Tag: Daylilies

One, Two

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.

First daylily seedling with scapes

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.




Happy 4th of July!

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.

Flowers, Flowers, and More Flowers

A fantastic 24 hours indeed!
Tuesday I had volunteer time through work to start using up, so I scheduled 2 hours at the start of the day. Hey, calendars determine part of these decisions 😉 Tuesday was predicted sunny a few days before, but it dawned with rain. By 7:30 am it was to a drizzle and I could not stand the wait any longer. I needed my historic cemetery fence gardening fix. Off I went. And as blessings would have it, the drizzle fizzled by the time I pulled up to the cemetery, and stopped within a minute of getting out of the car and starting to work.
This was the first project of the day I wanted to complete – a removable border to keep the mulch in on the new iris bed.

It has to be removable come late fall because the snow plow/blower will suck up even pavers set on end.
Now maybe the perfectionist in some will say, “Why not right on the edge?” Well, at first I had the mulch mounded, and it was going over the top of the border if I placed it right at the edge. But as projects go, I just had to see if I could make it work right on the edge. I smoothed out the mulch, repositioned the border, and called my friend the site manager, who said “Hello crazy lady!” Hahaha! I asked her if she and her husband were coming over because pics weren’t sending and I needed a second set of eyes. You know what she said? “No, because it’s raining.” Now, first of all, in case you think that was not nice, she is my friend, so she was just having fun, but I tell you, the drive is short from our part of town, and it was not even drizzling at the cemetery when I called her. So I was being blessed for sure!!! Here is the pic I was trying to send her.

I made the decision, I liked the border farther back for now. Maybe I will plant ground cover in front. You just never know what I might do in a garden when I set my mind a-going. I might plant more irises in that bed and move the border forward yet this year even. You just never know with me 🙂

So I got done with the border, poured in my last bag of mulch to chock-a-block full top it off, micro-weeded the right side of the garden, took a few more quick pics, and went back home, to my office, and logged in, 7 minutes late. No worries. It was all good. Work knows what a crazy lady I am too, and that they will see me work way more than 7 minutes late cuz, well, you know, I am one of those weird people that like what I do for a paycheck. We are out there, right? 😉

At the end of my work day the dog got extra lovins because I was going to leave him yet again, but only for an hour or so, to go to the historical society meeting at a historic factory turned hotel, condos, pub, and event venue. So fun!!!

Here are pics of the setting. It was an absolutely beautiful night! No rain there!

Still, I couldn’t stop there. I had spotted the first daylily of my gardening season in bloom at the cemetery in the morning. But my phone was in the glove box, all the way at the other end of the fence garden, and you know, I was running late dadeedadeeda …

So I had to, I just had to, get a pic of that first daylily blooming. Yes, it is the overused Stella D’Oro, but … it is the first daylily of the year in the gardens I love and work in.

I returned home a very happy crazy lady! And our dog celebrated with the zoomies.

This morning, I was treated to a fully opened peach Asian lily and the first opened hosta blooms.

I tell ya, it was a wunderbar 24 hours!

And I think the baby bunny must have had fun too.

Dang it! Now I have to start using that cordial glass again!

Success, Squirrels, and Pencils

Last year was my second year of trying intentional crosses to create new daylilies. This is something just for fun for me, and an opportunity to learn more and try out new challenges. I am not doing it to create anything certified. Nothing fancy. I put all the “same cross” into one pot. This is, as the old saying goes, “for kicks and giggles”.

The crosses between Marque Moon and China Doll were definitely the most successful last year. Of 38 seeds, we have eleven seedlings. We also have other seedlings – of the pencil mishap variety. I labeled some batches in pencil and it got washed away. On those I can guesstimate, but I cannot say for absolute certain what they are. Although a bummer, I’m still happy those worked, and if/when they bloom I will have fun guesstimating what they were.

And then there are the squirrel mishaps – where they seedlings were outside the box and the squirrels dug in the dirt. Those were a loss. Those very naughty squirrels!

Learning as we go here. This year I will do only two or three types of intentional crosses so that everything fits in the planter, protected by the screen.


What’s blooming?

Back from some PTO from work, it it time to catch up.

First, very exciting, I have 11 intentional daylily crosses growing into plants. Crosses that made seed, stratified, sprouted, and are now looking like baby daylilies (because they are lol). Blooms are a few years out, but that is very exciting.

Up north, some grapevine hyacinth that were from a watch ‘em grow garden (forced) a few years ago are blooming away. Very encouraging that the deer are not eating them. I had hoped they would escape being munchies.

Yes, hidden in the woodland foliage, but that is fine for now. I am adding to that area. I just planted some forced daffodils, and they, too, should be deer resistant when they come up next and subsequent years.

At the townhouse, the bluebells clematis wrapped up a couple weeks ago.

They now have their puffs

The tulips, of course, are done blooming. We only had a few this year.

At the historic cemetery the daffodils did well year one.

And the transplanted irises did very well and are continuing to bloom.

Right now at the townhouse the wiegelia is in full bloom.

The first hosta scape is about to bloom.

And the forget-me-nots are starting to bloom.

Lastly, one of the ninebarks is also blooming.

At the historic cemetery, the transplanted daylily won the race to show the first scapes and buds.

More transplanting there to be done this year, for sure – daylilies and irises. The iris bed is coming along nicely. A lot more work to be done there, but little by little. Today it was a bit of border, to keep the mulch from washing out. One more box of 12 sections and that should do it. And then clean up what is on the sidewalk. But more on that later.

Finally did it!

Happy Spring, and Happy Gardening Season!

Things here have been going along at quite a clip! The gardens are back in full swing. Time to start the blog back up and share the garden activity again.
One of our first projects once we saw what had survived the winter was to do a bit of transplanting. The daylily seedling mini-bed that went from brainchild to reality to “oops that is kind of ugly and a bit shy on sun exposure” to “nah, nixing that idea” was pretty much decommissioned last year. It did, however, provide a home for some pollinator created seedlings to mature a a bit. This spring it was time to take a big, potentially risky transplant step, part of which I have been contemplating for years. The idea – swap locations for two beautiful mature Ivory Queen hostas and two daylily seedlings. The Ivory Queen hostas needed to be moved out of their sun overexposure location, and the daylily seedlings needed more sun. Further supporting the decision, one of the two hostas was fairy ringing. They had been in that location a while. It was definitely time for a swap. But would we like the look?

My husband was the digger, and I was the planter. Digging out the hostas was as tough as I thought, and nerve wracking. But the hostas as well as the 2-3 year old daylily seedlings all not only survived, they are thriving. The hostas now have more shade, and the daylilies now have the sun they need.

Good choice.

Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day! (In the US) The unofficial end of summer. Soon school buses will be picking kids up again, harvest activities will be planned, and gardens will pick up speed toward eventual winterizing.

But for today, we are enjoying some early morning time outside and I am increasingly enjoying the new daylily seedling bed. It is holding up well and encouraging me to get the hostas out of the other side with very similar exposure.

Last daylily of the season, new daylily bed, home found for two gigantic hostas

The last daylily of the season bloomed yesterday.

She is Tender Love, and has been added to my absolute favorites list. I would like a few more, but I am going to stay steadfast on my “no buy for the townhouse” decision. Things are far too unsettled. Maybe in the future.

Yesterday I also planted the new daylily seedlings bed. I have to tell you, it was a grunt it out experience and after it was done, I did not feel exhuberant. I felt a bit down. It was weird.

But this morning after it weathered a night (notice the hot pepper piece to deter diggers 😂) I am feeling much better about it. I planted the stunted coneflower in the middle to give it a year to grow. Then it can move, or not. (We have gotten a lot of donations for the historic cemetary fence garden. It is almost full.). But more on that in an upcoming post. Hint: I bought a bag of 50 daffodils to deter the moles.

I have one more potted transplant to get into the ground. It is a piece of one of the Elegans. I accidentally pulled it off when I was cleaning up a few weeks ago.

The two giant Elegans I was looking for a home for are eventually going to my Dad who is already making plans for them. Remember it is my Dad who got me into hostas? So I am feeling super good about them going to a loving home. He has space, and shade.

And I now have my plan to get more hostas more into the shade and more daylilies more into the sun. Next weekend. Because we are headed to 100°F this weekend. This girl has her water and watch hat on.