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

A Hummingbird in the garden!

Wednesday morning I was standing in the corner of my unfinished kitchen garden trying to take a photo of the incredibly tall Monarda and Echinaceas when I heard a strange sound. It was a vrrrmmmm noise and it passed so close to my ear that I thought my hair moved.


To my utter delight, I saw my first ever (in my own garden) hummingbird! It was the most magical moment and I just stood there forever watching it flit back and forth.

Thursday morning Don went out there with my camera. Sure enough, the hummingbird was back and this is as good a photo as anybody could hope for.

There are two new varieties of Monarda blooming in the front yard and I think they might actually not be red! Hooray!!! One is more pinkish and the other (not yet photographed) is lavender!

Hopefully lots of people will get to see them in their glory tomorrow. Today three delightful visitors came to see the daylilies, tomorrow the garden will be spectacular. It appears that I will be selling quite a few more plant material than I originally planned so stop by, you never know what kind of bargain you'll get.

Tonight I spent two hours walking the track at the highschool and never got to live-head the daylilies. That means I'll be out there super early tomorrow morning.

Melanie

The right angle

When taking photos of blooms in your gardens, there are many different angles from which you can shoot. The most common angle is head on, an "in your face" kind of shot.

This daylily is 'Lounge Lizard' by Curt Hanson of Ohio. I am just head over heels in love with this plant, it's got all the bells and whistles, great blooms, scapes and bud count. The silver edge is just icing on the cake.

The full frontal shot though can miss quite a few details. See here, taken from the side you will see the amazing curls of the sepals. This is so incredibly cool!

Most unusual for me is to zoom in so tight that I crop out parts of the flower but I was in the mood to experiment. I have to admit, I thought I'd hate this technique but instead, I'm crazy about it. I like this photo so much that I might try printing it out to put in a frame.

One last photo, this is a follow up to yesterday's post about the right light. This afternoon I just happened to notice the sun coming through the Begonia grandis (Hardy Begonia). Isn't it beautiful?

Tomorrow my Mom is coming in from Florida. She is the worlds best weeder and I just can't wait to see her whip my garden back into shape.

The right light

The past few days have been increasingly frustrating for me when it comes to taking photos in my garden. It prompted me to post about garden photography. I'm not by any means a professional photographer but my photos have been chosen to grace the front cover and inside of chapter of a gardening book a few years ago and they've been posted here for a few years now.

First of all, I use a simple point and shoot digital camera. It's not even a newer model but it has an excellent zoom lens which was my first criteria. So fair warning, my tips are not applicable to the super deluxe cameras that are out on the market.

Lighting is a big key factor in garden photography. The absolute best light is a good cloud cover. Full sun or early morning sun is very hard for me to work with.

The opening shot was taken in full late afternoon sun which can sometimes be used to your advantage. The flower is Campanula punctata which is just a pale creamy pink on the outside. What's cool about this shot is that the bloom is almost translucent and the spotting you see is actually on the inside of the bloom.

Here's the same flower taken on a cloudy day (see the sky?) and from underneath so you can see the spots. By the way, those power lines just totally ruin the photo. Never forget to look around inside your frame and make sure that there aren't other distractions in the background.


Working in the shade can bring another set of problems. I took quite a few photos of my Hydrangea blooms in hopes of getting one with enough clarity to crop and zoom. This isn't close to what I'd like to have but good enough to share.

Blues and sometimes magenta pinks are just impossible to capture. In the days of film, it was very hard to be able to capture the blues and I'm still having the same problem with digital cameras. In real life these blooms don't look like they have some terrible fungus growing on them. Yuck!

Here I was able to capture the color pretty well but unfortunately the strong dappled lighting coming through the trees creates shadows that distract you from the true beauty of these Hydrangeas.

By the way, forget the roses, give me Hydrangeas any day. My next garden is going to be chock full of these luscious, romantic blooms.

Last week I was complaining about the never ending rainy season we were having. One advantage though was the hundreds and hundreds of photos I was able to take.

So cross your fingers for me, I'd love just a half hour of cloud cover in the morning so I can take some more pictures to share with you.

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

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.