Daylilies bask in the sun at the Victorian Rose and Lily Nursery in Winlock on Monday, June 30. Ben and Lynda Brown, owners of the Winlock nursery, have grown over 1,400 daylilies in the past 14 years and specialize in creating new breeds.
Daylilies bask in the sun at the Victorian Rose and Lily Nursery in Winlock on Monday, June 30. Ben and Lynda Brown, owners of the Winlock nursery, have grown over 1,400 daylilies in the past 14 years and specialize in creating new breeds.
Daylilies bask in the sun at the Victorian Rose and Lily Nursery in Winlock on Monday, June 30. Ben and Lynda Brown, owners of the Winlock nursery, have grown over 1,400 daylilies in the past 14 years and specialize in creating new breeds.
A bee flies away from a daylily at the Victorian Rose and Lily Nursery in Winlock on Monday, June 30. Ben and Lynda Brown, owners of the Winlock nursery, have grown over 1,400 daylilies in the past 14 years and specialize in creating new breeds.
Ben Brown explains the process in which he and his wife, Lynda, cross pollinate one successful bloom to another at their nursery in Winlock.
Lynda Brown, who along with her husband, Ben, own Victorian Rose and Lily Nursery in Winlock, picks through daylilies on Monday, June 30.
Lynda Brown, who along with her husband, Ben, own Victorian Rose and Lily Nursery in Winlock, picks through daylilies on Monday, June 30.
Daylilies bask in the sun at the Victorian Rose and Lily Nursery in Winlock on Monday, June 30. Ben and Lynda Brown, owners of the Winlock nursery, have grown over 1,400 daylilies in the past 14 years and specialize in creating new breeds.
Daylilies bask in the sun at the Victorian Rose and Lily Nursery in Winlock on Monday, June 30. Ben and Lynda Brown, owners of the Winlock nursery, have grown over 1,400 daylilies in the past 14 years and specialize in creating new breeds.
A group of daylilies bask in the sun at the Victorian Rose and Lily Nursery in Winlock on Monday, June 30. Ben and Lynda Brown, owners of the Winlock nursery, have grown over 1,400 daylilies in the past 14 years and specialize in creating new breeds.
When Ben and Lynda Brown first started growing daylilies in 2000, they were searching for a plant that would be deer resistant and easy to care for.
Fourteen years and 1,400 plants later, the Winlock couple said they would call daylilies semi-deer resistant since they have found the deer only like to nibble the plant’s tender flower buds but won’t eat the entire plant to the ground like some other plants.
But as far as easy goes, they said you can’t get any better than a daylily.
“You just plant them and forget them,” Lynda said.
The Browns own Victorian Rose and Daylily Nursery on South Military Road in Winlock, a small nursery specializing in daylilies. The couple breed daylilies by cross pollinating one successful bloom to another. This is accomplished by rubbing the powdery stamen to the sticky inner female part of the plant. If the breeding is successful they are rewarded with a seed pod that will contain 12-14 seeds. Those seeds can be planted and will result in entirely new kinds of blooms.
“But no two seeds will come out the same. They’ll all be a little different. They may be similar colors but a different pattern,” Lynda explained.
What the Browns are typically looking for in their new breeds are certain characteristics that are popular with daylily aficionados. First and foremost, the most pleasing combination is to have the dominant color, whatever that may be, be consistent on both the edge of the petals as well as the center “eye” of the flower. Other pleasing attributes for which the Browns breed are: gold wire edge, a crinkly look to the edge of the petals; and diamond dusted, a shiny look to the petals. Walking through the dozens of rows of blooms, Ben Brown can point to just about any beautiful bloom and remember the names of its parents.
“It’s just the excitement of seeing what you can come up with,” said Ben regarding his favorite part of it. “You can cross two really exciting flowers and not get anything or you can cross two ordinary ones and get something really special.”
While most people think of the typical orange and brown daylily, there is actually a wide variety of colors, shapes and sizes in the daylily family. Plants range from only about 18 inches tall to about 3-foot stems. Some daylilies send up one scape and bloom only once, others rebloom. Some have no smell, others are very fragrant. And they come in every color of the rainbow except blue.
“Everybody is trying to get a blue,” Lynda said.
When it comes to planting daylilies in the home garden, a sunnier spot is always better. Daylilies need at least six hours of sunlight in order to bloom. Once established they’re fairly drought tolerant as well as generally very hardy. Some daylilies are evergreen. Others die back in the fall and go dormant. Lynda said they can be susceptible to very cold winter temperatures so a good layer of mulch in the fall is a great way to keep the roots from getting too cold.
Like other clumping flowers such as irises, every few years your daylily will need to be dug up and split, but even that is an easy task, Ben said.
“You could pull it out of the ground in the middle of August, throw it on the ground and forget it for two weeks and then plant it and it won’t hurt it,” he said.
While daylilies are known for their brilliant blooms in July, Lynda said, there are varieties that will continue to bloom all the way into the fall. And new daylilies can be planted in the home garden all the way until September and still thrive.
“I always say taken them home and let them finish blooming in their pots and then plant them,” Lynda said.
Carrina Stanton is a local freelance writer specializing in pieces for the Life section of The Chronicle. She and her husband are raising their two daughters in Chehalis.
