to embark on a bit of redesign.

My challenge is to create an aesthetic environment where daylilies work -- foliage and all -- within the overall presentation, rather than simply taking up space. Since there are no rocks and trees available to add variety, any suggestions for zone 5 sun-tolerant plants or small shrubs of varying heights and interesting* foliage would be gratefully accepted.

* Define interesting? Well, it could be variegation, deep lobes or no lobes, dark or bright colour, glossy or soft texture -- anything that contrasts with the smooth, spiky green leaves of daylilies.