Sunny Daylily Day

Daylilies, and their friends….

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  It’s sunny for a change, not too hot, and I took my camera down the ramp and crutched about saying hello to today’s daylily (and other) blooms.  It was really a bit early to take photos, so many of the daylily blooms hadn’t fully opened yet, but I didn’t think ahead and getting up and down the ramp is enough of a task that I decided to just do the photography thing while I was out there.  Tomorrow, I’ll wait till afternoon or early evening, if the rains don’t come back.  The weatherman is saying naughty things about tomorrow, of course, but we shall see.

I actually had more blooming yesterday, but never managed to get out there with the camera.  I so look forward to the day I can just pick the thing up and walk outside again!

There are some real pretties blooming today, though, and I hope you enjoy a couple of the photos I grabbed.  Hemerocallis ‘Wineberry Candy’ is still lovely, and blooming consistently, even though it’s a young plant.  None of the other Candies have opened up yet … that one is apparently the early of the family.  Or at least of the Candy family (thanks to hybridizer Pat Stamile) that I’ve got planted here so far.  Moving from west to east, H. ‘Duke of Durham’ is again peeking up over the wheelchair ramp, and in front of the house I have several Asiatic lilies of unknown varieties blooming.  The white gave me the best picture of the three (there are yellows and reds as well … my little pastel salmon pink ones seem to be putting up deformed blooms this year).

In the corner triangle bed, I have some H. ‘Lady Inara’, which needs to be rescued from the spearmint that’s trying to take over, a bunch of “Not Matt”, my yellow with maroon eye unknown, and H. ‘Silver Run’ in bloom.  Just west of there is lovely H. ‘Fooled Me’.  There is no doubt as to why this plant took Stout Medal awards a few years ago.  It’s lovely, hearty, and very prolific.  I love it!  Then we have equally wonderful H. ‘Always Afternoon’ doing quite well again this year.  It is H. ‘Outrageous’, though, once it gets going, that is going to be the true stunner of 2009.  I couldn’t stand there long enough to count all the buds on that clump, but there have to be a hundred!  I included a shot of the bud count of the clump just so you can see.

Over on the end of the front border, we have H. ‘Prester John’, the yellow double.  This is another plant that I’m very pleased with.  It started out, as all of my “HADS orphans” did, as a tiny slip with a bit of root still attached that someone tossed away as not good enough to bag and tag for the sale.  It’s bloomed consistently every year since, and is spreading nicely.  I missed photographing two really nice blooms on ‘Prester John’ yesterday, as well as a pair of twin blooms on my only other double, H. ‘Siloam Double Classic’ — interestingly enough, however, these ‘Double Classic’ blooms were singles.  That’s the first time my ‘Double Classic’ plant has put forth single blooms, though I have seen that it’s quite common for the cultivar to do this.

We also have several unknowns in that bed … including what I honestly believe to be H. ‘Miss Sally’. I also apparently missed what looks like it was a deep rose colored bloom, one which had not flowered till this year.  I knew I should have gone over there yesterday!

The side border to the west has yellow and red unknowns  in bloom, and it looks as if I missed a bloom yesterday on the unknown peach that my friend Ruth gave me.  And lastly, my “heart garden” by the old satellite pole has several nice blooms today.  The one HADS unknown red which I think may be H. ‘Craemore Ruby’, and another red that just bloomed for the first time (but has really taken off) this year on the other side (titled, here HADS Unknown Crimson Red) are blooming.  H. ‘Audacity Bound’, a huge lovely yellow opened its first bloom of ‘09 today, as did that pretty little tall unknown purple I got from the same HADS bag-and-tag work-day.  All of the plants in that bed except for H. ‘Barbary Corsair’ (from my friend Dede) and H. ‘Iced Champagne’ (from a fellow list member on the Daylily Robin) were tiny slips from that work-day, in fact.  This year it appears that all of those work-day throw-aways will be in bloom.

Most of the daylilies have come back, and are doing well.  I’m quite pleased so far with what looks like it’ll be a nice bloom season.  I really need to, somehow, get out there and weed, though.  There’s that “my kingdom for a garden cart” thing again.  My parent H. ‘Lady Inara’ plant has a monstrous bull thistle growing from the center of it, there is tons of spearmint and ragweed and bindweed growing in the beds, and I have got to beat back those climbing rose bushes before they totally over-run the house and kill H. ‘Blackberry Candy’ in the process!

I am currently watching for a couple of plants which struggle due to being a bit overcrowded and shadowed by taller plants in front of them.  In fact, before the sheep hit the fan in September, my plans were to move all of them into a new bed in the fall … so much for the best laid plans, and all that.  Those are H. ‘Dragon Dreams’, H. ‘Dragon’s Eye’, H. ‘So Lovely’, H. ‘Prairie Blue Eyes‘, and H. ‘Mauna Loa’.  It’s funny that H. ‘Demetrius’, which is shorter than and right next to ‘Mauna Loa’ is doing fine, yet I can’t find the ‘Mauna Loa’ plant through the foliage this year.

So, I guess this is probably my first “real” garden journal post this year.  I hope you enjoyed looking at the flowers, and reading their story … and I hope to have plenty more good adventures in the daylily beds to report.

Continue thinking good thoughts for my healing  journey … I never thought I’d find myself saying, “I wish I could weed”!

Related to this article:

• Why crutches?
• American Hemerocallis Society

Related posts:

1. Daylily Photos of the Day
2. Daylily Macro Photography
3. A Gallery of Daylilies