Have you considered painted daisies?
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@mamuang
These are Asiatic Lilies. Growing some of these already in a little test crop here and they do ok. Dont know much about them. Day lillies will grow here for sure. I’ve only grown the ones i have a year but it was a drought so it was a hard, punishing year on anything alive! Up until recently i knew less but i talked with my mother and she said when i was a child she grew peonies, dafodills, iris, daylillies, golden glows. I remembered her growing pretty flowers and thats what they were.
Asiatic lilies are not as tough as day lilies. I used to have Asiatic lilies about 6-7 years ago we had infestation of the Scarlet lily beetles. They wipes out tons of lilies in MA. They loves Asiatic lilies and other like Oriental lilies like Star Gazers.
Those beetles left my day lilies alone. Day lilies now have repeated bloomers and multi layered blooms, not just Stell D’Oro any more.
The toughest day lilies are Tiger lilies. Great naturalizers.
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I panted out a bunch of gladiolus bulbs. They are the most impressive cut flower you can grow here in my opinion. With heavy mulching, they usually last a few years until a severe winter takes them out.
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@39thparallel
They die back here even under wood chips. Your close by but your a little warmer there.
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There are “hardy” glads, but I haven’t had success with them
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Asiatics are fine in zone 6. Probably colder. My only complaint is they don’t bloom for a long enough period of time.
(But, if you can find accurate information, or have patience for your own testing, you can get multiple varieties/cultivars with a staggered size, and a staggered blooming time, and extend the show.)
Reblooming daylilies are obviously tough and tried…there are over 80,000 named varieties now~!!!
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I am not talking about hardiness, per se.
I am talking about overall performance. With hot, too cold, too buggy, etc. day lilies lilies outperform Asiatic lilies through the same conditions in my yard.
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I’ve noticed few problems with either. Have actually seen daylilies burn up and turn brown in mid summer due to drought…but the roots survived and came back for the most part.
Have not noticed similar issues with lily bulbs/tubers. Drought that killed a dogwood tree never fazed the Asiatic/hybrids.
Hellebores are another wonderful perennial…to zone 5 or colder…and evergreen. Prefer partial shade but tolerate sun and shade ok if you get them through the first season by proper amount of watering.
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When out to check my flower garden. Saw the culprit on my Oriental lily. A small Scarlet lily beetle. It dropped to the ground pretty fast. Could not catch it in time.
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If I get 2-3 years out of them, Bonus! I would still plant them if they were annuals. They are the knockout of cut flower arrangements. Several times when i found I nice bouquet of Glads at the grocery I got envyus glances making my way thru the store and had women stop me and ask what they are.
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@clarkinks It always amazes seeing Iris and daffodils popping up in the country when nothing else remains of a long gone homestead.
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The “hardy” glads, G nanus, aren’t nearly as spectacular
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Tree peonies are expensive here too but apparently you can root graft to herbaceous, and the herbaceous struggles along a few months while rhe tree makes its own roots.
So in theory at least You could buy herbaceous peonies and get some scionwood from the others by whatever exchanges, etc. and build your own. I have never done this, just happened to see an article
Here in z5 about a very random 5-10% of the glads make it, but their bed is right against the foundation
Yes, you can graft tree peony onto regular peony roots. My friends have done it successfully
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Yes its very interesting @Sara_in_philly discussed it here https://growingfruit.org/t/japanese-tree-peony/13515