Change is good. | Daylily Haiku Thursday

<posted August 16, 2013> Two years ago this month we bought this house. The gardens began from a blank canvas of terrible fill dirt.  Let’s just say I broke two tillers trying to till the ground.  (all while fighting pneumonia...the things we do for daylilies!)

Plan B necessary.  Go UP, and not DOWN.

Raised beds...for all these potted plants that came with me from Michigan in August of 2011.  Two people (one from Long Island and one from southern Illinois) have asked me recently how I deal with the Illinois clay, so that inspired me to show the transformation here for anyone else interested in my bed-building adventures.

I called in trucks of topsoil,

Then I called in trucks of compost, and I added 400 lbs of Milorganite over the top of THAT.  Then, I tilled it all together.  And that time I didn't break any tillers, thankyouverymuch.

Check out the next photo to see what this area looks like now!

The result is an imported, raised garden with the drainage it needs to thrive.

I started with a blank slate, as our house was just being built, so I was able to start my gardens from scratch.  (Lucky me!)  I'll most likely never have the opportunity in my lifetime to start from scratch so completely, so I tried to do it right the first time.

Look at the next photo...this is what the area shown above looks like now after two full summers. There are 210 daylilies in this bed at last count, punctuated with hardy hibiscus, autumn joy sedum, lilium, prarie grasses, burning bushes, ninebark, wormwood, shasta daisies, echinacea, sage, and...and...and...!

As I type, a sod cutter, tiller and truckloads of soil are poised and ready for action next week.  A new island bed is coming this fall (construction starts Monday when my husband goes out of town, LOL!!) - just the place to showcase the 60+ daylilies and other cool perennials I have procured this summer.  The process starts again...more metamorphosis.

LATE BLOOMERS:

There are some cultivars in the garden now that are really putting on a show. I don't have the heart to tell them that its almost September.  Here are a few that are causing a stir in the late garden:

THELMA DOUGLAS from Charles Douglas of Browns Ferry Gardens - It is late, full, bright and fancy; not too many daylilies that bloom this late have this many bells and whistles in my garden (or in many I have visited.)  They are having a 60% off sale - I'm just sayin'...

ART IN MOTION from Nicole DeVito of Nicole's Daylilies - Three sets of scapes after being planted this spring on an early arrival from Florida puts this one on the map for me!  The reblooms are just as beautiful as the first set.  I cannot wait to see what this one does once established.  I am thrilled to say that I got her JANET AND BILL, BELIGHTFUL and HEARTBREAKER ALEX at an auction here in Illinois recently.  Go, me.

SOFT HEARTED MOTHER from the awesome Paul Owen of Slightly Different Nursery- Very long bloom season, and thick substance!  The pattern is very distinct in color and behavior and always blooms perfectly formed.