Yeah. So I cry in the garden. | Daylily Blog

END OF THE YEAR CONFESSIONAL:  Yeah.  So I cry in the garden.  Mostly when I'm alone.  I cry over a lot of things when I'm out there.  Happy stuff, funny stuff, inspirational stuff, angry stuff, confusing stuff.  The garden is probably the best therapist I will ever have. 

December is always so abundant.  Its full of food and blessings and family and charity and work and travel and last minute crises.  Its never full of outside.  This year is thankfully different!  I took a few minutes to walk about the yard, since it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, and just marveled at the life still going on out there.  I straightened some plant markers, picked a few weeds even!  Saw some reminders of a special friend who died this year and well, had an ugly cry.  For a minute, maybe two.  The dogs scrambled around me in their sunshine glee and distracted me from the melancholy.  I left it there and wandered away with the dogs.

I noticed the mushy semi-evergreen clumps of H. 'Morticia's Mascara', H. 'Kevin Thomas' and H. 'Baby Bear' and had to come in and check out the photos again.  Here they were this summer...

There are plants in the garden that have heard more of my stories than any human who knows me.  Ill never share those plants or move them out of the garden for fear someone will invent a device to hear plants talk. 

I'm reading a book about gardening right now and it is warming my heart and relates to the concepts of self-healing in the garden.  Cool stuff.  Here is a link to it if you're interested.  

I'm finding some solace and stress relief in depth more than breadth - and once I felt the difference, my gardening experience has shifted.  
And settled.  

This book is helping me see myself in the future and modify (enjoy) the journey on the way there.  I can think of many "gardening voices" that would be the BEST narrator for this book if it were ever turned into an audiobook. Grab it and enjoy the story this winter.  Ill bet you'll garden different in 2016 because of it.

Merry Christmas, friends!  Here's some H. 'Godiva Jam' for your holiday table. 

Til next time...

Purging and Collecting and Reflecting | Daylily Blog

Welcome back and happy Thursday, friends!    

I know its already December, but it still feels like late Fall here in western Illinois. The photo above of Bill Waldrop's PASTOR LAURIE ANN MOELLER* reminds me of the sunsets here the last few days - those bright, weird colors lingering long into the evening.  We have sprinkled in a few late night fires outside this week, and I've even done some digging in the garden.  Just further evidence of the strange season it has been...

Over the course of July and August, as summer heated up and the daylilies waned, I stepped away from the world for a bit.  Priorities shifted and rotated.  It felt better to be more "in" than "out."  I purged stuff.  I collected other stuff.  It’s a vicious, beautiful, maddening game of garden chess.

I used my quiet, distracted energy to purge my daylily collection by about half.  It's become clear to me that I love a lot of daylilies (gasp) and I love the photos I have taken of the near 500 that grow here and I love the color combinations that appear when they are all in bloom.  I love all of the memories behind every one of them in my collection.  Some because of who hybridized it, some because of where I was when I first saw it, some because the form, color and size make my heart skip a beat.  But I cant keep them all.  

I have to let some of those memories go so that I can enjoy the new ones that are moving in.  

So September saw massive Facebook flash sales and auctions, and 32 boxes of free daylilies sent to new collectors all over the country!  It was fun to get to know Facebook connections that were new to daylilies and wanted to learn more about hybrid daylilies.  That was much-needed goodwill therapy.

October and November have been overflowing with elementary school events, computer work and home administrivia - as well as preparing to serve as President of the American Hemerocallis Society starting January 1.  Things are simmering now on all fronts and we are all looking forward to the holidays.  I'm headed off to the reengergized Buffalo Area Daylily Society this weekend to present my new program for 2016 - "The Collective Experience."  This is my theme this year, and will be my guidepost for my first year as AHS president.  Im excited to see how the program is received.  Check out the Calendar of Events for more scoop on the programs in my library.

If you are looking to get yourself a little something this holiday season, and you want to add some daylilies to your collection that might not be widely grown where you are, consider these choices.  They were SPECTACULAR this year in my own garden, and while I dont personally have any of these cultivars to sell, a quick Google search of the name and the word daylily might yeild you some possibilities.  If you have any of these to sell other readers, please note that in the comments below!

IDA MAE NORRIS  - (below, left) I could have eaten dinner off these blooms - they were so big and flat with an abundance of substance.  And what an icy pink!

RED SAPPHIRE   - (below, right) A masculine, yet fancy conversation piece.  Maybe the most photogenic in the garden this year.  Fragrant, reblooming, too.  I was so pleased to take home Best In Show at the 2015 Central Illinois Daylily Show with this cultivar!

HOLIDAY PARTY  - Kropf   (the 100%-est double in the garden on the most proportionate and beefy scapes out there.)

And from the Herrington's, HAT'S OFF TO SUE - (below, left) Bloomed four days straight with 20 or more blooms open at one time.  And it rebloomed and was picture perfect every time.  If you can find it, grab it at whatever cost.  I sold out this year, even sold tiny single fans at the buyer's request just to get a piece of it in their gardens.  Its a stunner.

ALMOST ALL GREEN - (below right, from Tim's doctor-daughter, Heather) This beauty bloomed three sets of scapes, each one better-branched than the next.  Nothing greener in my garden.  In the morning, I swear it is actually neon-green.  Find it.   Someone with an established, exploratory pattern program needs to splash all over this one.  I'd buy that, you?  (Kimberly McCutcheon, Bob Faulkner, Mark Carpenter, Di DeCaire - you reading this?)

CHICKEN COOP MADONNA - What can I say about the below flower from Gene Tanner out of Browns Ferry Gardens?  I picked this one up on name alone at the 2014 National Convention auction and it has taken off.  Its first year in the garden and it performed like a champ!  This is the best first year plant ever.  Blooms that you just want to lick!  Agree?

WAYNE AND CORALS LOVE - (from the Nethertons and Peace On Earth Gardens in Georgia)   This is another I bought as a small DF in Asheville last year at National (after an intense bidding war that Mark Franklin graciously let me win) and its now 12-plus fans and rebloomed twice.  Its a spark of a different color and has good motion for a little thing.  I think Ill let my little clump grow through the 2016 season and I should be able to line it out and sell a good amount next fall.  Many have asked for it already, and I just couldn't bear to share it yet. It was the fastest multiplier in my collection.  It doubled its original planting size three times in one year.  Amazing.  I also plan to take it to a show next year to see how it stacks up in the mini section.

So many daylilies this season put on mouth-watering, delicious displays.  It was a strange, strange summer - filled with weather and wonder from start to finish.

Two large plant sales allowed me to cull out whole clumps of daylilies that have overstayed their welcome in my collection.  It was time for some of my "old" favorites to grace someone else's garden.  I was hired to do three residential plantings this summer and lifted over 50 10-fan-plus clumps out of my garden and planted straight into theirs.  It was fun to plop ready-made daylily awesomeness into someone else's yard.  I cant wait to hear their squeals next year for more.  When I was first starting out with daylilies, a previous national tour garden owner allowed me to come to her garden and choose whole clumps to jumpstart my budding collection.  She was moving far away and not taking the daylilies, so I had my pick of her near 1000 cultivars in 2002.  What a blessing that was!   This summer, it felt great to let others come and collect their gardens from my own yard!

There are so many stories to tell from Summer 2015.  I'm glad Fall is here so that my brain can settle and I can get some of them out here for you to enjoy.

Til next time - 

* Waldrop, 2004 - height 29in (74cm), bloom 6in (15.0cm), season EM, Rebloom, Semi-Evergreen, Tetraploid, Fragrant, 20 buds, 3 branches,  Cinnamon peach blend with ruffled gold edge above green throat. (Moon over Monteray × (Ed Brown × Tet. Dena Marie))

DAYLILY HAIKU THURSDAY | How long is long enough?

<posted July 16, 2015> This is Richard Norris EMPIRE OF DESIRE.  If I could have only one sculpted daylily in my collection, it would be this one.  Google 'Ashwood Daylilies' to see his complete catalog- you wont be sorry.  Your wallet might be, but you wont.  I would recommend ASHWOOD DARK SIDE, IDA MAE NORRIS, REMEMBERED KISSES and MARDI GRAS BEADS.  That is a great start to a great collection of northern hardy reblooming daylilies!  Promise.

The daylilies are on their way toward Fall and I have not been disappointed at all.  What an amazing season!  The rain has been (too) plentiful, the sun has been hot on my shoulders, and the season has filled me with more inspiration that I have had in past years.  Intentional inspiration.  The kind that you act on and not stumble over.  I am loving it.

Top Left: NIKKI SCHMITH and Top Right: HATS OFF TO SUE
Bottom Left: LOVE IS DEEP and Bottom Right: UNFORGETTABLE WONDER

I've held on to this idea for a post for quite a while, and I when I saw it in my drafts today I thought it was a good time to pull it out and ask you the question. 

My friend Melodye Campbell wrote: "It's that time of year to give my daylilies a hard look. Poor branching and bud count? Not impressed with the bloom anymore? No bloom at all? Like many of you, my gardens have reached critical mass. My mantra of "one goes out if one comes in" is hard to stick to, especially when you get bonus plants with every order, bus plants at conventions, etc.

So, my question is, how long do you give a daylily to perform? Three years used to be my limit, but sometimes I let them go longer than that. For example, ROSE F. KENNEDY took 3 years to produce a scape, so I kept it. In it's 4th year, she took off and produced 4 scapes with lots of buds. I'm in love and glad I kept her another year. I try not to move the daylilies too much, I let them stay in the same spot for the 3 years. But come on, after 3 years, if the plant is still 2 fans, that doesn't bode well . . . ."

So, what do you think?  

How long do you hold on to the idea of what you think a daylily could or should do, until the reality of what it IS going to do sets in?  

The answer for me is 3 summers.  If something doesn't wow me, doesn't make me want to take a photo of it, doesn't make me walk over to see what its doing, doesn't perform near how it was advertised, it is outta here.  3 summers is fair.  

Most of the time natural selection kills off the weak and unnecessary here, and for that I am thankful.  LADY BLUE EYES died FIVE TIMES before I realized that I was never going to get to grow it and see what I still remember as the bluest thing I have ever seen in a garden.  I took this photo in 2003.  I remember it so vividly, that of over 10K photos on my computer I knew exactly which folder it was in without searching for it.

This was Twelve years and twelve cameras ago.  I still remember Margo Reed was standing next to me when I saw the lone bloom in a national tour garden. I let out an audible gasp and she smiled knowingly and walked by.  We didnt know each other then, but we do now and that memory makes me smile.  I bought and killed this daylily five times before I finally decided it wasn't in my fate to possess it.  Big frown face, but I still have the memory.

I also just re-bought DUST AND GRAVITY for the third time.  That one seems to spend all its wad in a fabulous display and piddle out the next year.  I couldn't be without it after I culled out its dying remains this spring.  I love it so Ill gamble on it again.

Such is the life of a gardener.  One beautiful, maddening green gamble after another.

 Til next time, sink into the above photo of PICOTEE PRISM...ahhhhhh.

DAYLILY HAIKU THURSDAY | Let go and be.

<posted July 2, 2015>  This is Nicole DeVito's BULLETPROOF, just one of about 15 of her introductions growing in my Illinois garden.  I had the great fortune of visiting her garden in Florida this past May and it was a real treat.  I bought 4 unregistered seedlings (unheard of for me, since I am a stickler for registered cultivars I can exhibit in daylily shows.)  They are all four thriving here so far.  

I also picked up KEEPER OF THE STARS and FORTUNE'S BLUEPRINT during my visit.  She also gave each visitor a special daylily to honor her "Breakfast in the Garden" tradition during Florida Mecca.  The peach one she gave this year was STUNNING!!!  There it is in the photo on the left.  Thick substance - this photo was taken at 2:30 in the afternoon on a hot Florida May day.  WOWZA. What I like about Nicole is she does things her way.  She follows her hearts direction in hybridizing and in gardening.  Her garden was a bubble of fun in so many ways.  I wish more gardened that way.  I can guarantee you that visitors to your garden pick up on the undercurrent of emotion on which you garden. That might sound strange, but your green space is an extension of your inner vibe. 

The karmic rhythms and meters in your garden transfer to those who visit just as you leave a bit of your own vibe behind in those you visit.  

Here are some more photos of my visit that day.   All of the daylilies featured below are unregistered seedlings as of this post.  The third pic below is one of the four seedlings that I bought and brought back here to Illinois!  It was at least 9" in this photo.  I hope it thrives here, too.

Nicole's mom fashioned this chandelier for the picnic area.  Notice all the garden tools?  F.U.N.  There she is in the blue hat below...  (she also grows a mean blackberry.)

After the crowds left, Dreamer was able to come out and roam. More fun.

The above seedling was one of my favorites of the day.  It was so big and so flat and had a deep, heady fragrance.  You can find a complete list of what she has available and contact her directly on her website here.  

I hope you enjoyed these pictures and I hope I left behind some good vibes when I left her garden that day.

Til next time-