Daylily Show!

As predicted there were tons of daylily stars in the garden today. This is Tom Polstons 'Hawaiian Coral' which is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

Sunday July 11th is the Long Island Daylily Society's annual flower show where you can see hundreds and hundreds of daylilies on display.

While I won't be entering individual daylily scapes, I am registered to enter in two design catagories. The first is a mass design with the theme "Monet". The second is a table setting and that theme is "Water Lilies", a theme that I find hard to be creative with. To me, daylilies and water lilies are such different creatures that my brain doesn't want to try to fit one into the other's catagory.


This is daylily 'Zip Boom Bah' and the color in this photo is quite accurate.

Most people don't realize how much work is involved in putting on any type of flower show. I have not had the spare time to devote to the daylily club in the past few years but I will be working at the show. From 8:30 to 10:30 am I will enter my designs and then work the classification table with my long time friend Gene. When the judges are on the show floor at 11:00, I'm free to leave. At that time I'll be heading over to Martin Viette's to take a peek and see what treasures I might find there.

Once I've scoured the sales areas at Martin Viette's it's back to Planting Fields for me. If I remember, I'll pack a picnic lunch and spend an hour or two walking the amazing grounds. The weather is supposed to be lovely by afternoon but I will wish for a few passing clouds so I can take lots and lots of photos.

Today was perfect picture weather. I took 150 photos in the garden and many of them are wonderful. As soon as I finish this post I'll put a few up on my othe blog Melanie's Perennials. This photo shows a double Platycodon (Balloon flower) that has been hard for me to grow but well worth the effort.

The flower show at Planting Fields is open to the public at 1:30 pm. Once you park in the main parking lot you'll have to walk to the Hort Center, it's a bit of a walk but a lovely one. Maybe I'll see you there!

Melanie

The Promise

This evening was the first time this season that I went around and live-headed my daylilies. Live-head, a term that many people have never heard.

When a gardener dead-heads a plant, they are removing a spent bloom. Some plants don't require this but others, like daylilies, show much better if the the spent bloom is removed.


Nothing looks prettier than a daylily clump loaded with crisp clear blooms like on this antique variety 'Try It'.

What you'll rarely find though is a photo of the ugly drippy mess that awaits you the next morning.

Yuck, nothing is worse than removing gooey, wet daylily blooms that stain your fingers and shorts with purple and red.


Rather than wait for the morning, I love walking around in the evening and removing the still live bloom. It gives me a chance to see each and every daylily up close. 'Dark Monkey' here was facing away from the front of the bed but when I had it in my hand I just had to rub my fingers over the velvety interior.


At first it's disconcerting to see your garden go from full glory to bare nakedness but wait, look closer and you'll see it. It's the promise, the knowing that tomorrow you will once again have a garden full of jewels.


Different cultivars show their promise differently. The long, curly spidery forms that I adore look more like banana peppers with little puckered kisses on the end.

Some varieties are brazen in their promise, sticking out their tongues in advance, hoping for that instant moment of romance in the garden, the brush of pollen against their waiting pistils.


Tonight I spent a long time looking through the lens of my camera, searching for the promise of what is to come. It was the most amazing feeling, I could have taken hundreds of photos of blooms that are just waiting for their moment of glory.

At the end of it all, the buckets of blooms are spilled upon the compost heap, and that too is a promise of riches to come.

Tomorrow will be beautiful, I promise.

Melanie

Day's of Summer - Daylilies

This morning I began my new term as Board of Education trustee up at our high school. Our students don't return until after Labor day (next Monday) so technically (besides what the calendar says) it's still summer here.

Growing daylilies has been a passion of mine for 14 years now. At one point, just two years ago, my collection peaked at 450 different cultivars. Slowly but surely I've been reducing that number, eventually I'd like to get it down to 200 of the best performing plants.

What is amazing about this opening photo is that it was taken just yesterday. There are thousands and thousands of different daylilies. Tall ones, short ones, ruffled ones and plain ones. There are red, purple, yellow, orange, cream, pink, peach and a multitude of combinations of color. There are round daylilies and narrow daylilies too but most importantly there are early, mid and late blooming daylilies.

If you want to have daylilies blooming for more than three weeks in your garden you need to look for varieties that bloom at different times. This photo shows a late blooming daylily named 'Royal Jester'. It looks incredible combined with this hardy begonia (if somebody knows the botanical name of this begonia please leave a comment for me).

Just two weeks ago, in mid August I took this photo. The dominant daylilies here are 'Point of View' which is one of the best performing reds (in my opinion) and 'Big Bird' which is the tall yellow that does such a wonderful job of echoing the yellow throat of 'Point of View'. If you are wondering why the Queen Ann's Lace is allowed to grow in my garden, it's because it invites beneficial insects that eat thrips (a not at all beneficial insect).

Just before I left for Germany (the first week of July) I took a few photos of the daylilies that were beginning to bloom. This cool yellow narrow form on 'Flight of Angel's' just stopped me in my tracks. I love the unusual form of narrow daylilies that cascade and curl. They look incredibly graceful combined with many summer perennials.

At one time I grouped my daylilies all together but now I find much more pleasure working them into a total landscape vignette. Here you can see the little daylily 'Pimento Pepper' combined with Salvia and Lychnis.

Always perfect, year after year is this luscious purple 'Star of India' with the amazing appliqued pattern in the yellow throat. Combined with the purplish blues of the Salvia and the pale yellow Achillea, I think this is one of the best grouping I've ever designed.

Out in front of my house I have a clump of daylilies that is not registered with the American Hemerocallis Society. This daylily is a seedling that my youngest daughter Emily hybridized and best of all, I have a photo taken of her on the day she made this cross!

The daylily may not be worthy of registration but in the garden we call it 'Little Em' and it's a blooming fool. With little blooms on tall scapes, it's the perfect addition as a landscape daylily.

As a closing shot, this daylily is right next to the one in my opening photo. The difference is that this one blooms in early July while the other one blooms in late August. By planting them side by side I've extending the show in this spot (see how much smaller the Begonia foliage is?).

This cultivar is 'Lounge Lizard' and I'm just blown away by it's beauty.

Well that's it for today, this year I missed most of the daylily season but just wait until next year!

1 + 1 = Another 1

A few years ago my younger daughter Emily decided she wanted to hybridize some daylilies. Typical of a child, she looked at the process in a whole different light. First she came up with the name she liked and then she looked for the flowers that she though would give her a seedling with the right qualities.

Her name of choice was "Mac & Cheese" so you can guess what color daylilies she decided to work with. This first photo is 'Nutmeg Elf' and it gave Emily the color she wanted. She used this daylily as the pod parent.

The daylily Emily chose to use as a pollen parent was 'Itsy Bitsy Spider', shown in this photo.

All together I think we have 5 seedlings still from that cross. This is the first one to bloom this year. It has clumped up nicely and has excellent budcount and branching. I can't say the flower form is too different from either parent though.

Here you can see it in a clump. It stands quite tall for a small blooming daylily, both parents have that trait. While it will never formally be introduced, it's an excellent plant to have in the border.

I hope the other seedlings bloom before I leave for Germany so I can photograph them and show them here. One of them has an excellent form but unfortunately doesn't have the bud count or branching that this seedling has. Then again, maybe this year it will be better.

What's in Bloom today

(Daylily 'Good Vibrations')

Life has been a bit crazy this past week. Storms, power outages, kids underfoot, so I thought I'd stick in a quick photo op to show some of the summer perennials that are beginning to bloom.

In the herb garden, the clumps of Rue are covered with their simple yellow flowers. I love the blue foliage on this plant.



Daylily 'Navajo Princess' has a chevron pattern that is extremely distinctive. The great news is that this is an older cultivar and if you find it for sale it will usually run only $7 or $8.

Stachys monieri was a plant I bought many years ago at the local Franks Nursery. I rarely have seen it in any other gardens and I just adore it's cottage flower charm.


Sedum 'Matrona' is starting to show off her colors. Who needs flowers with foliage that looks like this? But wait, there's stunning blooms too that will come at the end of summer when we desperately need them.


Tiny little Daylily 'Mary Ethyl Anderson' is a delight in the front of the perennial garden.


Years ago I bought a yellow Asclepias for my garden. It was beautiful for 4 years or so and then disappeared. Last year I noticed a foliage that seemed familiar but it was a good 20 feet away from the original plant. Hooray, today there are two clumps of Asclepias blooming in the garden and I've found the foliage for more of them coming along.



Stachys monieri 'Hummelo' is a named variety of this delightful flower. It's blooms are more in the purple family than the pink one I highlighted earlier.


Holy cow, this Iris Ensata (Japanese Iris) is a late blooming wonder! I'd give you all the name if I could only find it. It's there somewhere at the base but the companion plants are so thick that I haven't found it yet.


Double daylilies are doubly delicious! 'Double Perfection' was hybridized right here on Long Island by George Rasmussen (one of my most favorite hybridizers). It's name is right on the money because it doubles every time (unlike some other double daylilies that are actually quite sporadic).

And that's it for today folks. I'll try to sneak in a few more photos this week but I can tell you in advance that it's going to be one more crazy week around here.

Bye!
Melanie