Yesterday we had 31 daylily blooms, this morning we have 40. You know, I think en masse is so much better than specimen! Waves of color. Today I literally have an all day meeting for work. But I can still look out and see all the bloom. That “works”.
This is Pink China Doll. I have never seen that white edging before. It has been super rainy all season, and, then, because we have lots of grass here (don’t even get me going on that …) the sprinklers were recently also turned on – ugghhh. Isn’t perfectly manicured grass for places where people have competitions moving balls around with sticks? Ok, I will stop. Anyway, I will have to research if that white edging is a sign of duress. I have two of those and one will probably move this fall.
Yesterday we had 22 daylilies bloom in the gardens. Today I did my first walkabout and there are even more today than yesterday. Even with the heat and humidity, even recovering from a summer cold, the joy and beauty and magnitude of what is approaching peak bloom season for the daylilies does not escape me. It is awe inspiring! Early morning on these warm days is the most enjoyable, and I love to capture the early morning beauty before the day heats up, when the garden’s potential is just starting to shine.
Yesterday the Naomi Ruth bloomed for the first time this year.
Today Pink China Doll bloomed for the first time.
And Just Plum Happy is incredible right now. I love how this scape this morning shows yesterday, this morning, and (probably) tomorrow.
And even though they are the backdrop right now, the hostas also are an absolute delight. Their waves of bloom are gradually giving way to seed production so it was haircut time. I want them to save their strength for next year’s beauty.
And then there is Tirza way in the back of one of the areas. It was a slow start for her here, for multiple reasons, but now she is coming in to her own these past couple years.
In a week or so I will start trimming the Blue Mouse Ears. That is quite a job, so I do a few at a time. And I see they burned a bit in the heat of the past few days. They need dividing this fall, and some may get a new, more shade filled location, and a bit of distance from the daylilies that are starting to cover them up.
They really shouldn’t be covered up. They are far too beautiful to be covered up 🥰
This weekend my gardening time opportunities got chosen for me. It is very warm and humid and we have also had some thunderstorms. I also have a summer cold. Doing long amounts of time outside or doing heavy gardening was not going to be a smart choice. Sometimes making lemonade out of lemons is the path forward. And so, this weekend was a perfect time to putz, and to analyze and plan a path forward for this small scope hobby of mine called daylily propagation from seed. I have held it loosely, so loosely that I have seedlings where the source information, written in pencil, washed off with no backup record, and this past week I had a first bloom on a seedling that, although beautiful, left me wondering if I had correct data. Not that any of that is super important, this is after all a hobby, but it was a thinking moment. And I have put off doing crosses this year due to no plan. It was nice to have dream time, to think more deeply and more forward on what I really want to do with this hobby.
My journey with harvesting different types of daylily seeds here and growing the seedlings to finally, this year, bloom, started over 5 years ago. A lot has changed since then. When I started harvesting our daylily seeds here, my record keeping was a garden binder and a flip top bin to hold the tags from what I bought. Nowadays the garden is abundant. I do not buy any new plants or infrastructure of any type to put in the ground at the townhouse. My garden buys nowadays are super simple – bulbs and mulch for the historic cemetery ♥️- and then any leftover bulbs I force for indoor winter blooming go up north. Sidebar – the deer resistant of those forced bulbs are blooming and not being eaten each spring. Another success. Anyway, back to topic, my old garden record keeping strategy no longer applies.
Now to be clear – I (and many others I am told 🥰 yeay!) still very much ENJOY what I have invested in the gardens at the townhouse. I UTILIZE my investments in the gardens at the townhouse to create new things. I OPTIMIZE my investments in the gardens at the townhouse through maintenance. I even laugh at the bunny antics eating my investments in the townhouse gardens, but I am no longer monetarily investing anything additional in the gardens at the townhouse. So garden record keeping via saving tags from purchases doesn’t work. Harvested seeds don’t come with tags 😉 The need has shifted to a new system.
A primary consideration for my new record keeping is that the planting system I use is pretty simple. The daylily seedlings I grow from harvested seed here don’t go into the ground for quite a while – often until the fall – because I plant the harvested seeds in pots and have a mobile seedling screened planter. If I didn’t protect the tiny seedlings, the squirrels would dig them out. On a whim I tried not protecting some annual seedlings this spring. The result was we have no annual seedlings that survived the squirrel antics. It’s ok. Lesson confirmed. A secondary consideration is that there is no more room at the inn. New mature seedlings are only planted in the ground at the townhouse if something else moves out of that spot. So what would work? Without a crazy complex or expensive setup?
I have thought about it long and hard.
First, the scope. I have already decided I only want to do 2-3 crosses here this year. Since this is at minimum a 3 year rotation system, I have already bumped up against surplus seedlings, where they have not yet bloomed. Part of that is sun exposure, and I have now corrected for that. But I can’t process boatloads of “started” projects. I don’t enjoy being in September and trying to figure out where to put surplus “unknown” daylilies, and I would like to see the bloom color at least before planting the seedlings in a longer term location, like the historic cemetery. So the scope is small, quite small.
I have 3 “for sure” diploids, and one “I think” diploid. Only three of those bloom at the same time, and of those only two have a coloring combination I am looking for. The diploid crossing choice is easy, and I have started to make that cross. Since I want to keep it simple, every time that diploid blooms, if the other diploid has a bloom that day, I will do a cross. If not, I will deadhead that bloom the next day. That way it will not go to self seed and there will be no confusion as to what was crossed and what was not, on that daylily clump. Also, I made a mistake with my tetraploid “go to” for crosses, and let it self seed. I think it may have affected the plant strength, and, sadly, those daylilies are in tree roots now and not able to be divided and restarted. My mistake. And since I am not buying, they will not be replaced. It is what it is. On that topic, the tetraploid cross is a little more “tbd”. My “go to” cross for tetraploid is is Marque Moon. It is also, unfortunately, besides being the daylilies enmeshed in tree roots, also either a big bunny or a wandering deer’s favorite. If the Marque Moon buds all get eaten, I may forego the tetraploid cross. I am going for more toward light colored and creamy pastel and I don’t have matches I am looking for ie I’m not looking to cross deep salmon or deep orange with pink or purple.
For the question of letting the rest self seed – deep breath – I know I should deadhead. My gardens here are small enough to do that. And believe me, I am swimming this season in self seed seedlings from 2023 seed. Logically, rationally, I do not leave our other plants to self seed. I trim the hostas when they are done blooming for sure. And I don’t have any trouble at all trimming the Asian lilies. Goodness! What would I do with all those seeds! Out of control lol 😂 We shall see what discipline I can muster. Even incremental would be progress.
For markers I’m going super low tech here. Store bought large craft sized (popsicle) sticks, daily close up photos to monitor seedling development, and printed photos labeled with planted seedling bunch location info. When I do an intentional cross I am going to write the cross information on both sides of a craft stick, put the stick in an envelope (so when I am busy both in harvesting and in seed planting season, I have the labeling at the ready), and write the same cross information on the envelope, with the cross dates so I can look up the pics for reference if needed. The marker writing on the craft stick and the envelope will be done with a sharpie, not a pencil. Made that mistake and shall not repeat 😉 Then if seed pods form and seeds mature:
All seeds that get harvested will go into a marked envelope with a marked craft stick already included.
The envelope will go into storage.
The seeds will go to stratification in Feb with the craft stick still in the envelope.
The seeds will get planted in pots indoors after Easter with the already marked craft stick.
When the seedlings get planted into the ground they will already have a proper label 😂
So the craft sticks are already bought and they are with my garden bin. Next up is a new printer. (Ours finally printed it’s last). And I already have a garden binder and plastic sleeves for photos to rotate in and out. I am hoping it is that easy. We shall see.
The first ever daylily seedling to bloom here from harvested seed is a very petite bloom, and yellow.
It is from a seed from one of our Marque Moon daylilies, a two year old seedling (from 2022 seed). Although the bloom does not look like it reverted to Marque Moon parentage, it is not wildly different, so I am guessing our bee or butterfly friends (or even just the wind) accomplished self pollination. It is for sure not a cross I made. I am trying to think of a fun name, just for use here. It is a perfect yellow to my taste, and I love the dainty tissue thin transparency on the edge, along with a bit of ruffles. Something “transparency”. It is just for fun for me so …
This first full success is exciting, especially as I still have a 5 year old seedling from South Seas, assumed to be from self pollination, that has never even produced scapes. I moved it into more sun last fall so I am being extra merciful. It gets one more year here. If it doesn’t bloom next year, it is destined to move up north next fall. 5 more South Seas seedlings (assumed to be from self pollination) are nipping at its heels. And some Purple D’Oro seedlings. And 11 seedlings from intentional crosses between Marque Moon and Pink China Doll (2023 seed) which I am soooo hoping bloom next year. My husband has already proposed they will be called China Moon. I think Pink Moon. Unless they go the way of the 5 year old South Seas seedling, because that would not even qualify as blooming once in a Blue Moon.
Ok, enough for today. Catch you tomorrow with today’s blooms, which from all accounts looks like 17. And they are GORGEOUS in their early morning opening state.
My mind wants to go to the historic cemetery garden and while away a couple hours trimming and weeding and dreaming about next steps, but the hot humid weather reminds me to be careful. Maybe an early morning this weekend. In the meantime, unknown big ruffled yellow daylily bloomed again today. Doggone if I can figure out what it is. It might have been a freebie with order, that was mismarked? It sat there not blooming for 3 seasons and now that it is showing off I cannot find a saved tag that matches up. Those crazy busy unorganized years are biting me now. But she sure is beautiful!
And two more Purple D’Oro blooms today.
I should do some crosses but I just haven’t decided on which ones this year.
And in the meantime I should also remove the old blooms, but I just cannot force myself to do that either. The bees are having so much fun! What will they accomplish? And at the same time though, wherever will I continue to put seedlings from harvested seeds from their work? I am so out of space. As if on cue, Bunny helped with one, bit it right off, its fair share for us enjoying its shenanigans.
The unplanned seedling from Marque Moon is getting a yellow bud. An Enchanted April coloration would be so bonus!
The first daylily to bloom this year was a Tirzah. Always beautiful!
The second to bloom is new
I need to research this one. I don’t think it is Delicate Design, as I was expecting. It is a huge bloom, very sturdy, and not the same markings as I see online for Delicate Design. But it is gorgeous, and it will stay.
Albeit fun, and a great challenge, it has been a multi-year process to get the first daylily seedling to produce scapes in our townhome gardens. And even so, it is pollinator created, from Marque Moon, not an intentional cross. But I am very C C pleased. It is progress. And I have learned a bunch that should help get our intentional crosses from 2023 on better footing than their predecessors.
Here was my happy discovery today
I am expecting blooms that look like Enchanted April or Admiral’s Braid, the parentage, but we shall see.
I have taken a bit of a meandering path to get to today’s happy discovery. Here is a bit of history and my personal experience so far:
Planting direct sow, into the ground, is a slow boat. My first daylily seedling attempt was doing that with pollinator created seeds from our South Seas daylily 5 years ago. Those seeds were viable, but produced a very slow growing daylily clump. Less than 6 hours/day of sun exposure probably also had a small impact. I moved it into more sun last fall and it now looks more robust, but still no scapes.
Planting daylily seedlings in a raised bed, in a sunny location, without watering beyond rain, even if it is hugelculture, does not work. Also not protecting from deer does not work. I did that combo 4 years ago. None survived. I wish I had that money back! Those frames are now disassembled and what was remaining of the hugelculture decomposing has been smoothed out.
Planting daylily seedlings in a sunny, perpetually somewhat moist area probably did work, but we sold that little house so I cannot say for certain. It looked successful when we were there.
Planting daylily seedlings into a well watered garden with less than 6 hours of sun produced slow growing seedlings that are now only turning around because they were transplanted into more sun this spring.
Transplanting daylily seedlings into a well watered and well drained very sunny location produced very robust 2nd year plants this season so far. One of those is the daylily with scapes, year 2.
Trying intentional crosses without planning and looking up ploidy doesn’t work. Nuf said there.
I stratify in Feb/March, and then after Easter, I plant the same type/species/crosses seeds together in a pot, indoors, covered with plastic. Yah, I know, unconventional. I have tried all the conventional methods without success. Can you say gross, mold, dead seeds? In May I usually put the pots out in the outdoor seedling box, covered loosely in plastic, with the screened cover over top. I have been fooled, and put them out too early (think late snow), but the seeds and seedlings seem to be smart. They just take their good sweet time, and commence growing when it is consistently warmer again.
I do need to get back to being much more diligent with my labeling and record keeping (diagrams). For labeling, I was careless this year and tucked the empty envelopes with the seed info into the seedling box. The ones written in pencil washed off in the rain. That I do regret. I also need to keep diagrams of where I plant in the garden. My record keeping workaround is going to be a printed out photo with labeling. My planting is in clumps, so that should be a satisfactorily resurrected method from my past to re-employ 😊
Hopefully more of the seedlings will produce scapes this year.
It is a rainy, chill out sort of 4th of July (American Independence Day) here. Here’s some red, white, and “blue” from our garden.
And a hint of which daylily looks like it is right on the verge of being the first to bloom in the garden this year. It will also be the first time it has bloomed in our garden. Full disclosure, I did not mark it, so until it blooms I will not be able to say for sure, but I believe it is Delicate Design.
Susan's Daily Garden 