They’re the essence of summer, the succession of trumpets the color of luscious fruit: apricot and peach, pumpkin and cantaloupe, watermelon and lemon and plum. Easily divisible and needing minimal care, daylilies, as the name implies, produce flowers that bloom for only one day, but the numerous buds on the multiple stalks provide continual blossoms starting with the solstice and lasting all summer.

The first of the lilies to bloom is ‘Stella de Oro’, a small cultivar with orange-gold blossoms. A prolific flowerer and the longest blooming, it’s the most popular daylily and has become quite ubiquitous lining city sidewalks. Though the strong infusion of orange renders it unsuitable for partnering with summer’s many yellows, it’s perfect skirting larger orange lilies, charming with feverfew, and stunning when the indigo spires of ‘Veronica’ nod over its uplifted throats. Another award winner, ‘Happy Returns’, appropriately named for its canary yellow petals and habit of re-blooming, is easier to place. Ubiquitous in rural New England is the “tiger lily”, though I wouldn’t suggest growing this in the garden where it will become rampant and eradicate other cultivars. It is, however, in its unfussiness and tendency to spread, a wonderful candidate for the roadside ditch where the bright orange trumpets announce summer in the country.

For the rest of the season, lilies ignite the green envelope of summer and lend themselves to incredible couplings. A scarlet lily sizzles in front of a purple smoke tree, a butterscotch variety brushed with a darker throat circles the mahogany foliage of ninebark, a caramel-colored lily lightens the black leaves of sambucus. All the orange varieties – and they are numerous – copper, terra cotta, rust, coral, marmalade — smolder around dark foliage. A bold color, orange partners with other bright flowers, such as the magenta rays of echinecea and the golden ones of rudbeckia, the scarlet branches of crocosmia and pure red spurts of bee balm. Orange also companions well with blue, its color wheel opposite, striking underscored with spikes of steely fescue, or mingling with the bells of campanula.

Less common, yet no less lovely, are the pastel lilies. A favorite mauve lily blooms simultaneously with purple flowers, rising over a blanketing lemon thyme’s violet flowers, clustering around a heather with gray branches tipped pale purple, mingling with the lavender stalks of obedient plant, the spears of purple astilbe, and the bottle bushes of liatris. A cream colored lily reflects the towering bells of yucca and spires of white astilbes and ivory foxgloves. Pink lilies, ranging from blush to the color of crushed strawberries, with descriptive names such as ‘Sweet Clover’ and ‘Peach Whisper’ and ‘Fairy’s Petticoat’ partner with summer’s phlox. There are also selections of citrus and buttery yellows, and the popular ‘Hyperion’, which lifts its lemony flowers to shimmer with the silvery stripes of miscanthus ‘Morning Light’, and to contrast with the deep purple splayed petals of Japanese iris.

These gentler lilies have an entirely different effect than the fiery hues, as do those with the dark, velvety flowers, which play the role of seductresses luring us closer to view the unusual display of sultry trumpets. The exotic purples, burgundies, and crimsons, the luminous quality of ‘Persian Garnet’, the oxblood of a lily called ‘Root Beer’, the almost black of ‘Total Eclipse’. All of these require careful placement near either pale or vivid flowers to capture their hues, for without flattering partnerships, they are lost in the flame of summer color. The crimson drawing the blue from balloon flowers, the maroon tones with ‘Moonbeam’ coreopsis, the nearly black with the chartreuse foliage of golden oregano, the purple with paler blooms of obedient plant, and the red-brown with rudbeckia paint spectacular pictures.

Lilies sweep across our lawn in the summer.  Bright and burnt orange trumpets spark the prairie grass. A mauve variety mirrors magenta geranium and the purplish clusters of milkweed. A ruffle of yellow flashes across zebra grass. A wave of ivory softens dark blue balloon flowers and magenta phlox. A luminous orange flirts with the sunlight striking the nine bark’s burnished foliage.

But my favorite view is a berm, where a river of the pale yellow coreopsis flows across the crest, chartreuse lady’s mantle foams along the margin, and the most delicious of yarrows, ‘Salmon Beauty’, is a kaleidoscope of pale yellow, ivory, salmon, coral and cream — all of which complement a collection of lilies. Here the sirens — a red-orange with a golden throat, a velvety scarlet, a small rust rimmed gold, a brick red and sunny yellow alternating petals, a garnet with dark gold undersides — call us to come closer to inspect those with subtle streaks and stripes, rings and margins, frilly rims and unusual hues: a yellow lily brushed with peach, an apricot frosted with a shimmery yellow, a watermelon with darker edges and a paler core, a salmon lily, a coral, lilies the colors of lipstick, of sherbet and creamsicles, and a tall lily with triple layers of soft orange ruffles like the curlicues of carrots.

All of these were rescued from the renowned collection of Eunice Fuller, who served as librarian for 36 years and was as devoted to flowers as she was to books. As her health declined, her garden became rapidly overgrown with vines from an encroaching field.  Though many lilies were salvaged for her memorial garden, once while strolling along Main Street, we noticed vibrant pieces of color poking through the maze of brambles and bittersweet behind the library. After closer inspection, we returned with shovels and endured thorns and rashes and insects until every last one of her lilies was saved.

I think those are always our favorite flowers, those we rescue, or share, those which come from a special place, or person, because flowers, in all their aspects, are our purest symbols of generosity.