Days End

The daylily are finishing here. A lot can be said about 'Stella D'Oro', much of it not nice. I regularly talk about how reliable she is but the other great thing about her is that she is long lasting. The first daylily to open in my garden and still going strong today. Through the bloom times of all the others, she is still blooming strong with the last of them.

I would love to divide and move her to spread around her good cheer but my Stella is interplanted with

'Autumn Red' and separating them seems like a challenge for another year. Maybe I will just move a patch and see what I get. Plant it somewhere where it won't matter if it is both... or either.

I don't have a favorite new one this year because there are so many new ones that are stunning. But if I was forced to pick a favourite, I would have to consider the unknown red from Heike's garden.

A flurry of unexpected p!nk

When I first started gardening, pink was my colour. Everything I bought and planted was pink. Then I fell in love with something orange and everything changed. Although yellow was the last colour I came around to, today you can find every colour bloom in my garden except coral, or salmon, whichever you prefer to call it. To me it is one colour. That odd colour that in pale or dark shades, looks good with no other colour. I admit, I have often thought of planting a single colour border in those shades because what gardener wants to be missing a colour? lol.

Recently, a flurry of unexpected pink has arrived in my garden. I was certain my Acapulco lily was lost, yet here it is blooming up a storm! There are 2 pink daylily, neither of which was expected. 1 was given to me as yellow and while it has yellow, it is very pink from a distance. The other I have still not been able to figure out what it is or where it came from. My map is either incomplete or wrong. Hazzards of rushing to get everything in before snow. Every summer, I come to regret my lack of recordkeeping in the fall.

This rush of pink has renewed my appreciation for pink flowers and had me doodling pink patches into the map that I might want to add.

Karma Candy One

Karma Candies are my thing. I like to look for them, notice them, savour and enjoy them. Then I like to share them. A Karma Candy is when everything in the universe comes together in an unexpected way all for the benefit of you (or in my case, me)! I got not one, but two Karma Candies in my garden this year, all from the kindness of a friend.

Last year, Heike gave me two daylily divisions (well, actually, she let me dig up her garden) one of which was 'red' and one of which was 'yellow'. That was the totality of the description. Red sounded good to me. Never met a red daylily I didn't like. Yellow had me seeing bright, dark, golden yellow and feeling a little worried. I am not overly fond of yellow and really dislike a lot of yellow shades. I always think that if I don't like the flower, I will get rid of the plant but when you have a lot of space, you never really get rid of anything. The Knautia here is a good case in point. If I bring it home, I am usually stuck with it. But I am always willing to take a chance on a flower so I jumped at the chance to take them both.

Last week, I stepped into the garden and immediately noticed her. Heike's Daylily, 'Little Rainbow'. Isn't she stunning? In fact, when I saw her I thought now who are you and where did you come from? I got a load of plants at an end of season sale that were not all blooming last year so I went to my garden journal to figure out the puzzle. She was unexpected.

As I stood in the garden with my camera and journal sketch that passes for a garden map here, it really looked like the daylily in this spot should be Heike's yellow. Clicking away trying to get every angle, I kept thinking my map had to be wrong. Surely she would not have described THIS as yellow!

So I start texting pictures and peppering her with questions. Does your 'yellow' daylily have any pink in it? Is this it ? Then came the answer. Yep, this is it. But she is soooooo much more than 'yellow'. She is a rock star. My new favourite. 'Little Rainbow'. Even her name rocks.

Karma Candy number one. Number two will be in a following post (as soon as it opens and I can get a photo).

Showing Off Daylilies - Yellow

This isn't all of my yellow daylilies, but it's some of my favourites...

daylily So Lovely

daylily Atlanta Full House

daylily Delicate Design

daylily Jersey Spider

Unusual Daylily

I learned something new about daylilies today. A couple of days ago I took this photo of one of our new daylilies. It's got big 7" flowers!

daylily Ada May Musick

This evening, after the rain stopped, my husband noticed something odd about today's bloom. I had to run out and take a photo - same daylily, different time of day.

daylily Ada May Musick (polymerous)

See? It's got both an extra petal and an extra sepal - for a total of 8 instead of the usual 6. We looked this up and it's called 'polymerous'. First time I've seen one, but it took Kelly to actually notice it.

Showing Off Daylilies - Red

I've had a bunch of daylilies bloom this week, many are new in my garden this year. The shades of red really vary.

daylily - unknown red

daylily - unknown dark red

daylily Nona's Garnet Spider

daylily Creature of the Night

daylily Fushia Fashion

daylily Cameroon's Twister

Big Flowers

One flower doesn't make a garden, but it sure can look impressive on its own.

First up is a new daylily bought on one of our trips to Harbour Breezes last summer. Of course, it's not a big patch yet, but the flowers are huge and it sure is eye catching.

daylily Heavenly Orange Blaze

We've already made our first trip to Harbour Breezes this year and came back with this stunning white Japanese iris - blooming before we got it into the ground.

iris ensata Grand Island

Pow! Cloud Chaser

The first of our new daylilies from last year's shopping spree bloomed today and it's impressive. None of the photos I took do it justice. The flower is huge - 10"! I'm in awe of daylilies - Mother Nature makes this beautiful bloom that only lasts one day.

daylily Cloud Chaser

Unfortunately it's a little too impressive for the spot where I planted it - definitely not a good choice as you can see below, so next year it'll be in the front garden.

Linda's back garden

First of the Clematis

I've certainly had my challenges growing clematis over the years, mostly to do with giving them enough room to stretch out - something to grab onto in the garden. What works for one, does not work for all.

This one, which I think is 'The President', is always the first to bloom right in the middle of a patch of early yellow daylilies. Its flowers are huge and start out dark purple, lightening up as you see below.

clematis 'The President'

The second to bloom is 'Blue Ice', also with big flowers. I've had this one the longest. It grows new from the ground each year, has outgrown its trellis and twists in among the tall phlox stems. The first blooms have this pale purple tint, with later blooms more white.

clematis 'Blue Ice'

I'm anticipating more clematis blooms during the next couple of weeks - all of the rest are full of buds!

Daylily begins...

'Stella D'Oro' was my first experience with daylily and I have to say... she didn't make me fall in love. In fact, for a long time, it was her fault that I didn't like daylily. Then Linda introduced me to 'Frans Hals' and the love story began. What a guy, he was slendor and elegant with dark, rich colours. Everything 'Stella' wasn't. She is short, squat and that particular shade of whatever its called that isn't really orange and isn't really yellow. Over the years though, 'Stella' has really grown on me.

She is reliable, long blooming and her odd colour compliments either yellow or orange and works with purple, white and - even more oddly - several shades of red. Another of her advantages is that she sits shorter than all of my other daylily so she works really well on the edge of a border. Today, I would recommend 'Stella' as a wonderful addition to any garden.

Coincidence Gone Right

Sometimes Linda and I think the same. This red daylily came from her garden, a division I brought home last year. I had thought I brought one red daylily from her garden but as it turned out, there were two varieties that were red. Since I thought I only had one variety that was red, I expected this to be 'Stella D'Oro'. I planted it with my other 'Stella D'Oro' in a patch. My first stroke of luck was that I planted the two of these at the back of the patch since they are taller than 'Stella D'Oro'. My second stroke of luck was that the golden yellow in this variety matches the 'Stella D'Oro' quite nicely. Apparently Linda thought so too because a few days ago I noticed that one shoot coming from the middle of this plant clump was, in fact, a 'Stella D'Oro'. When I mentioned to Linda that I have no idea how one got in the middle of the other she told me that she knew how... they are planted together in her garden too! I must have gotten a bonus root piece.

Daylily Division

This is the year I discovered the daylily. I have always known about daylily having several 'Stella D'Oro' that I was not impressed with and had seen many, many varieties that I felt were equally unimpressive. It started with Linda's 'Frans Hals' and progressed to Alison's Red and my unknown above. Somehow, these bright colours from the Fall palette have converted me to a daylily lover. This week, I came upon an article in a recent issue of Canadian Gardening on the daylily and learned two very interesting facts. One of which turned out to be critical for the survival of my daylily since my new found fondness has got me determined to divide them this year so they will spread throughout the Sun Gardens next year.

Fact one is that some daylily are nocturnal, opening in late afternoon and remaining open until the next morning. This would be more interesting were I planning an evening wedding in my garden but is still a fun fact I am glad they included. Unfortunately, there were no nocturnal varieties listed.

Fact two is much more helpful for my garden because I tend to divide when I find time rather than following the old adage that I can never remember about spring blooming and fall blooming division times. According to the grower (who, from the photographs, clearly knows what he is doing with daylily), you have to divide Daylily at least one month prior to the first hard frost in your location. This is so they can have enough time to build up their sugars before they go into full dormancy. This is a critical fact in my garden because frost comes early and I work right up to it.

I am so glad I found this article now. For me, this means I need to start daylily dividing today. The fact that Canadian Gardening saved all the daylily I have out in my garden, more than justifies my regular over-spending at the magazine stand :)