Shopping for daylilies for sale online is one of the easiest ways to get truly special plants into your garden – cultivars you’ll never see on a big-box rack, plus the colors, forms, and habits that actually fit your space. At Dooley Gardens, we field-test cold-hardy, modern daylilies in Maine so you can buy with confidence for your own climate and garden style.

Ready to shop?

Why Buy Daylilies Online from a Specialist Nursery?

When you buy daylilies from a specialist grower rather than a generic retailer, you get:

  • Named cultivars with known performance. Modern daylilies are the result of intensive breeding, with tens of thousands of registered cultivars differing in bloom time, color, form, fragrance, hardiness, and foliage habit.

  • Plants chosen for real-world garden conditions. Daylilies are often recommended as nearly “ideal” perennials because they tolerate drought, heat, and a range of soils when properly sited.

  • Accurate descriptions and photos. With identified cultivars, you know the expected height, bloom size, season, and ploidy—critical details if you’re designing beds or breeding.

At Dooley Gardens, the focus is on modern, high-performing daylilies with strong plant habits and distinctive flowers—plants selected and evaluated in a real, cold-climate field, not just in a catalog. Learn more about our hybridizing program.

Daylilies (genus Hemerocallis) are hardy, clump-forming perennials, grown for their showy, long-blooming flowers and ability to thrive in many different climates and soil types. Many modern cultivars perform well in USDA zones 3–9 and beyond, depending on variety.

Below is a practical guide to help you choose the right daylilies online—and to understand how our different collections at Dooley Gardens fit your garden goals.

Crispate-Cascade-Spatulate
violet and charcoal gray edged in royal purple
Daylily - White Ambrosia - Ivory self with green throat. - Tetraploid - Ruffled Edge
Daylily - Blue Lightning - Cream with glowing saturated cobalt purple eye etched merlot and ruffled double edge of merlot and purple over green throat. - Tetraploid - Ruffled Edge
large icy pale lavender eye
Daylily - Heavenly Angel Kisses - Near white with tricolor pink eyezone and green throat. - Diploid - Single - Dormant
broken
Daylily - Halloween Green - orange with a triangular red eye and intense green throat - Diploid - Single - Semi-Evergreen
chartreuse throat

How to Choose Daylilies for Your Garden

When you’re browsing daylilies for sale online, these are the traits that matter most in practice. We have an awesome Daylily Field Guide you can reference to quickly get all the critical information on daylilies.

1. Bloom Season

Daylilies don’t all flower at the same time. Different cultivars are classified as early, midseason, late, or combinations, and some are capable of producing multiple rounds of blooms (“reblooming”) under good conditions.

Aim for a mix so you have color over a long period, not just one intense week.

What to look for:

2. Flower Color and Form

Breeding has expanded daylily color far beyond the original yellow and orange species: modern cultivars span near-white, creams, pinks, reds, purples, bicolors, and unusual “watermark” and patterned effects.

Common form styles you’ll see:

  • Classic round forms – full, overlapping petals for a “lily” look.

  • Spiders and unusual forms – narrow or twisted petals for a more dramatic, sculptural look.

  • Eyes, halos, and edges – contrasting centers or edges that create strong visual focus.

  • Broken pattern – varying shapes with variable color striping of irregular coloring on flower.

3. Scape Height and Bloom Size

Daylily scapes (flowering stems) can range from under 1 ft to over 4 ft tall, fan foliage fan sits lower. Blooms range from mini (under 2 inches) to extra large. Some blooms exceed 11 inches!

When reading a listing, note:

  • Scape height – where you can expect the flowers to sit in the border (front, middle, or back).

  • Bloom size – some cultivars are compact and tidy; others form massive blooms.

Tip:

  • Use shorter cultivars along paths and in front of beds.

  • Use taller scapes behind lower neighboring plants to get flowers above the foliage “cloud.”

4. Foliage Type: Dormant, Semi-Evergreen, Evergreen

Daylily foliage is generally described as:

  • Dormant – foliage dies back completely in winter and re-emerges in spring.

  • Semi-evergreen – intermediate; behavior can vary by climate.

  • Evergreen – foliage persists where winters are mild enough, though it may still be damaged by cold in harsh climates.

Cold-climate tip:
In colder northern zones, dormant or semi-evergreen cultivars often handle freeze-thaw cycles more reliably than some evergreen types. We have many evergreens that are exceptional and do not struggle in our zone 4 winters.

5. Hardiness and Your Growing Zone

Daylilies are widely grown because many cultivars tolerate cold winters and summer heat when planted in appropriate zones. Suitable for broad range of USDA hardiness zones 3–9, with some cultivars performing outside that range depending on breeding and local conditions.

Shopping tip:

  • Look for hardiness information in listings, and consider how similar the nursery’s climate is to yours.

  • If in doubt, choose cultivars described as “cold-hardy” or “reliable in northern climates.”

6. Fragrance

Many daylily cultivars are scented to varying degrees, from light sweetness to subtle perfume, and breeders continue to introduce fragrant varieties.

If fragrance matters to you:

  • Look for descriptors like “fragrant” and “very fragrant“.

  • Place fragrant cultivars where you’ll actually smell them – near seating areas, entries, or pathways.

Explore Our Daylily Collections

To make online shopping easier, it helps to think in terms of collections based on how you garden. The website main navigation offers direct links to daylily collections. While browsing daylily collections leverage the filters to refine in stock plants to match your specific needs.

Reblooming Daylilies for Sale

We love rebloomers! For gardeners who want color that comes back, rebloomers are key. Some cultivars can send up additional flushes of scapes after the initial flowering period when grown under good conditions (adequate sun, moisture, and nutrients).

Shop All In Stock Reblooming Daylilies

Learn the Main Daylily Flower Forms

Single Form

Blue Tooth

A single daylily flower has 3 petals + 3 sepals (6 tepals total), 6 stamens, and 1 pistil—the basic blueprint for the genus.

Many modern singles read as “round” or “bagel” in the garden (broad segments with overlap), but that rounded look is descriptive only—“round” is not a separate ADS registration class.

Blue Tooth

Sculpted Form

Small World National Treasure

Sculpted daylilies show three-dimensional structural features that rise up from the throat, midrib, or other parts of the petal surface. ADS recognizes three sculpted sub-forms:

  • Pleated – Deep longitudinal creases on each side of the midrib fold the petal and create a raised “platform” running out from the throat.
  • Cristate – Appendages of extra petal tissue grow from the midrib or elsewhere on the petal surface; these ridges or crests are sculpted, not extra petal whorls, so a cristate single is not automatically a double.
  • Relief – Vertically raised ridges extend from the throat and project above the petal surface, sometimes parallel to the veins, sometimes radiating outward from the midrib.

All sculpted forms are still evaluated on top of the underlying flower type (single, double, etc.); “sculpted” describes surface architecture, not the basic whorl count.

Small World National Treasure

Unusual Form

Two Faced Floozy

Unusual Form (UF) daylilies are classified exclusively by form, not by color or pattern. To qualify, the flower must show distinctive petal or sepal shapes on all three petals or all three sepals, and must fall into one (or more) of three basic shape groups: crispate, cascade, or spatulate.

  • Crispate – Floral segments are pinched, twisted, or quilled. Pinched crispates have sharp folds; twisted crispates show a corkscrew/pinwheel effect; quilled crispates roll into a tube along their length.
  • Cascade (cascading/curling) – Narrow segments with pronounced curling or cascading, revolving upon themselves like wood shavings or curled ribbon.
  • Spatulate – Segments markedly wider at the tips, like a kitchen spatula.

UFs often look more open and airy, with visible spaces between the segments, and were formally created to recognize long-petaled forms whose ratios keep them outside the spider class.

Two Faced Floozy

Double Form

Ann's Blue Eyes

Double daylilies have extra floral parts beyond the normal single form and come in two main ADS-recognized expressions:

  • Hose-in-hose double – Extra whorls (layers) of petals create the effect of a flower within a flower.
  • Peony-type double – Petaloid (petal-like) stamens—and sometimes petaloid carpels—form an extra, frilly mass of tissue inside the normal petal whorl.

Ann’s Blues Eyes

Spider Form

Ghost Ranger

The Spider Form is a measurement-based ADS class. A spider daylily has petals whose length is at least four times the petal’s width, a ratio of ≥ 4.0:1, measured using the ADS spider measuring method (usually on the longest, often the lowest, petal).

  • Any color, pattern, or edge can be a spider—the classification is entirely about the petal length-to-width ratio.
  • The older “spider variant” category (4.0–4.99:1) was retired in 2003; those cultivars are now simply registered as spiders.

In the garden, spiders read as long, narrow, often dramatic silhouettes, but it’s the numbers, not the vibe, that determine the class.

Ghost Ranger

Polymerous Form

Defining Moment

Polymerous daylilies have more than the normal three sepals and three petals, with the extra segments evenly spaced in their whorls—for example, a “4×4” bloom (4 sepals + 4 petals) or “5×5” bloom.

Key points that distinguish polymerous flowers from simple doubles:

  • The added sepals and petals maintain radial symmetry; they are not stacked or piled on like extra petaloid tissue.

  • The stamen count increases accordingly (e.g., 8 stamens for a 4×4 flower, 10 for a 5×5), but there is still only one pistil.

  • Doubles, in contrast, involve extra petal whorls or petaloid stamens inside the normal whorls; polymerous describes extra, evenly spaced segments, not extra layers.

Some cultivars are both polymerous and double and are treated as multiform in ADS terminology, but polymerous alone is a distinct, structural form.

Defining Moment

Daylily Seeds

Growing daylilies from seed is different from buying named cultivars: seedlings are genetically unique, and you won’t know exactly what you’ll get—ideal for hobby hybridizers and experimenters.

Make your own magic!

  1. Choose Parents: Match ploidy (Dip × Dip, Tet × Tet) for best fertility.
  2. Pollinate: Morning of a fresh bloom, dust pollen from the anther onto a compatible stigma.
  3. Tag & Track: Record pod parent × pollen parent.
  4. Harvest: Pods ripen in ~6 weeks. Harvest and allow to dry, store seeds in safe place.
  5. Get excited about the all possibilities!

Starter goal: Aim for branching + bud count first (garden performance), then chase edges, eyes, and other forms/traits.

Bare-Root Daylilies: What to Expect on Arrival

Many online nurseries ship bare-root daylilies—plants dug from the field, trimmed, and shipped without soil. This is a standard way to ship perennials and is widely used for daylilies.

When you open the box, you should expect:

  • Firm, healthy roots (not mushy or completely desiccated).

  • One or more foliage fans (often trimmed for shipping).

  • A plant that looks “sleepy” compared to a potted nursery plant—that’s normal for dormant bare-root stock.

Basic planting guidance (summarized from widely used daylily planting guides):

  1. Plant in well-drained soil with full sun to light shade.

  2. Set the crown (where roots meet leaves) about 1–2 in below the soil surface.

  3. Water thoroughly after planting and keep evenly moist while establishing.

Checkout Our Guide to Successfully Planting Daylilies

FAQ: Buying Daylilies Online

When is the best time to buy and plant daylilies?

Most growers recommend planting daylilies in spring or fall, timing things so plants have several weeks to root in before hard freezes or extreme summer heat.

Will bare-root daylilies bloom the first year?

Many healthy, field-grown bare-root daylilies will bloom in their first season after planting, especially if planted early in the growing season and given good care. However, bloom performance can vary with cultivar, planting time, and local conditions.

How much sun do daylilies need?

Daylilies generally flower best in full sun, but many cultivars handle part shade, especially in hotter climates where some afternoon shade can reduce stress.

Can I grow daylilies in pots or containers?

Yes. Many sources note that daylilies adapt well to containers if you provide a large-enough pot, well-draining potting mix, regular watering, and appropriate winter protection in cold climates (for example, moving containers to a protected spot).

Are all daylilies the same as the “ditch lilies” on roadsides?

No. The common orange roadside daylily (Hemerocallis fulva) has spread widely and is often seen in ditches and old homestead sites. Modern daylily cultivars sold by specialist nurseries are typically clump-forming selections with significantly more variety in color, form, and performance.