The Lust List | Daylily Haiku Thursday

There is so much going on with this daylily!  I must start by saying I do not own this daylily and it is one on my very short lust list.  (I'll post the whole list someday.) 

The lust list contains daylilies that you would pay almost anything for if you could get your hands on a piece.  I won't tell you what else is on my list...I don't want the prices to skyrocket!  :) 

There are very few daylilies I would pay anything for; I can safely say I have never paid more than $300 for a daylily, which is not something everyone who collects daylilies can say.  I have been at a daylily auctions and seen a single fan of a daylily go for $1200.  And another for $1850.  And yet another for $4000.  It's not common on the most popular auction site for daylilies (a site I adore) http://www.daylily.com/, to see them sell for well over $200 - daily.

This daylily is from John Kulpa, out of Michigan.  It was registered in honor of a woman who has been involved with many aspects of Michigan daylilies for at least two decades with the Southern Michigan Daylily Society and the AHS- Barbara Delisle.  She's a fiery lady who is as detailed as this daylily appears.  Bold, refined and formal.

I love it and I love Barbara.  We have grown a great friendship over the last ten years and I'm glad we weathered the storms. 

free me from this joy!

patient anticipation, yet-

unattainable.

So if you find this one for sale, or if you can convince John Kulpa to sell me some, do what you can for me.  <wink, wink>

Daylily Haiku Thursday (Monday) | Creature of the Night

With crispy cool air
on my nose, I feel the fall-
Stinging. Reminding.

I took this picture of H. 'Creature of the Night' at Diane Pruden's garden just before I left Michigan for the last time.  I visited there with my daylily buds Joel and Nicole on a hot summer Sunday in July - the pending move weighing heavily on my mind.  It seems ages ago now.  But it was just about 8 weeks...time sure flies when you are wishing for more.  I'm racing against Jack Frost now and I must get most of these plants into the ground ASAP.  We won't think of how many I will lose over the winter if I don't...

The progress here on Pheasant Court 8 weeks later is slower than I had hoped, but it is moving forward.  We got word that the entire lot will be tilled, grated and seeded this week.  HOORAY!  No more dirt lawn.  I really miss the lush green grass, and walking through it barefoot.  Can't do that now...it's a mess out there!  Anyway, 20 tons of top soil, 5 tons of compost, a ton of rotted manure, and lots of shoveling later...there are signs of a real island bed out there.

 

Before the trucks came with the top soil we had to till the terribly hard and baked fill dirt... then the trucks showed up!  There's me wrestling the huge tiller.  I'm deep in concentration- trying to not cut off a foot.

   

On top of the tilled ground, trucks dumped 3 5-ton piles of riverbed-harvested topsoil (shown in second picture above.)  We spread those together, roughly shaped the beds and THEN, on top of the 6" of well-tilled topsoil, we put the compost and rotted manure.

The beautiful black-gold amendments are shown in the third picture, ready to be tilled in to the new bed.  Also shown in that pic is the new Eastern Red Bud I picked out for the corner of this bed.  I have always wanted a Red Bud, and this one had such a perky shape, I had to have it.  Notice all the potted daylilies in the second picture have been moved (again) to allow me to see the "view" of the new bed.  I think I've touched these pots four million times now.

All the goodies finally got spread out, tilled together and I stared at it for a few days before I started planting.  I have really taken a ton of time with the plans, looking at the big picture, the short term enjoyment, and the long term growing situation.  I thought I had thought of everything.  I was ready to plant.  I actually started planting! 

And then the rains came. 

My oversight was revealed to me in the form of a large lake at the crook of my l-shaped bed.  A rather deep lake, actually.  Oh, nuts!

I built a dam.  SIGH.  I didn't even think of the drainage from the house!!!  We have central drainage from all the gutters in the neighborhood and apparently the grade of our house slopes right into the bed I just created.  I'm glad I didn't have the boulder edging installed already, or that would have to be torn into to install the drain.  So, now I'm learning to install a drain.  A big drain. 

More on that project later...

Daylily Haiku Thursday | Devils Footprint

mud to my ankles-
dripping water on my brow.
bless the falling rain!

This is H. 'Devils Footprint', introduced in 1992 by (IMHO) the original master of patterns, Elizabeth Salter.

Wow.  Ahead of its time for sure. 

Patterns, and who reigns them, are all the talk these days - almost 20 years later.  I have a hard time getting on this bandwagon in my own collection just because these darn patterns are so dependant on soil condition and overall culture (including heat and light intensity), that I just cant count on them performing in my garden as I see them in catalogs or on the Internet.  Even when I have visited gardens and seen them with my own eyes, it certainly isn't a guarantee how it will look in my own yard.  I think that's why I'm a sucker for a luscious polychrome or a sensuously saturated blend - I can always count on them to look exactly as promised.  Now that I'm more south, and almost a zone warmer with a summer that's about 30 days longer than I'm used to, maybe I'll add more to my collection.  They certainly are enchanting.

Enjoy Thursday...

Let the celebration begin! | Daylily Blog



Schmith Seedling - 10" flower, 45" tall (I don't
generally like red, but I love this one!)

Daylilies remind me that today is a new day, and I have the opportunity to use the forces around me to create an experience of my own.  I do not have to be swayed by the external noise that swarms about; my internal compass has a direction and if I focus on it, the path is easy.  Just like the daylily.  Despite poor soil conditions, lack of water, little to no nutrient amendments, not-so-perfect sun exposure - they keep calm and carry on.  They bloom (maybe not wonderfully) and multiply (maybe not as fast as we'd like them to) but they move forward despite all reasons to the contrary.  I'm seeing this in spades since I have relocated most of my collection.

The black plastic pots have been sitting in the sun for about 8 weeks now, baking in the hot (100degreeF+) sun, with minimal water - just waiting for the beds to be ready for their placement.  FINALLY, on Saturday I was able to put the first daylilies in the ground and since then I've planted about 55 more!

Let the celebration begin!

Folks are interested in what plants were going to be the first ones in the ground, and so here is the list of the first few I planted:

H. 'Andrew Christian', H. 'Ruffled Strawberry Parfait', H. 'Raspberry Goosebumps', H. 'Mount Herman Intrigue', H. 'Let It Rip', H. 'Morningcloud Marmalade', H. 'Brookwood Lee Causey', H. 'Worthy One', H. 'Purple Eyed Pirate',  H. 'Festive Fall' and H. 'Little Incident'...

H. 'Mount Herman Intrigue', H. 'Festive Fall' and H. 'Little Incident'

It is a great opportunity to study my collection as a whole and as specimens during this garden build.  I notice immediately that the majority of my daylilies have colors that are bold and saturated - these colors do not slink on the color wheel, but grab it and spin it wildly.  Clear colors.  Real colors.  Colors like this:



fountain at Missouri Botanical Gardens

Color is the first characteristic that I notice in daylilies.  I do not notice form or size or texture first, I notice color.  A flower cannot be beautiful to me if it does not own its place in the color spectrum.  Seedlings of mine are culled immediately if color is not pleasing - regardless of other positive qualities.  No patience for "bridge plants" here.

Nicole Willis (Michigan) has an amazing seedling that is quite possibly one of the best all-around daylilies in my garden.  She shared a piece with me years ago and I am so thankful she did.  

It's tall, it blooms early and reblooms until September, it throws proliferations, it has diamond dusting unlike any other, it is 7.5", and it has great movement.  I really hope she introduces it someday.  Although it's the antithesis of color Ive talked about in this post,  its' "lack of" makes it very powerful. 

I'm finding it fun to dot my daylily plantings with near-whites to show off some of the bolder colors.  Those white edges get REAL white as the day goes on and that radiating throat (the epitome of radiating, btw) just stands out all day.  Its a hardy H. 'Skinwalker' kid that is stu-uh-nning.

Here's two more of it performing its head off in a pot after being dug up right as it started to bloom.  Even after being dug up and moved 500 miles south, sitting in the hot sun with no care for a few weeks, this daylily still put up two reblooom scapes.  Its blooming right now in its pot - laughing at the tough journey it has had to get to its current home.  The spacing of the branching is exceptional, which allows multiple blooms to spread wide open each day on each scape.  Its going to be quite a show flower...I just hope I win a purple ribbon with it before she does!  <take that, Nic!>

Enjoy some color today.  Consciously soak them in.  You can even find a way o enjoy the browns and crunchy oranges brought on by this heat.  Enjoy the sounds those colors make and the emotions they stir in your chest. 

Keep looking until you find some that do. 

Looking forward... | Daylily Blog on Doing!!

I am so excited to get started on the first garden at the new house and I am sure by Fall, you will be so tired of hearing about the new gardens at the new house.  The first loads of top soil arrived today!!!

I'm calling it a SuperBed (note the creative capitalization) and I hope to have it finished by the time Fall falls.  It is a SuperBed because it is a huge loose-L-shaped island bed that will hold about 200 daylilies, at least three Cleveland pear trees and boatloads of other perennials.  This bed will also have several 'Black Knight' buddelia bushes (my favorite variety) and I will leave room for a few large container plantings next year. Here it is:

This photo shows about 250 potted daylilies brought from Michigan and on the right and across the top, you can see the stakes for the SuperBed.  Again, its about 11' deep, 35' out on one side and 30' out on the other.  The left side of this bed extends about another 18' off the side of the picture.  It's the biggest, single garden bed I've ever had.  The dump trucks are driving right into the back yard and will dump right into this area today.  HOORAY!  
 

I can't wait to see about 200 of the most delicious daylilies in my collection gathered in one bed, purposefully planted, intentionally chosen.  (That is a big change from my usual way of bed creation - purchase way too many daylilies and then go home and decide what sod to tear up to shoehorn in more plants...)  I pulled out the Dream Garden Binder and have made the first sketches.  The neighbors aren't going to know what to do...but the 15 tons of dirt should tip them off to what is in store.  ;)  Here are three daylilies that will certainly be in the SuperBed.

(H. 'Destined to See', H. 'Madiba Magic', and H. 'Ninja Storm')

Aside from really looking forward to the construction of this new SuperBed (and maybe I will wear a cape while working on it) I'm looking forward to a few other things in my new green space.

1.  Enjoying daylily gardens in the true midwest.  There is a dry, sultry sting in this Illinois summer heat that will certainly be a contrast to my cool, Michigan mornings and brief kiss of summer.  The daylilies will have to adapt and my collection will expand and contract as I learn more about how substance and texture (my two favorite daylily qualities) fair in south/central Illinois.

2.  Starting over.  It is wonderfully terrifying that I get to start from scratch.  I feel so blessed to be given the opportunity to build a garden from the soil up.  Here is a photo of the contrasting soils.  The lighter "dirt" is what I have in the new gardens.  The rich, black stuff came out of a pot I brought from my Michigan gardens.  I have a lot of soil improvement to do...  This digging up and starting over is life changing.  Hopefully I have enough Xanax.

3.  Gardening in private.  We moved FROM the corner of a very busy, urban crossroad.  It was city all the way.  City spelled with a capital 'c'.  In fact, it's SO city that the occasional monarch butterfly or yellow finch sighting causes a ticker tape parade around the garage.  You get my point.  We moved to a spacious lot in a town of just 900.  It feels so good to spread our wings. (and see the wings of other creatures!)  Here is one of the female hummingbirds that has been frequenting the new little feeder...I put these dried willow fronds in some containers planted near the feeder and they rest there as they are surveying the feeder and the other hummingbirds.  My son thinks they look like alien birds and float like spaceships.  I kind of do, too.  Cool.

4.  Gardening in a neighborhood that cares.  Contributing to the overall landscape of an already gorgeous place challenges me to stretch my design and plant choices.  Each house on the court has unique, intentional landscaping that is pleasing.  I'm thrilled to join in on the fun, and not be the only one on the block keeping my yard clear of 6' thistle and feral goldenrod.

Amen.