Daylilies - Beautiful and Delicious

Easy to grow with few pest problems, daylilies have become quite popular; so popular that some gardeners eschew them. If too common for the flowerbed, gardeners may want to plant some in the vegetable garden. All parts of Hemerocallis are edible. The Chinese have used the plant for food and medicine for centuries.

The young leaves are cooked and said to taste like creamed onions. The flowers and their buds are the sweetest part of the plant, eaten raw or cooked. Dried petals are added to many Chinese soups. For culinary purposes the roots are the most versatile part of the plant. Raw they make a wonderful crisp addition to salads. Cooked, they can be used in many recipes and can replace potatoes.

Although the daylily is listed as edible in many references, with any new food, care should be taken in case of allergies. Generally pesticides are not needed to grow daylilies, but since gardeners may have different chemical use policies in their flowerbeds, it may be wise to consider how the plants have been grown before dining on them.

Links:

• Having your flowers and eating them too from the San Francisco Chronicle



• Daylilies: When the Centerpiece Leaps to the Plate from Front Range Living



• Decadent daylilies stuffed with porto blue cheese a recipe from Suburblicious at Banlieusardises.com

Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 4:56 PM on May 12, 2005

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