Contrary to many gardeners, I suppose, I find these two species both plebian and essential. Therefore, in my mind they are linked. Why? Not only because they have equally been the play toys of hybridizers for generations (they are easy to mutate). Hostas, in all their hundreds of variations, even with their indisputably beautiful and unique foliage, has a flower that detracts from the textural effect of a mass planting – or even, a single specimen – and therefore, I nip them in the bud. Visitors are surprised to see so many almost-flowers disappear from my scene but I find their visual messiness at odds with and a distraction from why we grow hostas (those amazing leaves!). Many are put in a vase, rather than the compost pile, as they make quite attractive indoor arrangements.  All, that is, except for the magnificent Hosta plantagenia, sending up their scented large white blossoms in the unlikely months of August and September. Their buds escape the secateur as I savor something this sweet so late in the summer season. On the other hand, the Hemerocallis, in all its hundreds (thousands?) of variations, has indisputably beautiful, if fleeting, individual blossoms (and beautiful buds before them) but a truly rank foliage that immediately after blooming turns a disabling brown, not unlike the poppy aftermath ruining its neighborhood in the border, so discouraging to Gertrude Jekyll herself that finding the right floppy neighbor to hide the mess was an imperative. So these two opposites, the hosta and the daylily, are often linked physically in my garden maintenance in late July/August: buds and flowers from hostas are removed a week or two before I mow (yes, with a rotary mower set at the highest level) my daylily bed, making a mess of it for two weeks (but nice compost in place) before fresh new green leaves appear as if it were spring again. Therefore, in my garden, both hostas and daylilys are unnaturally manipulated, to make them more garden-worthy, just as a garden itself is manipulated nature.