This morning dawned just a tich on the cool side again – glorious! It almost felt pre-pre-fall. Very enjoyable! And we are reaching the middle of our daylily season.
About this time of the daylily season, in my gardens at least, a lot of blooms are going at once. And even overlapping.
Blooms are hard to access for crosses, they are sketchy to not disturb other blooms, and it gets kind of “not fun” to work through that. But it is beautiful!
So I am going to take a few days off crosses and just enjoy, and then we will be past the apex, and things should get easier to work around again.
Too bad because Naomi Ruth bloomed this morning for the first time this season.
Naomi Ruth going to be the next cross I try with red daylily. Pink Tirzah pollen in is not making successful crosses with red daylily this year so Naomi Ruth is going to be stepping in. Cuz red daylily is just to enticing to leave uncrossed.
But probably not today. Today is one of those days where we just enjoy a different type of look.
Today dawned with lots of “first blooms” for the season. Coral Majority was one. I was so tempted to cross all the South Seas self seed seedlings that bloomed for the first time this year, but I just couldn’t do it.
‘Equal Opportunity’ is soooo good right now, and I don’t want to tax her.
She is definety moving forward, but if I cross her with anything this year it will be to work on making her even lighter and add more glisten – probably a cross with Marque Moon, if the timing aligns. Otherwise Equal Opportunity will not be crossed this year.
We now have a name for this daylily. ‘It’s a Puzzle’. And I love ‘It’s a Puzzle’ exactly how she is. So no cross there.
Daylily ‘Shirley Dalaska’ also will not be crossed. She is beautiful! And ‘Simple Perfection’ was not blooming today. I may cross ‘Simple Perfection’ as she is looking more and more like South Seas, but TBD.
But there is one South Seas self seed seedling (yet unnamed) that would be perfect with a little extra spunk, and Coral Majority would be just perfect. So I did that first cross of a South Seas self seed seedling today. We shall see how it goes.
In case you are wondering, below is Coral Majority. She is a wild child. But she is an awesome pollen producer.
To help you get over that shock of a wild child daylily 😂 here are some soothing bird pics from this morning.
We are deep into daylily season now, and I am seeing patterns regarding daylily crosses that will work this year. For instance, the cross that made the Mahala Felton dedication daylily will not have a repeat seed creation season this particular year. One of the parent daylilies is not sending up scapes right now. That happens. It is a healthy daylily, not crowded. It could be that I just overworked it last year. For this year, the Mahala Felton daylily seedlings are doing well and will start to be be planted this fall in various locations in the Oakwood Cemetery garden where Mahala Felton is interred.
I am also having challenges this year with getting the Molly Cowles dedication daylily cross to replicate. 60 seeds last year, and not a single success with that same cross this year. But that, too, is OK. I have so many Molly Cowles seedlings that some will probably even go up north. I will continue to try to replicate those crosses this year. There is still lots of runway ahead. And some things happen for a reason.
Those daylily seedlings are wonderful, and I hope they will bloom absolutely beautifully, but I knew there was more to come. It was forming in my mind. Something a bit different.
We were “getting there” when one of the daylilies I purchased and planted at Oakwood last fall began to bloom a few weeks ago. That daylily’s name is Red Volunteer.
“Volunteer” has layers of meaning. What a cool daylily to be at Oakwood. And it is stunning. I am hoping for way more blooms next year. I only caught two this year.
But something was still in my mind. It just was still in a “waiting” state. Something with ties to meaning. It finally arrived.
Dedication daylily “Shirley D” is a dedication to my good friend, long time historian and author, and fellow volunteer at Oakwood Cemetery. Shirley puts up with my relentless garden talk, endlessly long texts, and ridiculously ambitious ideas. And Shirley and her husband Mike dedicate uncounted hours of personal labor as well as their substantial leadership to Oakwood Cemetery. They are, in my humble opinion, the primary reason Oakwood Cemetery is in the renovated state it is in today.
Dedication daylily “Shirley D” is from 2022 harvested seed. 2022 was a tough year for me. It was the year my husband and I decided that the little home up in the mining town in northern Minnesota (that we had renovated and planned as our retirement home) was not truly a match. Our plans were upended. We were back to the townhome plan, and I was gutted. I wanted a yard to renovate into a garden. I wanted to be in that area. But it was just too small. My friend Shirley was a dear sweet comfort as I greatly grieved selling that house.
The following year, as I was looking for something I could pour myself into through gardening, Shirley, once again, reminded me of opportunities at our local historical society. While dedication daylily “Shirley Dalaska” was slowly putting roots down where I had planted her the previous fall, I joined the historical society, intending to mainly garden. I took a meandering route, but eventually I found my way (back) over to Oakwood, where I, once again, saw the old, abandoned garden I had seen before. Volunteers are not in plentiful supply, and no one had felt both a calling and the time to address it. And honestly, I too had no interest in that garden. The goats that had been at Oakwood to eat the buckthorn a few years before might have enjoyed it had they had access to it, but it did not really speak to me at all. I was looking at the huge expanse of a raised bed fence garden that so needed love. The old, abandoned garden had stuff that would look great in the fence garden, but the fence garden needed way more than weeding and transplants. What happened next is a testament to Shirley’s absolute genious. While I was working through what I was feeling called to do, Shirley didn’t give me her plan. She let me come up with a “Susan plan”. An impossibly ambitious plan to move the heaving rock and exposed plastic out and go to a mulched garden. I went to the store, bought three bags of mulch, put some in, took a picture and asked what she thought, and pretty soon Shirley and Mike were there doing garden days, sometimes even when I wasn’t there – moving rock, pouring out bags of mulch, putting up with my insistence that hostas would never survive there and that people who were increasingly plopping hosta donations in the newly renovated garden were going to be sorely disappointed when their hostas died. It was, after all, I said, a full sun garden, for goodness sakes 🙂 (Those hostas are thriving – lol) Shirley has stood beside me, even talked me out of really bad ideas, and still encouraged me in my efforts. She soooo gets me. She gets my intensity. She gets that I primarily want to make gardens. She gets that I am so pleased seeing the community appreciate the completed renovation. (Is a garden ever truly completed though? I don’t think so.) Shirley gets that I was pretty driven about getting the garden renovated but now am thrilled that I only need 1 hour per week to weed it because neighbors are weeding as they walk by. So cool!!! And she puts up with me saying, for the 900th time, that I am not going there every day to water plopped plants, which still happens lol. It’s OK, she says. Shirley really is a saint. I think she may be watering plops. I’m pretty sure she is 😉
This year, as the daylilies in my townhouse gardens started to come up and then show scapes and buds, dedication daylily “Shirley D” took her sweet time. Other South Seas self-seed creations were coming up, making it onto my blogs. Still created by our mutual neighborhood pollinators but looking “not Shirley”. And then the first bloom. Does “Shirley D” not have the “it” factor? Understated, yet undeniable presence. Like Shirley D the person, my dear friend.
Among Shirley’s many contributions, Shirley does stained glass work.
Back at you, my friend, with another floral beauty.
The other morning as our dog woke me to go outside at 4 am, and I realized the birds were not starting to sing yet, I was reminded we are into mid July. We are on the waning side of the summer solstice. Even though the days are hotter, the amount of sunshine each day is decreasing now. Kind of bummer-ish. And truth be told, were it not for daylily time, I would be tempted to be indoors way more in July. I do not naturally love the heat and humidity we get in July. But I love the gardens, and the daylilies make July sing, so outside I am.
There is so much “garden” going on that I didn’t get my blog from Friday finished, and didn’t do anything blog related on Saturday. Here is a download:
A few of the Molly Cowles crosses that were so easy and successful last year have failed so far this year. I decided to flip the cross, and see what happens. So far so good. But honestly, if that cross isn’t a go this year, I’m good. I have 38 seedlings going from that cross. I can rest on that one.
Hello Yellow is done blooming for a while. And she has two self seed pods going. I am so excited about that! I am still working on figuring out her parentage. I so regret my sloppy note taking early on. I still think my note that she is a cross with Pink Tirzah as one parent could be accurate, but I need to prove that out. Pink Tirzah is still a puzzle to me. Last year she behaved like a diploid, but this year her diploid crosses are failing, so far.
We have another puzzle, too, but this one is easy, I think. To set the stage, I have been reading up on daylily propagation, and one consistent recommendation is “FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS”, meaning choose a couple daylilies to cross, and then focus within that parentage to work on the desired characteristics. Sage advice. The reason I needed a third seedling box this year is because of all the “one ups” I did last year. A lot of them produced questionable seed and are not going to seedling yet. Arrggghhhh. So for me, I definitely think South Seas is one of my focus lines. The Mahala Felton daylily seedling cross is in the South Seas line. A lot of my self seed seedlings, and now blooming daylilies, are from South Seas. I even have Coral Majority self seed seedlings cominh up. South Seas is one of Coral Majority’s parents. (Not my cross, I bought Coral Majority.) But with 5 new South Seas self seed seedlings blooming for the first time this year, and successful crosses in that line, am hearing the message that South Seas is my “FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS”. I even have a Lullaby Baby I bought last year, a diploid, that is budding out this year, that is, guess what? In South Seas parentage. A diploid, in a tetraploid’s parentage. Apparently, it can happen.
On to the puzzle – I have had 5 South Seas self seed seedlings go to flower in the past couple weeks, and they all look different. They are from different years. But what I thought was solely the 6 year South Seas seedling has 3 very distinctly different blooms, a different look and even height per scape, and I know that the 6 year seedling was one seed. It should be the same genetics. So …. I am guessing the other two, different fans, are from bunny and squirrel assists. Direct sow, so to speak. Different genetics. South Seas almost always has some seed spillage each year where I find there has been critter activity. I think the seed spilled around the 6 year seedling and made the different versions. Something to be aware of, as I had a similar scenario with Just Plum happy last year, but OK with me. I absolutely love all the self seeds that have bloomed from South Seas. So much that I have decided not to cross any pollen TO South Seas, at least this year, to make any seed that comes from South Seas be noted as self seed. Keep my like easy. But I will use South Seas pollen. I already have a successful cross this season to peach daylily with South Seas pollen (one pod, and it looks like others on the way). That will be fun if the seed is viable. And hopefully others like Lullaby Baby will work as well.
I am thinking Pink Tirza is going to be my other focus line, but first I have to figure out how she is going to behave in the garden. ie. Did she really cross with a tetraploid in my garden, and if so, are there others that would work? Hint: I already tried South Seas. No dice. But she did make the start of a pod from Hello Yellow pollen (until I accidentally pulled it), and I typed Hello Yellow out last year as a tetraploid. Yah. It’s a puzzle.
See which ones you think are South Seas kids that bloomed today.
I hope you didn’t say the Bluebells clematis that is reblooming 😉
South Seas is the 5th picture. The 6th and 7th are her kids, thanks to our pollinators, and my harvesting, storing, doing stratification, planting for germination, and then replanting into their various maturing places. I am starting to love self seed, and honestly, self seed will happen a lot up north because we have a lot a lot a lot of pollinators. A lot lol.
The first pic is peach daylily, with a pollinator friend who I hope didn’t already make a cross because I am hoping to successfully type and then cross Peachy this year.
The second is Just Plum Happy, and those are my husband’s favorites. We have several. That one is the middle child. Just Plum Happy doesn’t like to play with others much. We have learned to let her relax and just be her wonderful authentic self. She has produced self seed offspring, but not with my help. Direct sow does work. Maybe it was me tossing it, maybe it was squirrels or bunnies or the wind or just gravity. Just Plum Happy will definitely have real estate up north. Probably not by seedling, but by division.
The third pic is red daylily. Red daylily and Pink Tirza like to make a lot of seed. Red daylily sometimes does this adorable thing where she curls her petals at the very end. Sometimes more as the day goes on. We shall see what she does today. I hope the kids get those curly petals. Hopefully not 4 years from now, but we shall see.
And then the fourth pic is Bluebells clematis reblooming.
Looking the past few days at the space I have at the townhouse, what we can reasonably use at the historic cemetery, and all the seedlings, I decided I would buy a 3rd seedling box. It is on its way.
And my husband and I agreed – this is the critical mass year. This is the year daylilies need to start going up north.
Now, for newcomers, we have land up in far northern Minnesota USA. Along with black bears, bobcats, coyotes, wolves, foxes, of course deer, and a veritable plethora of small game – rabbits, grouse, some squirrels … oh, and a porcupine who seems to have moved on, thank goodness, and a woodchuck who was moved on. Plus a variety of very cool birds including owls. This earth mama, with all the tenderhearted earth and creature loving kindness just oozing out of me in our first year up there, tried a raised bed hugelculture set of gardens (money I sincerely regret spending). They were a wreck within months and such a loss by year two that we pulled them in year three and set the camper over the top of the beds when we built out our shed to cabin. And that was that. Except that I kept propagating daylilies here.
I am now solidly in year seven of this daylily propagation journey, and things are maturing to bloom all over the place. There is no more room after this year, and, truth be told, I now have 38 Molly Cowles seedlings in one seedling box, 14 Mahala Felton seedlings between two seedling boxes, and more coming up every day. We have reached our limit here, and we have perfectly good land for daylilies up north. So … I have picked out a spot on our land where we have good groundwater. I have been bringing my forced bulbs up north and planting them there for a few years. It’s just that when June comes and we are literally awash in in a sea of 4 foot tall ferns, my husband gets out the brush cutter and mows it all down there. Or we get awash in a sea of wood ticks as we walk around camp and to the outhouse. We have both gotten tick born illnesses. Not cool. So the brush cutter rules. Kind of like mouse poison rules after you spend a few sleepless nights listening to the mice skitch in the camper walls and run across your camper counter. Ugghhh.
What I need to do is get on my real world panties and get over my objection to landscape fabric, and lay a swath of it down up north and tack it to the ground and make holes for each daylily, and put a cloche over the top of each planting until we get it deer fenced, and let the leaves and pine straw and whatever wood chips and mulch I can harvest from sawing and splitting days cover the landscape fabric … and see what happens. Yep. Right here.
That’s it. Hard stop. Or I can stop propagating daylilies – and “that ain’t happenin’”. 😂
I am sitting in the garden, watching a robin on the bird bath, listening to the mourning doves, feeling exceptionally blessed.
I know I have a full day ahead, but I have had my scripture time, I have had my morning garden walk time, my coffee is gone and I am switching to water.
This is (tentatively) Simple Perfection. She represents 6 years of patience, and she almost went up north to be deer food last fall. Glad I didn’t do that!
She is my first ever harvested daylily seed, and I did a direct sow, the only direct sow I have done. She spent 3 years in the old seedling bed, and then I moved her into her current location. She is also a self seed, from South Seas, which also produced Equal Opportunity, but in a different year. And as an aside, younger South Seas self seed are also maturing in the garden, from yet more years. I am liking what I am seeing from South Seas self seed!
South Seas has yet to produce a successful intentional cross. She may be saying I need to leave her alone !
I want to try one more South Seas pollen cross, to peach daylily, and one more cross from Pink Tirza pollen (which I expect to fail, because Pink Tirza is supposed to be a diploid). If those both fail, South Seas will retire as the most prolific self seeder in our garden, with many different children.
Here is a family pic, Simple Perfection in the front, South Seas in the back.
Susan's Daily Garden 