Pippi, That is a lot of questions! 1. Daylilies last one day, Hemerocallis in Greek means Day Beauty, or phrased in today's vernacular, beauty for a day, or of a day. 2. The length or how long they bloom depends on several factors, a. how man buds, how many open at once and b. does it rebloom, growing new flowering scapes. 3. The brown stalk on your stella d' oras is a spent flowering scape, you can cut it back at that point. 4. Stella D' oras are a older dipliod cultivator Jablonski 1975. There has been thousands and thousands of releases since then, also There is dipliod and tetrapliod cultivators, both of which can have outstanding faces and good garden habits. Stella, though a useful garden plant has been widely overused in the landscape industry. I wont go into that debate! 5. Yes after flowering daylily foilage can appear ratty at times, some cultivators are worse than others, some stay a healthy green through the year, maybe loosing one or two bottom leaves. You can cut them back if there isnt alot of them. 6. Go search some of the major hybriders and their work today. Google Pat Stamile, Kinnebrew, Luddy Lambertson, Jack Carpenter (recently turned over to a newphew), Karol Emmerich, Phil Korth, Dan Trimmer.. There are dozens more, but you will see what 35 years of hybridizing work can do from the release of the stellas, even then there was better faces to a daylily. Silverkelt

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Were you to try to tell a story there that would be judged the best of the lot ... ... likely you wouldn't have a ghost of a chance of succeeding? o j

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