This is one of my favorite times of the year. The daylilies are in bloom.

There are tens of thousands of named varieties and hundreds or thousands of different ones that could be found if you visited enough garden centers. Either number is big enough that lots of different ones look alike.

When looking at daylilies you will see words like re-bloomer, extended season, tetraploid, and evergreen to mention a few. The evergreens are evergreen further south but can be grown here. I doubt if you will notice that difference.

Tetraploids are produced by gene manipulation with radiation. Their claim to fame is their very large flowers. Extended season is just what it suggests.

Re-bloomers also are what it suggests. They will bloom for a while, take a few days or weeks off and then bloom again. If you have a large planting of reliable re-bloomers you may not notice when some of the plants are resting.

Except for the old reliables like the orange yellow Stella de Oro and the yellow Happy Returns, I have yet to be convinced that they don't re-bloom better in the picture catalogs than they do in the garden.

We are definitely talking about environmental conditions when we are gardening with the re-bloomers. One year I was trying to increase the size of some plants, so I had them on soaker hoses with fertilizer injection. I got lots of re-bloom. In normal years I get reasonable re-bloom in the garden. Last year with the drought and no extra water, I got very little.

Another problem I noticed last year, in addition to dry weather insects, was a bit of a new blight. The talking authorities didn't offer any solutions, so I did nothing. With this years abundant rain, I have yet to see evidence of the problem on plants that were troubled last year.

I guess that is just another instance where disease and insects pick on the weak. Weakness comes from stress. Stress can come from being too dry, too wet or even growing too fast in too happy conditions.

Don't forget that daylilies will take quite a bit more shade that most of us realize. Try shoving a few further from the sun. If they are unhappy they will tell you by being floppy and having less blooms.

Another daylily secret is planting depth. If you are trying to produce more plants to populate your garden, plant them as shallow as you can. Cover the roots but nothing else. If in a container, raise the planting level a half-inch or inch. If you wish to keep the plant under control, do the opposite. Sink them a bit deeper than they were.

This is a great time to enjoy and even add some daylilies to your garden. But please save some for me. The fifty or seventy five I already have need some company.