Daylilies at Brookside Gardens

Last week I spent a wonderful morning at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland. I hadn’t been there in a while – between being on the road and the weather – I haven’t spent much time at the local gardens. So when I had a little time one morning – and it wasn’t supposed to rain for a few hours – I headed over.

What caught my eye immediately was all the wonderful daylilies in bloom in various locations in the gardens. All sorts of different colors, sizes and varieties were blooming.

Daylilies (members of the Hemerocallis genus) actually aren’t members of the Lily family. They are members of the Xanthorrhoeaceae family. They get their botanical name from the Greek for day (hemera) and beautiful (kalos). On most daylilies, a flower opens in the morning and withers at the end of the day. Often another flower on the same stalk will bloom the following day. Originally native to Asia – there are now over 60,000 registered cultivators of dayliles. Most blossoms have three petals and three sepals. The center of the flower – known as the throat – is often a different color than the petals and sepals.

Here are some of my favorite photos of the daylilies from Brookside Gardens.