Stella D’Oro is a bright and cheerful gold colored daylily. It is very popular, and frequently used in landscape design, due to it’s reblooming characteristics. Learn about Stella D’ Oro daylily care, and grow this amazing little daylily in your garden all summer long.
What Is Stella D’Oro Daylily?
Stella D’Oro is a dormant diploid daylily, hybridized and introduced to the daylily world by Walter Jablonski in 1975. This herbaceous perennial has won a number of awards, including the prestigious Stout award in 1985.
The daylily is registered under the name “Stella de Oro” with the American Daylily Society, however is also commonly referred to as Stella D’Oro.
Daylilies are herbaceous flowering plants from the Family Asphodelaceae, and Genus Hemerocallis. There are sixteen different species of daylilies, and over 35,00 different cultivars of this flowering plant.
Stella D’Oro is just one of the many different daylily hybrids.
The botanical name for daylily, Hemerocallis, is derived from two Greek words meaning beauty and day.
This unique name depicts the actual nature of the daylily blooms. The beautiful flowers, which are formed on scapes, will each bloom for only a day.
Daylily Bloom Time
As each daylily flower matures on the scape, it will open and bloom, when the timing is right.
The blooming period for each daylily cultivar is dependent on the actual cultivar itself, the number of scapes produced, and the number of flower buds on each scape.
Stella D’oro is an early to mid season bloomer, so it starts flowering early in the season.
Luckily daylily flowers open in succession, and not all flowers will bloom on the scape at the same time.
Rather, they individually mature and bloom over a period of time. For most daylilies, the entire bloom time occurs over a period of about a month, more or less.
Bloom time for Stella D’Oro is much longer however, due to it’s reblooming nature, with an extended bloom time of ten weeks or more.
Use In Landscape
Stella D’Oro tends to produce many scapes, and reblooms throughout the growing season. This makes it a floriferous daylily plant, and a great candidate for use in landscaping.
As a result Stella D’Oro is used extensively, and may be one of the most popular daylilies used for landscape design.
I have seen large plantings in the city, growing along boulevards under large trees, and used as edgings along sidewalks.
The shape and lightness of the foliage makes the plantings soft, and adds a simple finishing touch to an otherwise harsh urban location.
A Reblooming Daylily
Some daylilies are known for their ability to rebloom. This is a genetic characteristic.
Reblooming daylilies will have an extended blooming period as they continue to form scapes and flower buds throughout the growing season.
The stella d’oro daylily has this reblooming trait.
This popular daylily is valued for it’s reblooming flowers, which are produced throughout the growing season.
As a rebloomer, the daylily will produce more scapes throughout the summer months, adding to more flowering and visual appeal.
The Flowers And Scapes
Stella D’Oro is a small daylily, with a flower stem that grows to only eleven inches in height, and with a small bloom diameter of only 2.75 inches.
What this daylily lacks in size however, is made up for in performance and blooms.
Stella is a prolific bloomer with continuous blooms throughout the summer. These daylilies start blooming in early to mid summer, and then rebloom, extending the flower production period.
In late spring to early summer, the plant will put up many scapes, or flower stalks, which contain lots of flower buds. Over the course of the next month, the individual flowers on the scapes will begin to mature and grow.
As each flower bud becomes mature, it will open up and begin to bloom.
The flowers open fully in early morning, and as with all daylily blooms, they only last a day.
However since a mature clump of Stella D’Oro usually produces many stems, there will be multiple flowers blooming on numerous stems every day.
When the flowers become spent at the end of the day, there will be another flush of fresh new blooms starting to open up at the end of the day, in readiness for blooming the next day.
The blooms of this daylily are fragrant when up close, although do not emit a strong scent.
The color of Stella D’Oro blooms is a golden yellow to light orange, with a small green throat.
The Leaves
Daylily leaves are long and flowing, forming at the base of the plant and growing outwards and upwards, in an arching and fountain-like shape. The leaves grow together in fans, and each fan will produce a multitude of long spraying leaves.
Stella D’Oro leaves are slim compared to the larger tetraploid daylilies.
The older the plant, usually the more fans it will have until the plant reaches a mature sized clump.
Stella D’Oro is considered to be a dormant daylily. This means that the plant becomes dormant in winter, and dies back completely to the ground.
In the early spring new growth and new foliage will emerge from the crown, to start a fresh and new plant for the season.
Stella D’Oro foliage makes attractive green clumps of fountain shaped arching leaves, which are a nice contrast to other plants in the garden.
The leaves are generally a medium to dark green in color, depending on soil fertility.
The plants are small, and can grow nicely en mass in the landscape. Even when not in bloom, this plant makes a nice green feature when grown in large plantings.
The Seeds
Stella D’Oro will often form pods containing daylily seeds, if the flowers have been fertilized.
The flower pods can be self fertilized if the bees have done the work. Each individual daylily flower contains both an ovary and pistol, plus anthers and pollen, enabling self pollination.
All it takes is a little bit of pollinator activity to spread the pollen from the anthers to the pistol.
If you do find a seed pod, try your hand at growing the seeds, and you may be pleasantly surprised with the outcome.
The resulting seedlings will not be true to the parent plant, as they are all hybrids and unique. Yet they may have some very similar characteristics to Stella D’Oro.
The only way to get more of the same stella de oro daylily is by splitting and dividing.
How To Grow Stella D’Oro
In order to grow Stella D’Oro, you will need to have a piece of the actual plant itself.
This daylily is a hybrid, and cannot be grown from seed to grow more of the same plant.
Luckily, Stella D’Oro is generally readily available at most garden centres.
The plant is also easy to divide and transplant, so if you are able to get a fan or two from another garden, you will be able to transplant the daylily into your garden.
Transplanting Stella D’Oro
- Once in the garden, you can dig and divide, and grow many plants in this way. A single plant can be divided into many, as long as there are multiple fans.
- Dig, divide and transplant Stella D’Oro as you would any other daylily. If you are looking for more details on this process, I did another post on this topic called How To Transplant Daylilies In The Garden.
- Essentially the process involves lifting the daylily clump and dividing the clump with a clean sharp tool.
- Separate the fans of the daylily, which are the sets of leaves, ensuring that there are roots attached to the bottom of each fan.
- Try to separate into pieces with two or three fans for a good sized plant for replanting.
- Transplant into the new planting hole with the crown at the same depth as it was when originally dug. Planting the crown too deeply can lead to problems, such as crown rot.
- Water the new daylily plant in.
- Stella de Oro daylilies look fabulous in multiple plantings, so try to plant a number of plants together.
- Space the plants approximately 18″ apart to allow for growth.
Stella D’Oro Growing Conditions
Stella D’Oro, just like most other daylilies, is a low maintenance and easy care plant.
Growing Zone
- Stella is a hardy perennial plant, and will grow well in USDA plant hardiness zones 2 through 9.
- It’s winter dormancy allows it to do well in those harsher winter climates.
Soil Requirements
- This daylily does well in a wide range of soils, and many garden soil types, as long as they are well draining.
- Daylily crowns are prone to rot if left sitting in standing water.
- This daylily will grow well in dry and average soils, and can also do well in clay, as long as it drains well. Daylilies will even grow and bloom in poor soil.
- For best results however, and for healthier plants and with showy flowers, add lots of organic content to the soil where the daylilies grow, and they will flourish.
Water Requirements
- Daylilies in general as drought tolerant plants, and can go weeks without watering during dry spells, and they will survive.
- That being said, they also do well with watering, and will benefit from a drink, especially when it is dry.
- Water occasionally when it is dry, and the daylilies will reward you with beautiful growth.
Light Requirements
- Daylilies thrive in full sun, and Stella D’Oro is no exception. Sun exposure is good for flower production.
- A full sun location will result in lots more blooms on the plant.
- This daylily can also be planted in a part shade location. It is sometimes seen planted enmasse as underplantings, such as under large trees in the landscape.
- In a more shaded location there will likely be less blooms, although these mass plantings are still beautiful. The clean color and structure of the foliage adds to the beauty of the planting.
Stella D’ Oro Daylily Care
Providing the Stella D’ Oro daylily with the right growing conditions is part of providing the right care.
Along with providing the right growing conditions, there are other methods of care which will keep your plants happy, healthy, and blooming throughout the growing season.
Let’s have a look at these methods of care:
Deadheading
- Deadheading involves removing the old blooms from the plant.
- This process will help to tidy the plant, as spent daylily blooms can be a bit messy. They will eventually fall off the plant on their own within a week or so, unless the flowers have been fertilized.
- If fertilization occurs, the spent blooms will remain in place with a daylily seed pod forming at the base of the bloom. The flowers will eventually whither and fall off, although they tend to linger a little longer than the unfertilized spent blooms.
- Deadheading all spent blooms, both unfertilized and fertilized, is beneficial for the plant. It helps to divert energy away from seed production.
- To remove the spent flower, grasp it in your hand and snap it away from the scape. After a few days the spent blooms will easily fall away into your hand.
- The benefits of this care is not only tidying the plant, but also preventing seed formation. This will allow the plant to conserve a considerable amount of energy.
- The plant’s energy can then be used for growth and more blooming.
Pruning
- Pruning is similar to deadheading in that it will help to tidy the plant, and also conserve energy.
- Parts to prune from the Stella D’Oro daylily include old yellowed leaves and dead foliage, spent scapes, and seed pods if they have started to form.
Weeding
- Weeding can help your daylily plants by removing any competition for nutrients, which occurs if weeds grow at the base of the plants.
- Another benefit to weeding is that it also helps to keep the plants, and planting area, looking clean and tidy.
Mulching
- Mulching Stella D’Oro will help to reduce weed pressure, as well as help to conserve moisture in the soil.
- Although daylilies are very drought resistant due to their moisture conserving root system, they also benefit from the extra moisture that the mulch will help to keep in the soil.
Fertilizing
- Daylilies will benefit from a fertilizer if they are growing in poor or average soil.
- If growing in soil rich in organic content they will probably be fine without any fertilizer.
- I grew daylilies for years in clay soil without fertilizing, and they flourished in the rich nutrient dense clay.
- Adding compost or sheep manure to the soil at planting time, or top dressing at the beginning of the season will help the plants to grow and flourish.
Spring And Fall Care
- At the end of the summer the daylilies will start to prepare for their winter dormancy. The leaves will become dry, and some may yellow.
- Fall care involves cleaning up the daylily patch in readiness and preparation for the spring.
- Remove diseased and dry leaves and spent scapes.
- Allow the daylily to die back into the ground, either fully or partially, depending on dormancy traits.
- If you do not wish to do fall care, that is okay too. These daylilies are low maintenance plants, and they will be just fine until spring.
- In fact, spring is when I tend to do most tidying of the daylilies. I usually allow any healthy leaves to remain, and compost into the garden throughout the winter.
- Then I do a more thorough cleanup in spring.
- In spring remove any remaining dead leaves and old leaf debris around the base of the plants. Remove any old scapes from the previous year, if they are remaining.
- Before long you will see the new green growth of your dormant Stella D’Oro daylily, emerging from the ground.
Conclusion
Stella D’Oro is a long blooming daylily that is a good choice for the landscape and the perennial garden.
It’s a smaller and lower growing daylily, so will grow well in the front of the garden, without obstructing other plants.
Use these daylilies in landscaping, by planting in large groupings for a daylily statement.
The bright golden-yellow blooms add a bright touch to the garden, and the foliage adds a lovely contrast.
The adaptability of this plant is amazing, and it will easily survive drought conditions if they occur.
Stella D’oro is one of the most popular of all daylilies, because of it’s reblooming and easy care nature.
I’m certainly glad to have this little daylily in my garden.
Have you ever provided Stella D’ Oro daylily care? Be sure to leave a comment below to share your experience!
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