Seven-inch apricot-orange flowers with a very wide orange-red eye, an orange-red picotee edge, and a razor-thin gold margin open on this daylily in July. Hemerocallis Rainbow Rhythm® 'Lake of Fire' grows 24 inches tall in bloom and 18 to 24 inches wide in full sun to part sun, hardy from Zone 3 through Zone 9, and fills out by its second summer.
The flowers are fragrant, and the plant is a dormant tetraploid that received the American Hemerocallis Society's Honorable Mention in 2010.
Daylilies come from eastern Asia. Each flower lasts a single day, but the buds open in sequence along branched stems, so one plant stays in color for weeks. Thick, fleshy roots store water, which carries established plants through dry spells and lean soil. Bloom is heaviest in full sun; with four to six hours of sun they still flower, with fewer buds. Tetraploid varieties carry twice the chromosomes of diploids, which shows in heavier petals and sturdier stems. Dormant varieties die back to the ground in winter, while semi-evergreen and evergreen ones keep some foliage where winters are mild. Deer and rabbits eat the buds and young leaves.
Fits the front-to-middle of a border, where flowers this large on a 2-foot plant stand out.
