Day(lily) dreaming; Local growers favor these aeperfect' flowers.

Byline: Nancy Sheehan

Daylily disease. It's not something that flowers get. It is a distinctly human affliction. You may think you're immune, but once you start poking your nose beyond the ubiquitous orange roadside daylily varieties you are in danger of becoming an incurable collector. First, you buy a few clumps from among the rainbow array of colors, shapes and flower forms that are available. The next thing you know, you are the local daylily diva or don, scouring catalogs in winter for the latest offerings and digging new beds for them in the spring. Soon, the-lily-to-grass ratio in your yard overwhelmingly favors the flowers.

And why not? Daylilies have been called "the perfect flower," a designation earned by their many botanical virtues, according to the American Hemerocallis Society, an international daylily society.

The plants are not true lilies but belong to their own small plant family, hemerocallidaceae. From Greek words meaning "day" and "beautiful," the name refers to the fact that each flower lasts but a day. That might be considered a fault except, the society says, the plants offset it by producing so many flower buds on each flower stalk, and so many stalks in each clump of plants that the plant's flowering period is usually several weeks long.

Additionally, many cultivars have more than one flowering period and are able to survive with little care in a range of soil and climate conditions. They are drought tolerant, and few pests or diseases affect them.

We spoke with three local growers who caught daylily fever and became small-scale sellers of their bountiful blooms. For Linda S. Burnett of Flower Trail Gardens in Sutton, it was her husband's aunt, a longtime secretary of a daylily society in Pennsylvania, who was at the root of her passion for the plants. Sandra Lefkovits of Pin Hill Gardens of Harvard received a catalog from a friend who was a daylily devotee. And Sallyann King of Pleasant Garden Daylilies of Bolton says a caring, established daylily hybridizer fanned the flames in her and not even a brush with a garden-stalking coyote could put the fire out.

"I believe that the coyote was as surprised to see me as I was to see him," Sallyann King said. "It had its front paws on the stone wall and growled at me with very sharp teeth showing. I yelled at it, headed for my largest tool, and did not make eye contact.''

King's contact with Oregon hybridizer Fern Pilley got her started with daylilies 27 years ago. King had ordered plants by mail, but the ones she chose weren't winter hardy for New England so Pilley sent King's money back. King reordered, this time asking for seven varieties bred to survive the cold.

"I still grow the original seven plants in that same garden, which has had three new fences over many years," she said. "I enjoyed those first plants so much that I naturally extended my collection. A great deal of hybridizing was going on with daylilies, so that there was always something new and special to purchase. As we say in the daylily world, the rest is history."

King now grows about 450 varieties and is always on the lookout for new kinds. She and her husband, Bruce King, have four grown children and nine grandchildren. She started gardening when her youngest was a baby. When the children grew up and left, the lilies helped keep her grounded.

"They helped me focus through the empty nest years," she said. "In some ways they represent life to me. Gardening is not just a hobby for me. It is a way of expressing myself and filling some inner drive that I am unable to fully express. Nature to me is very beautiful and should not be spoiled."

In 1995 Linda Burnett paid a visit to Pennsylvania with her then-new husband to visit his aunt, who had been the secretary of a state daylily society for 35 years.

"She had show gardens. Her backyard was absolutely gorgeous, but she was in her late 60s at the time and wanted to downsize," Burnett said. So the aunt divided up some of her plants and gave 15 apiece to each of her nephews and their wives.

"I wasn't too worried about planting them right away," said Burnett, a non-gardener at the time. "When I was at my aunt's, she had some daylilies that she didn't know the names of because she had lost the tags or whatever. She threw them into trash buckets and they were still growing with no water and no soil. I said aeI like those plants,' and that's what got me going."

Within five years, Burnett's collection grew from 15 plants to 500.

Things really escalated when she and her husband went to the annual convention of the national daylily society in Philadelphia in 2000. She went a little crazy that year at the plant auction, where expensive new plants often sell for just a few dollars because they have been donated to raise money for the society. "You can't go wrong when you're paying $5 or $8 for something that's usually $50, so I went wild," she said. "We went down in a Jeep and coming back it was packed full of daylilies -- maybe 80 of them. My husband laughed. He said aeI may be up on the luggage rack.'"

By 2002, when the national group held its convention in Newton, Burnett was running the plant auction.

A daylily-loving friend handed Henry and Sandra Lefkovits a copy of a catalog for Tranquil Lake Nursery in Rehoboth. There were many daylilies to pick from, but the choice was an easy one.

"My husband saw a daylily with my name, Sandra Jean. He wanted that daylily and we drove to Rehoboth to buy it," Sandra Lefkovits said. "They were not digging that day and said that if we wanted to pick it up at a daylily auction the following week in Waltham, he would have it there for us. So we drove to Waltham and discovered the world of daylilies at the New England Daylily Society."

That was in 1989. The Lefkovitses now grow more than 1,000 daylily varieties that bring them pleasure each day throughout the growing season, which stretches from spring through fall.

"Since each bloom only lasts one day, to us it represents life, which is short but beautiful and should be enjoyed," she said. "Each day the garden is different because the blooms from the day before are replaced by new ones."

Looking back, what have she and her husband gained by devoting their gardening lives to daylilies?

"We have gained many, many friends and relationships," she said. "And we have seen the joy of people discovering daylilies for the first time through our efforts."

Nature's efforts, through the rolling topography of Harvard, help the Lefkovitses enjoy an extended bloom season. Their home and gardens are located on the eastern slope of Pin Hill, after which their property is named.

In colonial days, slate was mined from the hill for gravestones. Now, the hill gives the lilies a longer life by protecting them from the west wind.

When the Lefkovitses bought the house they weren't daylily fans yet, and so didn't have the fortuitous sheltering effect in mind. "It just worked out that way," Sandra said.

Pleasant Garden Daylilies

Sallyann and Bruce King

111 Coventry Wood Road, Bolton

[e-mail]

Pin Hill Gardens

Henry and Sandra Lefkovits

P.O. Box 754 (18 Depot Road), Harvard

[e-mail]

Flower Trail Gardens

Linda S. Burnett

278 Mendon Road, Sutton

[phone]

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ART: PHOTOS

PHOTOG: Photography by Tom Rettig

CUTLINE: (1) Daylilies from Linda S. Burnett, who owns Flower Trail Gardens in Sutton. (2) Opposite page, center, Burnett's gardens; (3) far left, the daylily garden of Sallyann King in Bolton. (4) Henry and Sandra Lefkovits of Pin Hill Gardens. (5) A place to rest near Sallyann King's daylilies. (6) Sallyann King holds her garden guest book. (7) Pin Hill Gardens is at the home of Henry and Sandra Lefkovits in Harvard. (8) Above, Pleasant Garden Daylilies in Bolton. (9) Linda Burnett owns Flower Trail Gardens in Sutton.