Put two daylily orders side by side and the difference may be in the container. One basket holds a 9cm plant; another holds the same cultivar in two litres of growing medium. A third page shows a larger size that can only be collected. For a UK buyer wanting a potted plant, these details belong at the beginning of the comparison.
The ten suppliers below give us actual products to work with. Catherine Woodbery appears in two sizes, Double River Wye in two more, and Happy Returns through several combinations of pot and purchase route. Alongside those comparisons are a twelve-variety collection and a local nursery with several named choices. The aim is to make the contents of an order clear before paying for it.
What goes into the comparison
Each supplier has an identified daylily advertised in a pot. I have kept the seller’s size wording, including ranges and approximate volumes, and looked at the selected variant rather than assuming every option is available. The sequence starts with a specialist assortment, moves through larger and medium formats, and ends with small-pot and collection choices. It provides a buying comparison; pot capacity by itself cannot establish root quality or predict a first summer’s flowers.
1. Swallowtail Daylilies
For a British buyer putting together a substantial pot-grown daylily order, SwallowtailDaylilies offers the World of Daylilies collection of twelve different named varieties. The plants are supplied in pots. The nursery also sells individual cultivars, so the first choice is how much control you want over the contents.
I would treat the collection as one purchase with twelve different identities inside it. The seller makes the selection. That can suit someone who wants an assortment and has flexible planting space, while a border planned around particular colours calls for individually chosen names. Twelve named plants and twelve plants you have named in advance are two quite different orders.
The nursery’s terms describe year-round pot-grown supply and usual dispatch within three to five working days, with exceptions. Collection can be arranged. Those details are useful for organising the purchase, though a dispatch interval leaves the delivery journey still to come. No specific pot capacity is established here, so ask about that if it affects your comparison with the measured formats below. The clear offer is the assortment itself: a dozen different named daylilies, already growing in medium, through one specialist nursery.
2. Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants
Catherine Woodbery in a 3-litre pot is the largest explicitly sized example in this list. Hardy’s shows that variant as available. It gives us a precise item to compare with the 2-litre Catherine Woodbery offered later by Horticulture.co.uk.
The flower is pale pink with a contrasting lime-yellow throat. Hardy’s gives the mature plant dimensions as 75cm high and 50cm across; those numbers concern its eventual place in the garden. Three litres describes the product being bought now. Keeping both on the order notes avoids the familiar muddle between a bigger starting pot and a bigger-growing cultivar.
If Catherine Woodbery is already on the planting list, this is a straightforward option to price for the required quantity. The larger container is a concrete difference between offers of the same named plant. Any expectation about the number of fans or flowering stems would need information about the stock itself.
3. Farmyard Nurseries
Here is the first half of another useful comparison: Double River Wye, double lemon-yellow flowers, 2-litre pot. Farmyard’s online shop supplies that named combination from its Welsh nursery.
The other half appears at Gardening Express in an approximately 1-litre format. With the cultivar held constant, you can compare the available plants and the cost of the complete order. For three intended positions, put three of the selected variant in each basket and include carriage before deciding. There is no need to guess which product is better value from the litre label alone. Farmyard gives you the specified 2-litre version of the double yellow plant; whether that is the preferable purchase depends on the actual order in front of you.
4. Burncoose Nurseries
Pink Damask introduces a range: 1.5-2 litres. I would copy that whole range into a comparison sheet. Rounding it up to a guaranteed 2-litre product would make the sheet tidier and the comparison less accurate.
The cultivar’s rosy-pink flowers also change the contents of the basket. This is an alternative colour to Farmyard’s double yellow, so the two are not interchangeable simply because their containers occupy a similar size bracket. Someone buying a mixed group could choose both for their flowers and accept some variation in the supplied plants. Someone seeking matched Pink Damask plants should ask about the actual stock if uniformity on arrival matters. The advertised capacity range is an honest place to start that conversation.
5. Larch Cottage Nurseries
Happy Returns is offered in a 2-litre pot. Put that against Bluebell Cottage’s smaller postal option later in the list: the cultivar stays the same, while the starting format changes. Larch Cottage’s plant offers a clear medium-pot choice for a compact yellow-flowered daylily.
The calendar belongs beside the size in this case. Postal orders run from September to the end of June. A summer shopper needs to consider visiting or enquire about arrangements for the selected plant, while an order within the mail-order season fits the advertised route. That single piece of information can decide whether this is a useful offer for the current purchase or one to return to later.
For a planned order, record Happy Returns, 2 litres and the postal window together. It is a more informative description than “yellow daylily available online”.
6. Horticulture.co.uk
The shop heading reads Catherine Woodbury, while the description names Catherine Woodbery. It lists a 2-litre plant with pink flowers and a green-yellow throat. Read that description when comparing it with Hardy’s offer; the heading’s spelling variation supplies no reason to count it as another cultivar.
There is a second measurement to decode. The delivery height is 30-50cm including the pot. In other words, the number helps describe what is being shipped. Use mature dimensions from an appropriate plant description when planning the flower line in the border.
Ordering is online for mainland Great Britain, with no customer collection. For an eligible address, this gives a clearly specified 2-litre alternative to the 3-litre Catherine Woodbery above. The comparison can therefore be made on the actual selected products and their delivery costs, with the pot included in one height measurement only where the retailer says it is.
7. Gardening Express
Double River Wye returns in an approximately 1-litre pot. This is the smaller stated container in the same-cultivar comparison with Farmyard, and the qualifier “approximately” travels with it.
I would include it when pricing several plants of that double-flowered cultivar, particularly if the immediate pot size is flexible. Select the intended quantity, check the offered dispatch arrangements and compare the resulting total with the 2-litre option. That gives the difference a practical meaning. An approximate litre of container capacity cannot tell us how the roots in one individual plant compare with those in another. It does tell us which advertised version is in the basket, and that is the detail a buyer can establish here.
8. Champion Plants
Choose the size button before assessing this offer. Gentle Shepherd is available in 9cm; the 2-litre option is unavailable. The white-flowered cultivar can be bought in the small format, but the larger button on the page is not an immediately obtainable alternative.
That distinction makes Champion relevant to a buyer happy to start with the available small potted plant. Its Somerset operation lists delivery exclusions including Northern Ireland and the Highlands, and collection can be arranged. Once the address or collection plan works, the order is specific: Gentle Shepherd in 9cm. A buyer who requires the 2-litre version has a separate stock question to resolve before making plans around it.
9. Bluebell Cottage Gardens
One Happy Returns, three Happy Returns, or a larger plant collected in person: the options divide along two lines here. Bluebell Cottage lists individual 9cm plants and a three-plant option. The 1-litre format is for collection.
For three places in a repeated planting, the pack is worth comparing with three individual plants from another supplier. For a single place, begin with the individual option. A visitor to Dutton can examine the collection choice instead. These are useful alternatives because they correspond to different orders people actually make. The quantity and route matter as much as the larger number beside the pot, and the three-plant option repeats one cultivar rather than supplying three different names.
10. Harley Nursery
A local order at Harley could combine Big Time Happy, Joan Senior and Flore Pleno, each listed in 2-litre pots. That brings together a low yellow choice, an off-white flower and a double orange form while keeping the advertised container format consistent.
Collection and qualifying local delivery are the routes to consider. Delivery covers specified postcodes within 20 miles of the nursery’s Shropshire area. For a gardener inside that service, several named daylilies can therefore be organised as one local purchase. Outside it, the national postal options earlier in the list will usually be the relevant comparisons.
Read back the basket
Before paying, read each selected line as cultivar, quantity, format and route. “Three Happy Returns in 9cm pots for posting” says much more than “Happy Returns”. So does “one Gentle Shepherd, available 9cm variant”. Keep those details with the confirmation, particularly where a page offers several sizes. You then have a clear record of the purchase and a useful basis for checking the delivery when it arrives.
Source note: Product formats, selected variants and ordering conditions are drawn from the featured suppliers’ official product listings and terms. No test orders or inspections of individual plants underpin this comparison.
