Daylily Hemerocallis Stella Tangerine

Despite the name, daylilies are not lilies. They grow from thick fleshy roots rather than bulbs, which is why they shrug off the conditions that rot a true lily. Stella Tangerine is the warm orange in the compact repeat flowering group, carrying rounded trumpets above a low fountain of narrow strappy leaves, with each bloom lasting a single day and buds opening in succession over a long season. It takes reflected heat off paving better than most perennials, which is why it ends up along driveways and in raised beds.

Crowding is what stops the flowers

This grows across the whole range of Australian climates, from cool southern gardens to the subtropics, in full sun, on clay, loam or sand, with low to moderate water once established. Give it drainage rather than richness and it will carry on for years. The failure mode is congestion. A daylily clump increases steadily by division underground, and after three or four undisturbed years the fans are packed so tightly that each one has too little root run to build flower buds. The clump looks bigger and greener than ever, the foliage is dense, and the flower count quietly halves. Almost every complaint about a daylily that has stopped performing traces back to this. Lift the whole clump in autumn or early spring, pull or cut it into pieces of three or four fans each, and replant them about three to a metre with the crown just at soil level. You end up with several times as many plants and full flowering the following season.

The orange between the lemon and the red

Of the three Stellas here, Tangerine is the one that holds its colour in hard light. Stella Rouge is deeper and richer, but the dark pigment absorbs heat and the petals mark on extreme days, so it is better placed where afternoon glare is broken. Tangerine takes an open, hot driveway edge or a west facing raised bed without that concern, which makes it the easier of the two to place. For strappy foliage with a very different flowering pattern, Agapanthus Baby Periwinkle concentrates its blue into one summer display, where the daylily spreads a smaller number of flowers thinly across months. Pick the agapanthus when you want a single strong event in the bed, and Stella Tangerine when you want something open on most days from spring through to autumn. More in the flowering range.

Trimming spent stems and feeding for buds

Pull the spent blooms off by hand, and cut each finished scape back at the base rather than shortening it, since a cut stub sits in the middle of the clump and browns off. Tidy any damaged outer leaves at the same time. Feed in early spring as the fans start moving and again after the first flush, using a complete fertiliser with potassium; skip high nitrogen products, which build foliage instead of buds. Water deeply during bud formation in warm weather, because a clump that dries out at that point drops buds before they open. Snails take the emerging fans in spring.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 140mm, at $16.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot it arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to low water gardens.