Daylily Haiku Thursday | Long Overdue: My favorites from 2011

like blooms, kids fulfill.

we need their wildness

in the field of time.

Today we are celebrating our son's 7th birthday!  

Happy Birthday, sweet Carter!

I'm not quite sure where 2011 went - it's already April and I'm still writing 2011 on documents.   I know that 50% of last year was dedicated to moving, moving, and more moving.  The daylilies were admired in pots in the driveway and in the hands of their new owners as they left the yard smiling.  I dug up my whole collection in the peak of its annual glory and I didn't really get a chance to enjoy their details as I have in past years.

I do remember many nights last summer, well after 10pm on a weeknight, in my driveway staring at the rows of potted perennials waiting for their ride south - wondering if we were making the right decision.  It's hard to think about now and even harder to believe we pulled it off.

Here are some daylilies that despite the tough year I gave them in 2011, still managed to leave an impression...

First, H. 'Dragon Fang' (left) and H. 'Enchanting Esmerelda.'   H. 'Dragon Fang' has lived in a pot since I brought it home from a meeting in Atlanta in the Fall of 2010.  It survived the winter, came back with an extra fan and bloomed in summer 2011.  I have lusted after this flower for a while, but was never able to afford it until I split a four-fan clump of it with some other auction bidders in Georgia.  I got one fan out of the deal and looking out at the garden now, I have three.  Very respectable.

I just love the pink of H. 'Enchanting Esmerelda.'  Its the perfect shade of rose-pink - not muddy in the least. I chose this one because it was a workhorse, putting up two sets of scapes with more than 25 buds on each scape.  The blooms were almost always flawless and worth a snapshot.  The triangular watermark is distinctive and reliable.  

If you confuse or interchange the terms EYE, WATERMARK and HALO - don't.  They are not interchangeable and do not indicate the same traits.   You will also find halo and eyezone in the same AHS Dictionary.  Click here for the dictionary.

H. 'Dragon Fang' and H. 'Enchanting Esmerelda'

Below is H. 'Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie' (left) and H. 'Glorious Autumn.'  The pie-crust edges of the daylily on the left get me every time.  Hybridizer Greg Schindler of Michigan is featured twice on this short list!  This is one of his first introductions, and it is fabulous.  Clear, bi-tone, and vigorous, it is a great addition to the collection.  H. 'Glorious Autumn' has quickly become one of my favorite doubles.  My friend Nicole gave me one small fan of it from a bonus she received and I wasn't sure it would even live - let alone bloom the same year and put up two little fans before winter set in. The carrot-red edge is brighter in the morning, and fades to what you see below by evening.  Way to go, David Kirchhoff. 

H. 'Apple Peaches Pumpkin Pie' and H. 'Glorious Autumn'

And finally, my friend Nicole Willis hybridized this gorgeous chalky-yellow seedling.  Its out of H. 'Aquamarine' and H. 'Skinwalker.'  What you see below on the left is one scape blooming.  I sure hope she registers it so I can show its trademark multi-bloom scapes in an exhibition show.  

There is no favorites list of mine that is complete without mention of H. 'Matchless Fire.'  It won an Honorable Mention last year and I was so proud for Greg Schindler.  The wide, orange watermark is so unique and its foliage is so spectacular all year.  It even sat next to two rust-infested plants last summer in Michigan and showed great resistance; the foliage stayed pristine!  I love it and have unintentionally fell into a personal quest to get it out there.  I have two double fans left to sell if anyone is looking to add it to their collection.  Just email me here if you'd like to own it.

Nicole's H. 'Aquamarine' seedling and H. 'Matchless Fire'

Have a wonderful weekend, y'all!  And if you are in the St Louis area, please stop by the Missouri Botanical Gardens on Saturday at 7am for a great Daylily Sale sponsored by the West County Daylily Society.  You must come early for any selection at all!  See you there.

Grace Under Pressure | Daylily Blog on Seeing MORE.

Oh!  Some images just make you wrinkle your nose and do the "nasty-face" they look so good.  

Here is one such photo...   

This image captures a rain soaked moment at Frank Smith Daylilies a few summers ago.  It is H. 'Ava Gardner.'  It was introduced in 2006 by Frank Smith and it is spectacular. I learned a lot the day I took this photo.  I learned how to enjoy a gourmet boxed lunch on a moving bus.  I learned how to balance my camera and a very large umbrella while navigating flooded garden paths.  That day I saw true grace under pressure.  

Good daylilies exude that grace under the pressure of heat, rain, drought and poor soil.  Some gardeners complain that they don't like to deadhead them every day; I say nothing is better than fresh blooms every day.  Some gardeners complain that they only last for a period of time in the summer; I say that makes me relish their presence in the landscape even more.  Some gardeners only know the "orange ditch-lily" seen in their gardening nightmares and think that all daylilies are alike in that invasive, common sort of way.  I say they haven't seen enough of the 70,000+ registered hybrids out there.

H. 'Pacific Coast'

I dig the daylily because it is forgiving, unrelenting, and breathtakingly brief.  They are worth their spot in the perennial landscape.  Once you get into investigating all the daylily options out there, you'll discover they are so much more than your grandmother's ditch lily.

Check out this video to see some other great shots of daylilies!  Please share this video with your gardening friends and master gardener groups.

Daylily Haiku Thursday | Haunting Yellow Memories

How to describe this?

Intense. Clean. Glowing and bright.

It's just not yellow!

There are thousands and thousands of yellow daylilies.  Tens of thousands of different cultivars list yellow in their descriptions.  Many exhibition judges cringe at the sight of yellow in the seedling section, but if they look carefully at the head table selections as a collective, I would bet more times than not they would find a yellow-dominated winner's circle.

To my eye, yellow always advances in front of other colors and mentally stimulates me in a happy, optimistic, and creative way.  I guess there is a reason that legal pads are yellow; it helps the brain!

This first daylily is H. 'Self Propelled.'  I love the thick substance and green overlay.  I think yellow daylilies surely have a place in the garden.  Yellow tends to cleanse other surrounding colors, give a punch and light to an otherwise "darker" area, and provide a smile for the passerby.  It always grabs my attention!

I added a couple more yellows to my collection this year - "H. 'Planet Claire,' and H. 'Aruba.'  That last one has the greenest, waxiest throat I have ever seen.  I hope it likes it here in Illinois.  This second picture is H. 'Aruba.'  I see LOTS of hybridizing possibilities in this one...

The splash of fresh in the center of this daylily gives it the distinction it needs to set it off from other "just yellows."

This picture was taken at Leo Sharp's Brookwood Gardens in the summer of 2009.  My friend Nicole and I spent the morning with Leo in his gardens and had some BIG laughs during our visit.  We had the pleasure of being alone with Leo in the garden and listening to some of his stories of the past.  We watched him hybridize and watched him talk with his field workers.  We met some folks we wished we would have never met, and laughed every second during the stalking incident in front of Leo's house (which is NOT where his garden is, by the way.)  

My car was filled to the brim with new purchases and gifts when we left that day.  Little did I know that it would be the last time we would be able to visit Brookwood Gardens.  Things have changed now, but my memories of that trip haunt me.  Some scenes that your eyes take in serve as memory bookmarks to another time.  This trip was one of those times.  Over the years I've visited LOTS of gardens and unfortunately, some of those visits blur together in a swirl of flowers and bus fumes.  Others?  Well, they stick.  

Brookwood Gardens and Leo Sharp | Michigan City, Indiana 2009

VIDEO: The American Hemerocallis Society

Here is the best tool you can use this spring to bring more friends to your garden.  The AHS has just published this promotional video designed to inspire new members.  Share it with your gardening clubs, master gardener groups, and even your local garden writers!  All you have to do is "share" the link from within the video, or simply pass along this post.  

Make sure you click the "THUMBS UP" on Youtube if you enjoy the video.

Enjoy!

Daylily Haiku Thursday | Scandalous

scandalous purple -

dressing up vanilla white,

splashed in fabulous.

H. 'Scandalous' is an older cultivar that always provides interest.  In a daylily world of many near-white with purple eyezones, its form is floppy and formal at the same time and the eyezone captivates each day.  

I saw this for the first time at Iron Gate Gardens at the end of the National Convention in 2003.  Gloria Hite and I made a "quick" pitstop on the way to the airport at Iron Gate and we barely lived to tell the tale.  I missed my first flight out of Charlotte due to the daylily buying (and the fight with security over my large black trash bag filled with live plants that I INSISTED go on the plane with me.)  From that shopping trip, I still grow this one and H. 'As We Were.'  Gloria and I had many gardening road-trip adventures over the last decade...I sure do miss her now that she is in Florida.  Her dad, Howard was one of the early, leading tetraploid hybridizers and she sure picked up the gene.  

If you haven't seen her website, or her very cool spider and unusual form efforts, you can see it here. She has a near-black (and I do mean black) wide-petaled thing featured out there that I am DROOLING over.

Spring is here and my gardening rhythm has not adjusted to the new location yet.  Im still on Michigan time, which means I have about a month or so until I can get serious about being out in the garden.  Here in southern Illinois, I  feel I am already a month behind!

Always 'Courting Trouble' | Daylily Blog on Local-vores

Okay, so I owe you two haiku.  The last two weeks have been a swirl of Disney, Spring Break, gardening, and stretching.  We soaked up the Florida sun for a week and are just now coming back to reality.  I'll be back next week with your weekly dose of "Daylily Haiku Thursday."

This is H. 'Courting Trouble.'  It's a tiny little kiss of a daylily that has died four times in my garden.  That is a compliment to its existence, not a complaint about its genetics.  I love it so much I have tried in vain four times to grow it successfully.  Its the color combination that gets me.  I love the fruity tones of the base color; the brooding black-purple of the eye and edge bleed into it with delicate veins.  The fuchsia midribs really give it a punch of distinction.  It does well in daylily shows; the scapes present very well in the show vase indoors.  Drop me an email if you have shown it before and done well with it!  Here is a web search of more pics...

I've seen it growing in Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin...surely I can grow it, too.  Why has it died for me four different times?!  Different locations, different soil, different originating stock...what gives?

It is not in my collection now.  Five times will not be a charm.  There are too many fabulous things that will grow for me that for now I will just enjoy this photo instead.  
Daylilies, while they are very forgiving and diverse, are far from perfect.  Not all cultivars grow the same in all climates and sometimes not all gardeners within the same climate can grow the same daylilies.  Yes, they will survive, and they will bloom, but now how they were intended.  To get the maximum level of awesomeness from your daylily collection, try to buy local.  There is a big "local-vore" movement in food and in retail - you should buy your plants local, too.  At least buy them local to your growing climate.  If you need to find growers in your area- use this page.  It will help you define what AHS Region you live in, and then provide a Source List for growers in your area.  If that doesn't work, I just googled "daylilies in Illinois" and got a big list of sources.  Try googling that phrase with your state inserted.  You'll find some local folks who have some daylilies to share with you this spring!
I do buy from many sources that are not local to me, but their plants have been outstanding for me in Michigan and in Illinois.  Here is one source.  Here is another.  

Enjoy adding to your daylily collection this year!  I know I am having fun selecting plants that are different from any other I already have, and those that are introduced by hybridizers that arent currently represented in my garden.  

Have fun!