Chicago Apache has intense scarlet red, 5-inch flowers with a small sulfur yellow watermark and a green throat. The color is very sunfast, and the plant is less troubled by thrips than many reds.
A vigorous grower with healthy foliage and sturdy scapes, it blooms in late July, adding bold red to the late midseason garden.
What it looks like
Flowers about 5 inches across with recurved tepals in intense scarlet red, loosely ruffled petal edges, slightly crimped sepals, a small sulfur yellow watermark band and a green throat. Each bloom lasts a day, but many buds open in turn on branched scapes rising to about 30 inches above a fountain of long, arching, strap-shaped medium green leaves. The foliage clump is about 18 inches tall and 18 to 24 inches wide. At peak bloom bright scarlet flowers are held well above the leaves on sturdy scapes.
Growing it with lavender
Its scarlet flowers add strong contrast beside lavender in the same sunny, well-drained soil, blooming as lavender's main flush finishes.
Care
Grow in full sun to light part shade (at least six hours of sun for the best bloom) in average, well-drained soil; once established it handles heat, clay and dry spells. Hardy in zones 3 to 9. Snap off faded flowers for a tidy look, cut bare scapes to the base after bloom and divide crowded clumps every few years.
At a glance
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Botanical name: Hemerocallis
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Flower color: Scarlet red with a sulfur yellow watermark and green throat
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Foliage: Medium green
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Growth habit: Arching, fountain-like clump
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Mature size: 30 in tall × 18–24 in wide
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USDA hardiness zones: 3–9
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Light: full sun, part sun to part shade
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Bloom start: Mid-July
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Peak bloom: Late-July
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Bloom pattern: Single Flush
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Deer resistance: Susceptible
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Pollinator value: Good
Sizes and shipping
Dormant bare-root plant, sold in boxes of 25 per variety (order in multiples of 25). Bare-root plants ship or are picked up March 1–May 31 only. They are soil-free, so they may ship to every state in that window. Dormant plants often show little or no top growth on arrival; plant or heel them in promptly.