Nineteen ninety-seven was the 400th anniversary of John Gerard’s naming of the ‘Day Lillie‘ in The Herball. To celebrate this event I published Daylilies, a book containing a selection of photographs taken at We’re In The Hayfield Now Daylily Gardens (Orono, ON). Douglas and Henry’s daylilies displayed an amazing array of colors, shapes, and textures. Through this project I discovered the pioneering daylily breeding of Arlow B. Stout at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). A visit to the Bronx garden seemed an appropriate way to extend my ‘Day Lillie’ celebration.

Michael Ruggiero, a senior curator at the NYBG, was instrumental in creating two areas where daylilies are displayed—the Stout Garden (1987) and Daylily Walk (1990). The Stout Garden maintains an extensive collection of Stout cultivars. Daylily Walk contains an expansive collection of introductions from a large number of modern breeders. These cultivars showcase the modern daylily and are planted by color—shades of yellow, orange, pink, and red. A floral rainbow.
I started photographing early Tuesday morning, 14 July 1998. These daylilies are quite hardy—by 11:00 it was 42°C in the shade and time for my siesta. I spent five days photographing and sensed the profound significance of Stout’s contribution. The photographs in this book validate his work. The first section features Stout’s earlier classic introductions. Cultivar captions list the plant name, breeder, year of introduction and are all diploid plants. Highlights from a large number of modern breeders planted along Daylily Walk are displayed in the second section; these include a number of tetraploid cultivars in addition to the diploids. The 18 tetraploid daylilies have an asterisk after their names.
Come and join the celebration of Stout’s Daylily Legacy. John Gerard, I believe, would be dumbfounded to see how dramatically the ‘Day Lillie’ has changed.