“Fading Love” Daylily

Fading Love, July 30, 2013

This daylily is the variety Fading Love, a faint peach colored, extended season bloomer with semi-evergreen foliage (although it performs as an evergreen in my garden — it doesn’t dieback to the ground, even after covered with ice) .

Fading love sends out multiple scapes (stems bearing flowers) and usually produces about 6 buds per scape. The flowers are easily faded by the sun and heat, so the flowers deteriorate more quickly in summer than in Spring.

Because of our cool spring and “mild” summer beginning this year, this gem is still blooming. This daylily is the most prolific of those in my garden, possibly because it performs as an evergreen and gets a “head start” with foliage well before the others each Spring. It begins blooming shortly after the others. Fading Love has grown in my gardens for about 15 years — purchased in the late 1990’s.

The photo below, taken August 5, shows the late season appearance of this daylily with brown scapes from previous blooms, plus what I suspect will be the last blooms and buds this year.

Fading Love daylily, August 5 2013

In this picture, the petals appear more yellow but that’s probably because the heat has caused the outer ruffled edges to curl upward (It was 102 degrees when the picture was taken.)

There is a bud to the right of the middle flower, and two more buds —one one each side of the lower flower. These are the last buds for this plant this year. Temperatures of 100 are projected into the next 7 days — today is day 17 of 100 degrees or higher this summer.

The brown scapes are visible on the right side–the plant cuts the scapes off and they are easily removed. Once temperatures are back down to highs of no more than 90, I’ll remove the brown scapes and brown leaf debris that accumulates under the plants. The blooms will be back next spring!