Gardeners who want super-tolerant, thrive-on-neglect plants often consider daylilies (Hemerocallis) to be the perfect perennial. While they are fully winter hardy, tolerate drought, and have few serious disease and insect problems, it's the incredible selection of colors that excite both novices and experts alike.

Native to Asia, literally thousands of new daylily hybrids have been developed over the last 70 years. The warm-toned yellows and oranges of the original species have been bred to now include color choices ranging from pastel nearly-whites to purple.

While each flower does provide beauty for just one day, each variety of daylily usually blooms for several weeks. With a little attention to sequencing, it's possible to have daylilies flowering from early summer through frost. To keep it easy, there are rebloomers that flower more than once. Some bloom early and again in the fall, while others flower repeatedly over the season.

Heralded for their beauty, daylilies are prized for their resilience. But let the record show: Daylilies perform best in full sun and organically rich, well-drained soil, and clumps respond to being divided every four to six years with re-invigorated blooms.

••It is time to fertilize your hybrid roses for the third and final time. Be sure to continue your application of a fungicide every 7 to 10 days to prevent black spot. To avoid damage to the foliage do not spray on excessively hot and humid days. Remove spent flowers regularly to increase flowering. Cut back to a point where there are five leaflets when cutting flowers to bring inside.

••Branches that quickly wilt and die in your trees and shrubs could be infected with a bacterial disease called fire blight. Crab apples, hawthorns and cotoneaster are plants that are commonly afflicted with this disease. Promptly prune out the affected branches, sterilizing your pruners between each cut with Lysol or a solution of 1 part bleach to 9 parts water. Make the cuts well below the affected area.

••Make sure the root balls of evergreen trees planted within the last year or two are thoroughly moistened when watering. Densely branched evergreen trees can shed water from rain or a sprinkler away from the root ball. Apply water to the base of these trees.

••The gladiolus produces a large, showy flower spike that lasts for several days whether in the garden or in a vase. To get the most out of a bloom for decoration inside, cut when the lowest blossoms have begun to show color.

••If the new growth at the tips of your pine's branches has turned brown, a disease called Sphaeropsis blight may be the problem. It is too late to spray fungicides now as infection occurs in the spring. Prune out dead tips in dry weather to reduce the spread of infection.

••Magnolia scale (an insect) is present now. Look closely for these insects, which are about the size of a pencil eraser, on the branches of your magnolia tree; they are typically found on the underside. Other signs of magnolia scale infestation that are easy to spot include an overall thin condition of the tree and a black, sooty mold on the leaves of the magnolia and any plants under the tree. The magnolia scale exudes a substance called honeydew when they are feeding on the plant.

Black sooty mold is a fungus that grows on this substance and is only a cosmetic problem. For small trees or infestations, simply pick off the scale and squash them. Other control measures include treating with summer weight oil or an insecticide when the scale is in the crawler stage (small, immature and vulnerable), generally in early September. For trees with a history of magnolia scale, an early spring dormant oil application is a wise preventative measure. If your tree is affected, provide extra watering during the summer to minimize stress.