Massive hybridization has produced thousands of fabulous daylily varieties.

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 a no-brainer that produces truly inspiring flowers. Hemerocallis, the daylily, is so named because each huge flower opens for just a single day before it withers. It supplies you with virtually every color of the rainbow except blue. Most daylilies are hardy to Zone 4, which is to 30 degrees below zero. But you'll find individuals that won't survive below zone 6, so it pays to check the labels and buy from a reputable grower. Certain daylilies termed "evergreen" are only hardy to Zone 7.

Daylily breeding exploded early in the 20th century. Since then tens of thousands of named varieties were developed. Every year more are being introduced, including the exotic tetraploid types that feature truly complex flower colors. The tendency is for newbies to select the common yellow and orange, but if you buy online or from a daylily grower you'll be able to sample the hot pinks, coral, lavender and purples. To access any of the gazillion daylily growers online, log on to http://daylily.net to start shopping and studying.

Daylilies require full or part sun with well-drained soil, although they've been known to do well in less than ideal clays, too. Each plant becomes a clump of strap-like leaves over thick fleshy roots, and out of these rise on long wands topped with blooms in a spectacular showing.

The trick to success is to plant lots of them because they are all truly affordable at one gallon or bare root by mail. Try three to five of each color in a mass to compound their visibility. Allow these groups to drift around one another like a soft flowing patchwork. Spot them into your existing beds and borders, which injects powerful seasonal blooms where other plants have proved disappointing.

What's so addicting about these plants is that large clumps can be so easily dug up, divided or moved if you're not happy with the location. This means that you get lots of free plants in future years to spread into new drifts of color. And best of all, you get to make lots of mistakes and they'll still come back next year.