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Daylilies(1 of 4)

If you're a first-time homeowner, listen up. If you think you can't grow fabulous flowers, read on. If past failures have made you throw your hands up and retreat from gardening in general, get ready to rumble! There's a secret to great-big bold flowers.

Forget about all that stuff you see in catalogs that brands a plant "easy," because that's a relative term. For anyone who can't find the right end of a garden hose, "easy" may be downright complex. What you need is plants that grow even if you plant them upside down, which happens more than you think.

The lily family has produced two no-brainers that produce truly inspiring flowers. They are relatively cold hardy, and when you use them together, you get a full range of color. One is the best source of blue in the garden. It is known as Agapanthus, or lily of the Nile. The other is Hemerocallis, the daylily, so named because each huge flower opens for just a single day before it withers. This second group supplies you with virtually every color of the rainbow except blue. So between the two, you'll have an incredible palette with which to paint your garden.