Daylily Haiku Thursday | A Visit to Roth Daylilies...

<posted July 25, 2013>  This is Jamie Gossard's H. 'Thundercat', which I first saw in his garden during the 2012 AHS National Convention in Galloway, Ohio. My daylily bestie Teresa Dillon gifted it to me after I had raved about it in Jamie's garden.  It put on quite a show here this summer and I am sure next year will be even better.  

The pod fertility on H. 'Thundercat' is high; there are nine "bee pods" on it now and I think I'll leave them to see what nature thought would be a good cross!

As the season winds down here, and the AHS National Convention is going on without me in Minneapolis...I am reflecting on the season on what we "did so far."  I've been places, we've been places and my mind swirls when I think of what has been the thus-far-Summer of 2013.  Oklahoma, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois have been the backdrop of the summer story and today I thought about a daylily trip I took this year with my son.

In June, Carter and I traveled about 3 hours north to Peoria, Illinois to visit our new friend Theresa Roth and visit her daylily garden, Roth Perennials. Remember, Carter is eight and "bull in a china shop" just doesn't quite capture his general stature.  He's Godzilla in a china shop on his best day, so taking him to a daylily garden is always a gamble.  (the things I will do to see daylilies...)

Anyhoo, turns out this place was magic for him.  There were places to hide, golf carts to drive, large "fry" donuts to eat, cats to chase and plenty of sunshine to enjoy.  He pooped out just at the end of the visit, so I give him an A+ for effort- especially since there were no bribes involved from me to behave.  Here he is enjoying his first views of the garden...

  

Theresa and I became fast "virtual friends" through this blog and Facebook long before we ever met, and I was very excited to make it to her garden this year. She and I share a like for the strange and unusual and hard-to-find.  After visiting her, I see we share other tastes, too, especially a penchant for collecting.  I enjoy her very much - she's witty, pragmatic and just plain fun.

H. 'Bee's Bettie Sue' and H. 'Queen's Circle' - two unique daylilies I bought during my visit.  And two new hybridizers added to my daylily collection!

There are some real unique daylilies in this garden.  

Above, I saw H. 'Mandarin Creme', introduced by Eddy Scott in 1998. ((height 24in (61cm), bloom 5in (12.5cm), season M, Rebloom, Evergreen, Diploid, Fragrant, 30 buds, 5 branches,  Orange with white midribs and green throat.))

Below is the always awesome H. 'Jazzy Graphics' by Dan Hansen of Ladybug Daylilies in 1999.  ((height 24in (61cm), bloom 4.5in (11.5cm), season E, Rebloom, Semi-Evergreen, Tetraploid, 18 buds, 3 branches,  Red bicolor with thin gold edge above yellow green throat. (Cage × Roses in Snow.))

This next one is H. 'Lil Red Wagon' which I have seen all over the country performing wonderfully and just never picked it up simply because it's red. More on that here.  The clump looked so great at Theresa's that it really won me over.

These next four photos deserve to be clicked on in order to see them full-screen.  Theresa's garden has beautiful "long views."  The views in the garden are designed for perfect photo opportunities - providing a thoughtfully-designed (and dreamy) foreground, middleground and background.

I have been taught that great photographs, no matter the magnification or subject, all have a proportionate and pleasing foreground, middleground and background.  Look at the above two photos again and concentrate on what's in the front, what's in the middle and what's in the back - you'll see that all three "areas" of the photo have some interest, with the intentional focal point traditionally falling somewhere in the middle plane.  I like pictures that take themselves.  (that's a sign of great artistic design, IMHO.)

Theresa had to pull this next vignette straight out of Southern Living magazine.  The greens, purple and whites make this so photogenic from many angles and distances.  These next several gardengasmic photos are clearly some of my favorite sights from this year's tour season...

I like the reckless whimsy.  None of the elements match directly but indirectly create a mood of purposeful collection - intentional arrangement of modern and worn.  

This is a great candidate for another AHS Display Garden in Illinois.  The purpose of an American Hemerocallis Society Daylily Display Garden is to educate the visitor about daylily species and cultivars, their beauty, and how then can be used effectively in landscapes.  I tried to persuade Theresa to apply for this status...lets hope she does this in 2014!!

These are the kinds of vistas you can see at Roth Daylilies.  Deadheaded, labeled, weeded, organized, and blooming beautifully!

Wide, connected paths were woven throughout the garden and the rows are well-marked.  It was really hard to decide what to buy, but I settled on five while Carter tooled about in the golf cart.  As he remarked- "this isn't at all like the Wii!", I knew the joyride should be over.  ;)

It was a great visit and I had planned to already have gone back to see her late bloomers, but time just keeps slippin' by...

Thank you, Theresa for a fabulous visit to your place in space.

Oh!  You should come see me at my booth at the upcoming Central Illinois Daylily Society Plant Sale on Saturday, August 3 from 12-3!  

THAT'S NEXT WEEKEND!

Awesome plants, some hard to find varieties from my own collection, will be for sale at great prices! ANNNNND, the sale is at the beautiful Washington Park Botanical Gardens, so there is LOTS to see along with the sale.

More details here: http://springfieldparks.org/programDetails.aspx?15330

Garden Decorating Fun | Daylily Haiku Thursday!

<posted July 11, 2013>  This is H. 'Apricot Champagne' - a daylily that if you dont know it, you should absolutely add it to your collection.  It is a tall stunner.

In the middle of June, amidst tornadoes and thunderstorms I made the 6 hour drive to Tulsa, Oklahoma to be a part of their Summer Daylily Meeting and Garden Tours.  This region serves Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma and is a neighbor to my own Region 2.  

There were so many fun surprises in the gardens I visited on Saturday, June 15 I thought that I would show you some fun accoutrement I spied while daylilying.

I gasped at the beautifully decorated outdoor living space that matched the square footage of my first house. I just adored this color blue as the accent to red.  Lots of vintage covered pillows dotted the chairs for whimsy in an otherwise magazine-styled setting.  I counted 28 seats in this area alone.  That is a lot of entertaining, and that was just one deck.

In that same garden, they had gates welded to illustrate and immortalize important moments in their family life.  This one is of their daughters - and notice the fence to the right shows the start of the piece showing their dogs.    Another one documented their courtship and wedding!  

I liked these traditional "English" garden colors planted by the fire seating area shown below.  I heard they collect the fallen branches all year and have a blowout fire in the fall.  This was a huge property with an orchard, huge tree house complex with rope bridges and zip lines as well as two pools, a hot tub and quite a vegetable garden.  Heaven, indeed.

Visiting a smaller, and more realistic suburban garden, I spied this potting bench, painted just the right shade of blue to offset the terracotta accents and galvanized what-nots.  I like the choice of color a lot.

That same garden had lots of "pops" of interest floating about.  I like this fisherman's basket planting...

And this simulated dry creek bed leading to the bottle tree.  Very clean, and still quite fun.

I had never seen this use of rebar and blue bottles!  If you love the blue bottle trees, but don't know a welder and don't have money to spend on one, this is a very neat idea to modify the idea!  They almost look like cobalt cat tails!  (Have you seen Felder Rushing's book/website on Bottle Trees? He is the keynote speaker at next summer's St. Louis regional meeting!)

There was also this cool mobile on the porch that danced with pictures of the garden and the daylilies.  What a great idea for a Farmer's Market Display or a display at your next Plant Sale when the plants aren't in bloom.  

I Googled "photo mobile" and found some really cool ones in the $10 range. This would also be a cool way to display a collection of postcards, a series of birthday pictures or photos of your kids' art projects.  After Googling, I of course ordered some.  This is the one I picked.

Don't Google this.  You will suddenly be overtaken with the urge to build stuff and you'll be at Michael's buying enough supplies to "just make a quick project."  

I know how that goes, folks.  It's never pretty.  

At this same suburban garden, there were great container plantings all over.  This one gave off a very cottage-y feel and the feathery textures really set off the containers.  Very well done.

I must say that I have never visited a garden with a white spiral staircase in it - except in my wildest dreams.  Here it is at the Ross garden; the third stop of the day.  

It shows up in many of my photos from that garden.  What a dream.  I would be doing Scarlett O'Hara monologues from it daily, complete with dirt smudges and back-of-hand-on-forehead.  In the dress.  Twice.  

The rain barrel was even adorned with loveliness.  (above, left - and there is that staircase again...)  I love the weathered look of the barrel, the color of the hose, the accent plantings...all works completely as a beautiful vignette.  I think its important when you have a focal piece like this barrel that you make "it's frame" the best it can be to get the most out of the experience!  If this had a bright green hose with a yellow stripe down it instead of the neutral color, it would be a different experience.  I like thoughtful gardens and I usually like the gardeners even more!  ;)

I also found this use of moss and a grapevine wreath for an umbrella display of calladium bulbs (above, right.)   What a neat splash of color and a great way to cover that typically ugly center hole of all umbrella tables.  Her garden was also accented in red, but the punch color here was not blue, but a "girl scout" green (much like these calladium...)  I did see some denim strewn about for color, too, and it was a nice diversion from the red. 

This garden also had these blown glass hearts (above) all over the shady area of the garden, above the bubbling waterfall and pond area.  I spied quite a few and found their presence to be rather comforting.  Although I'm not sure if they held any specific significance, they somehow felt like memorials to memories - floating in the air.

I cannot end this post without showing you the best outdoor garden meeting space at someones personal home that I have ever seen.  Here is a shot of the outbuilding at the Ross garden.  

I'll give you a minute to take all that fabulousness in.

I spent so much time in here, imagining the classes, the clinics, the shows, the discussions, the laughter, the fun and the friendship that happens around that table, on that rug, by that gorgeous dresser, among the cool signage, with those great curtains, surrounded by all the very purposeful "stuff" in this space.

I see a lot of daylily gardens, each year friends.  LOTS of them.  Sometimes I am moving so fast through them I feel like Clark and Ellen Griswald on their stop to the Grand Canyon.  The daylilies always are the focus of the show, but when gardens are dotted with personality and the family of the gardener, they are even more interesting and meaningful for visitors.  When a gardener invites you into their yard, its like they open their chest and show you their beating, green heart.  I always tread lightly and leave behind some of my own joy.  

It's kind of a big deal.  

Next up from Tulsa- my visit to the gardens of Randall and Marvel Barron.  I need a separate post for all the daylily goodness I saw there!

Rest In Peace, Charles | Daylily Blog on loss.

<posted July 6, 2013>  

I was really, really listening in this photo.  The words soaked into my ears and I was consciously tuning all my senses to remember this moment. I lost my grandparents early- way too early - so I lean on daylilies to bring me some elder-love.  

My gardening grandmother Lizzie died at 53 when I was just around the age my son is now.  I cannot imagine him losing his Nana at this age.  Daylilies give me the chance to have some elders in my life who are amazing people; people I sometimes secretly see as my surrogate grandparents.

Charles Applegate was 82 and died Thursday, July 4.  He registered 45 daylilies and inspired hundreds of thousands of people over his lifetime.

Read more.

And more.

The first time I met him, at Kingwood Center, the first thing he said to me while shaking my hand still rings in my ears.  With a sly smile, he said-

"Oh!  You're the one that writes."  

I'm still not sure if the fact entertained him or not.

Man, this hurts.  Rest in Peace, Charles.

Find the list of all daylilies introduced by Charles here.

Daylily Haiku Thursday | Shine On, Oh Daylily!