Category: Daylilies

oh yeah!

Yesterday I walked out to the start of Just Plum Happy season. True, my husband’s favorite daylily, “Just Plum Happy” had it’s first blooms Tuesday. But yesterday …

Persian Market opened

That is the one who’s sister bud got blown off by the landscape maintenance. She shined bright today. Even at 9:45 at night she was still gorgeous.

Tuesday the peach daylily wrapped up the season

and yesterday was saying goodbye til next year

wherever that may be. I am hoping what this picture also shows is the first day of a pollinator created seed pod. If possible. Her season was only three blooms long because her sister scape was one of the very few scapes damaged during the roofing project. We are thankful for the three blooms we got.

The South Seas daylily was taking the day off after a magnificent display Tuesday.

And the Blue Mouse Ears hostas have reached their crescendo and are winding down for the season. They, like us, are not fans of the heat, and are settling in to be a lovely green/blue backdrop for the rest of the season.

The spiders love to use them for web making, and when they are blooming the spiders get their way. All bets are off when they start to go to seed.

Finally, one of my dozen 2 year old daylilies also bloomed yesterday. I have to look up the name. For now it is Beautiful, Early Morning Tulip Shaped before it opens, Gorgeous Peachy Pink daylily.

Yah, that’s it. For now 🙂

oh, okay …

The forget-me-nots continue to co-exist with the clover, continues to co-exist at the base of the daylilies, and next to the Blue Mouse Ears hostas.

So much prettier than just landscape rock. Reminds me of old English gardens. Depth.

It all began here

Bonus story today 🙂

Yesterday we were talking with my mother-in-law and she asked, “Did you give me some peach daylilies?” Indeed I did.

I have one here as well. I bought three and put two in front oh those many years ago – 16? Those two out front did not do as well in that location, so I pulled them out. I didn’t have a place for them and my mother-in-law was tearing out grass along the side of her yard and putting in a new garden. Those two daylilies have done so well there!

Oh the gardens that have grown at her house! The creations, the fish pond, cyclops the one eyed fish who wintered in a big aquarium in their basement, flowers, fruits, vegetables, my first iris rhysomes were from her. My in-laws showed up after we bought our first house – with a tin garden bucket of 40 purple iris rhysomes. It all began with that, my friends. Those 40 iris rhysomes were 400 3 years later. I gave them to neighbors and got others back. Some of those gardens were still going strong when we moved. I leave a trail of gardens all over – hahaha!

The soil of my gardening mind had been tilled at a very early age with weekend visits to my own grandmother, and work in her vegetable garden. My mother also had gardens along the way. And my dorm room was full of houseplants that moved through to our first apartment. But my mother-in-law gets the credit for giving me a love for perennial gardening, almost 40 years ago. And now, she is enjoying my gifts back to her. The sister to the two that are blooming in her garden right now is blooming in my garden right now. In fact today.

If I were to …

If I were to make a deliberate cross with two of my daylilies, I would aim for a cream colored predominance. I’m thinking a cross with Marque Moon. Marque Moon blooms late, so choices are limited with what I have. Maybe the Pink China Doll. Here’s last year for both Marque Moon and Pink China Doll.

Now I have to study – what can be crossed? What might work? What will make blooms? Who were Marque Moon’s parents? Who were China Doll’s parents? What might that influence?

I have 5 seedlings from last year’s seed harvest. I’m not even sure where I’ll put those. Plus the 12 that are at the little house up north.

But I’m considering it.

If you make a deliberate daylily cross and get even one seed and it germinates will there be a good place you can enjoy tending it to give it a chance to mature?

The difference between a garden and townhome landscaping

Today our landscape maintenance company came to visit. They cut back the ninebarks that I had just trimmed to below the 4′ threshold the association allows, and made them into skinny little pillars. They will not flower this year.

They stepped on on daylily and broke it off.

Then they came through with the blowers. I watched as they blew at a daylily, that had absolutely no trimmed branches or leaves even remotely left around it, until the bud blew off.

I have let our association know I will be pulling the daylilies over the next month.

Heartbreaking. The garden survived a re-roof. But not the landscape maintenance team. I have recommended that with the current level of landscaping maintenance team knowledge and attentiveness to detail, the refresh be only leafy, not even flowering, shrubs.

I think the lesson is … there is a huge difference between a well loved garden and townhome landscaping.

I wait all year for this day

I wait all year for this day – the day the first daylily blooms. Yesterday the buds looked like this:

Today:

Early this morning I also watched as a robin chased a squirrel. I think the days of that squirrel causing mischief are numbered – hahaha! There is a new sheriff in town and I suspect there are some baby robins involved.

Tonight we barely made it home from our walk, and the skies just opened up. In full disclosure – we saw it coming and we knew it was close. Afterward though – a rainbow.

And I got a trip in to the co-op to get fresh veggies and a few treats with a friend.

A good day.

Now if I could just figure out what broke off an entire daylily scape on one of my new(er) – 2nd summer – daylilies. A trailcam sort of camera may need to be trained on that area. So curious. Seems too tall for a bunny and we have never had deer at the townhouse. But maybe …