Rainbow Rhythm® Primal Scream Daylily

Tangerine-orange flowers 7½ to 8½ inches across, with a gold-dusted finish and a green throat, open on this daylily in midsummer. Hemerocallis Rainbow Rhythm® 'Primal Scream' grows 34 inches tall in bloom and 18 to 24 inches wide in full sun to part sun, hardy from Zone 3 through Zone 9, and reaches full size over two to three summers.

Curt Hanson's introduction won the Stout Silver Medal in 2003, the highest honor the American Hemerocallis Society gives. It is registered as an unusual form, and it is a dormant tetraploid.

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 mid-to-back border, where a flower this size shows from across the garden.