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

Flowers for Lauren

Today is my daughter Lauren's 20th birthday. I rarely post about my girls but yesterday I posted about Emily so of course I have to write about Lauren today.

Lauren has been a constant companion with me on numerous garden tours. We've been at conventions and tours in Detroit, Philadelphia, central Florida, Boston and many other locations and Lauren won't let me forget we already have a date for a tour in Louisiana in 2011.

Last night Lauren requested lots and lots of flowers for her birthday. Not the standard arrangements that are created by professional florists but my arrangements which tend to look like my garden, a mass compendium of plant material.

When she wakes up she'll find three arrangements waiting for her. One is large and two are mid-sized.

Of course they aren't out on the brick patio but in various parts of the house. Today's lighting though wasn't conducive to indoor photography (not much better outside either).

There will also be small single specimens for her to place where ever she wants. How many of you are cringing right now?

Yes, the noxious, notorious Houttyunia cordata is in these arrangments. Fair warning here, if you see a lovely colored foliage plant with the nickname 'Chameleon Plant' do NOT buy this plant. Unfortunately, I inherited a piece but luckily I have it contained in one portion of the garden.

The good news is Houttyunia's a beautiful addition to a cut flower arrangement. I try to pull out the whole stem with as much root as possible and just chop off the root before putting it in the vase.

Do you cut flowers from your garden?

When 1 plus 1 equals 1

A number of years ago my young daughter Emily wanted to hybridize her own daylily. Daylilies are extremely easy to hybridize and she had seen me do so for many years. Her goal was to make one and name it "Mac & Cheese" so she chose two parents that she thought would create her perfect daylily.

This is 'Nutmeg Elf', a little orange daylily that blooms like crazy. It was the pod parent, meaning that it was the Mommy.

This is 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' which was the pollen parent (the Daddy). Both of these daylilies are small, of narrow form, have tall scapes, excellent branching and lots and lots of blooms.

This is one of the resultant children from that cross. Since it's been a number of years (my guess is 5 or 6) since Emily has crossed these two daylilies, the seedlings are large clumps now.

Although I will never register any of these seedlings, I also won't get rid of them. They are excellent landscape daylilies, bringing lots of color and joy to my garden.

Somewhere in my external hard drive I have a photo of Emily making the actual cross. When I have time I'll have to go hunting for it so I can post it here too.

Melanie

The Front Walkway

Two years ago we had our front walkway, stoop and patio replaced. We were thrilled with the job done by the masons. I immediately planted up one section with shrubs but left the large portion open because of drainage problems we had with a basement window well.

I tried to find a photo of the area but of course I never took one because it was horrendous. Two years of no plantings and just weeds, made it the ugliest spot in our garden and of course, it was right next to our front door!

Any photo I took in the area I cropped so that you couldn't see the mess but if you peek at the right here, you'll see a little.


This weekend we finally decided we couldn't take it any more and attacked the spot. I really didn't want to spend any money on the area, we already had a Pieris japonica in a pot for a year that I wanted planted there.


The Cotoneaster at the bottom of the photo was there too, we just needed something else to fill in and give us year round foliage.

In the very back of my garden, in total shade were five Korean boxwoods (Buxus microphylla var. Koreana). These had been little slips given to me by a woman in my garden club. Over the years they grew to a nice size but they were in a spot where nobody could see them.


They turned out to be just right in this little front garden.

Now I have to bite the bullet and take out the Echinacea that seeded itself next to the Japanese Maple.

We are also going to mulch well with shredded leaves so we don't have to weed this garden. In the fall I'll add some early spring blooming bulbs.

How nice to have a neat, clean garden in this spot.

SUNY Farmingdale - The Rockery

This past Thursday was not the first time I've visited the Horticulture gardens at SUNY Farmingdale. I've been there well over a dozen times so it was most surprising to me to find myself in love with an area that didn't excite me too much on previous visits.

The difference wasn't in the garden itself, the difference was me, my taste and desires in gardening right now.

The Rockery (as Dr. Iverson called it) begins at first with a small rock courtyard showcasing a few shade plants that have charmingly worked their way into the cracks and crevices of the stone walls and floor.

A few steps later though you come across the most wonderful, secret, shaded grotto just filled with a treasure trove of shade plants.

The predominant color here is green and yet it was as exciting to me as the long perennial border and the riot of color in the summer garden.

The day was damp and cool (what else has been new this season) and the plants were in prime condition.


I didn't think to take an overview of the whole area but it wasn't much larger than what you see here in this photo.
The contrast of the Hakonachloa (forest grass) against the gravel was magnificent.


There were lots of large rocks that you would swear were put there by Mother Nature and not by the diligent staff and students at the university. More plants were showcased in the cracks and crevices. I just loved seeing the Asarum europeam (European Ginger) in the garden. It's become a big favorite of mine.


Look! I did find a flower, although the garden would have been awesome even without this little beauty.

The perfect garden needs the perfect ending. How's this as the path to take you up and out of the rockery and back to the "real world".

SUNY Farmingdale

Today I met a few women from my garden club and we were treated to a tour of the horticultural learning gardens at SUNY Farmingdale University.

This first shot was taken at the entrance gate.

Although we were there for a short time, I think I'll break down the visit into three posts. This first post is just to share some of the awesome images I brought home with me.

The plant material was grown to perfection, even with the never ending rain we've been getting this season. I love this combination of the dwarf Aruncus athusifolius and the Pulmonaria 'Mrs Moon'.

I didn't take a photo of the name tag for this so I'm not sure if it's a Heliopsis or a Helianthus (I always get them mixed up). Behind it is Physocarpus (Nine bark).

Another combination that blew me away is Astilbe 'Deutschland' and the variegated Symphytum 'Axminster Gold'.

Sheer luck! How's this for a shot of a butterfly on Stachys bloom? I can't believe it came out this clear as it was in constant motion.

Centaurea macrocephala is something I've tried by mail order but I need to get myself a large one of these so I get to see it grow in my garden.

Papyrus in the entrance garden. This garden is planned to peak in late summer, I hope to get back and see it then.

Clematis and a Rose, sheer heaven.

Finally, the blue on this little bulb Brodiaea laxa 'Queen Fabiola' is just Fabulous! I think I'll be looking for this beauty for my own garden.

The next post will be either about the structure in the garden or the shade rockery. Both were just awesome.

Crabby Claws

Iris ensata, Japanese Iris are blooming in my garden right now. I used to have more varieties, now there are 4 or 5 different ones. A few years ago I didn't remember to remove the seed pods from one of them and it went to seed. There are two seedlings out there, one I forgot photograph because the other one is really strange.

What kind of form is this?

Here's what a Japanese Iris should look like, aren't they beautiful? Nice and graceful, amazing buds even before the flower unfolds.

The pale blooms on 'Gracius' are just as stunning even if they are a bit less lush.

I love the stripes and color breaks in this one.

So what do you make of this? Should it stay or go? I think it's really weird and don't particularly like it but maybe there's an unusual form classification in the Iris world? If so, I think I'll call it 'Crabby Claws'.

In your eye!

Tonight I'm sitting here at my laptop with a very achy back. I was cropping and editing some photos I took today when I zoomed in on this shot of a Astrantia (masterwort) blooming in my garden. I had such fun cropping and zooming that I decided to play with a few more images. So here's some up close and personal shots of things in my garden.

The white Astilbe in my shade bed is pristine white. I grow two white varieties, this one has dark green foliage and I wonder if it's Astilbe 'Deutschland'.

Geranium 'Jolly Bee' against the Hosta 'Aristrocrat'. What a combination!

Plain and simple, Coreopsis 'Zagreb' is so easy to grow and I love it so much better than 'Moonbeam' that flops all over the place.

Spirea 'Little Princess' has a new leaf on life. It clashed something awful with another plant growing next to it so I took it out and moved it to the woods where it promptly died. There was a small rooted branch left in the old spot and now there's a perfect shrub there again. The clashing plant up and died a year later so I'm happy to have this beauty back again.

Just can't get enough of the shade loving Japanese fern (Athyrium niponicum 'Pictum')

Thalictrum glaucum blooms are as tall as me but with all the rain we've been getting their flopping all over the place. Tonight I finally tied them up and had to shoot this closeup.

Yet another Filipendula bloomign in the garden. This one has a finer cut leaf and a deeper colored bloom. I have to hunt around for the cultivar name.

And last but not least, daylily 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' blooming it's first bloom and if you take a look at those amazing buds you'll know it's going to bloom like crazy!