Colors of Summer

Aug6

Unlike many parts of the world our area has been getting rain this summer, and if I can just review my mental records of last year’s weather, the pattern hasn’t been much different than this year. Last year we had cold, crap, crap, crap, a nice day, too dry, dry, too dry, rain, crap, and then rain, and I think this year is similar. Maybe more humid but I don’t keep as accurate records for the humidity. In any case the plants, both good and not-so-good, are enjoying this summer growing weather, and the gardener is sick of mowing. He loves the green sward of lush turf when freshly mown but that lasts two days out of six, and on the seventh day he can’t rest because he’s mowing again. But green is a nice setting for lush and colorful flowers, much nicer than straw is.

The border along the street is wild and buggy and probably messier than a border along the street ought to be. Maybe it should be shorter with more mulch. One out of one teenagers will agree.

With all the focus this year on getting the garden to a point where it looks nice, plus rain helping with the annuals and a decent mulching last year to keep the weeds at bay, I have to say the garden looks nice and sometimes on a cooler, bug-free afternoon with the light just right it looks amazing, but that’s one biased viewpoint. That same person can ignore a bunch of messy spots and unfinished projects, but as long as the sun hits the rudbeckia at just the right angle and gives them a summertime glow… that’s amazing.

Brown and orange are not my go-to colors,and this might not be the perfect lighting, but when they show up in these comfortably warm temperatures I’m 100% on board. Rudbeckia triloba ‘Prairie Glow’ is currently in the lead for orangy, although I do need to pull out some of the plain yellows, particularly the shorter-petaled, rounder flowered ones… which I do not like…

There is plenty of color this week, in multiple shades, on plants which are not wilting and browning, but even in a normal summer there are some plants which I’m always happy to see rolling into August. Agapanthus are on that list. If you’ve followed this blog you might be tired of the bragging but here they are one more time. My growing clump of agapanthus ‘Blue Yonder’, fully hardy with no protection down to winter lows around zero F (-18C), and carefree in a full sun spot with decent soil.

Agapanthus ‘Blue Yonder’ in full bloom with another week or two to go. A deep color and plentiful secondary buds to extend the show, but not as fertile as some of the other hardy agapanthus and as a result I haven’t had any seedlings from this one… yet…

There’s a good chance I’m just lucky with this agapanthus, but I’m seeing a few more of these around as more cultivars have been introduced. A gas station had two huge clumps of probably ‘Galaxy Blue’ and ‘Galaxy White’ planted along the street and based on nothing else remaining of the rest of the landscaping, I think these are pretty carefree… until they’re not, and I’ve heard of others having mixed results so…

Windblown black eyed susans and the cannas and coleus I planted just before heading out to Buffalo. Not impressive but I think in another month they will add to the list of AMAZING 😉 -apologies for the trashy mulch of lawn clippings.

Speaking of mixed results, border phlox (P. paniculata) were a favorite here until they decided they hated me, so since then I’ve been through anger, denial, acceptance, and some serious self-reflection as I try my best to figure out how it’s my fault. I don’t know. All I know is they’re relatively awesome again this year even if I lost most of the heirloom named sorts which I had spent years collecting. I did rip out two of the three ‘Limelight’ hydrangea which were taking the bed over, and I did toss some fertilizer their way this spring. I think, because like many things here they’re done by the seat of my pants.

Phlox paniculata seedlings taking their rightful place in the summer border. Better gardeners may scoff at the unimproved colors but I’m pleased.

Since I’ve lost most of the named forms, what I’m left with are the terrible inferior forms which garden books, and probably the internet too as AI steals mankind’s knowledge base, warn you about. “Muddy colors” and “magenta” are what you get and apparently that’s my taste.

Muddy and magenta phlox seedlings, plus the last ‘Limelight’ hydrangea since I need at least one in here. The darker-eyed and anything which veers towards reddish are favorite phlox seedling colors here.

Don’t get me wrong, I covet the dark purple and saturated reds of modern phlox cultivars, but they don’t hang on forever in my garden like these survivors do. Also the modern hybrids seem to be bred with a shelf-life in mind and a height which works well in a gallon pot on a big-box nursery bench, and I like phlox you can walk through, so strong stems and up to five or even six feet height are more my taste. Okay 3-4 feet tall is probably more sensible but I don’t mind higher. What I do mind is mildew and anything under 2 feet. I rarely have any mildew on these, and toss the ones which show signs.

Phlox with a nice white star in the center are also popular in this garden. We had a few cool nights recently and that makes the white more distinct, they seem to fade in warmer weather.

If you’re still reading it probably means you have some tolerance or at least a curiosity in gardeners with poor taste so we might as well take a look at the waste area in the far back. I did plant things and throw down topsoil but the “things” were daylilies and cannas, and with the exception of some classic zinnas, the area still leans towards weeds…. especially after the rain. It also didn’t help when I allowed Jimsonweed (Datura stramoniom) to come up and flourish, but it looked so lush and healthy and I kind of like it for some odd reason, in spite of its stink when brushed up against and the millions of seeds it will produce if allowed. I did pull dozens, but enough remain and I enjoy the white and purple flowers which open each evening and fade each morning. If you have a little time to kill it’s a fascinating plant with its medicinal and spiritual uses (<-click for the Wikipedia entry) and you might already know that the common name derives from Jamestown weed, where soldiers sent to Jamestown Virgina to quell a colonial rebellion, ended up high for over a week after “consuming” the weed. Another fun-fact is that even in colonial times growing Jimsonweed in the garden was considered inappropriate. It was used for incantations, and the European witches were using it for their witch’s flying ointment, so I can only assume those colonial witches were doing the same. All this makes me wonder what the neighbors really think about whats growing in this garden and what the gardener is really up to.

Super-tasteful dahlias and cannas alongside the zinnia patch, with Jimsonweed beginning to tower over the daylily beds on the left.

So before we spend too much time going on about getting high off weeds and AI starts recommending Jimsonweed plantings for medicinal and hallucinogenic properties, lets finish off this post. I shall highlight only one daylily. ‘Jersey Spider’ is an unexceptional gold color with large flowers but is an excellent plant. A long season with plenty of rebloom on additional stalks makes it a favorite.

The daylily ‘Jersey Spider’ looked great 24 hours ago with even more rebloom stalks plus seed pods to play with for next year… except a deer or two wandered by last night and beheaded the plant. It’s amazing how they sense my favorite plants just to destroy them.

So you got off easy with only one daylily photo. Let me end with a longer shot which still looks nice even though I haven’t yet added to the berm plantings.

The pots were looking nice yesterday as well. The deer also grazed some of the succulents so it looks worse today but whatever, at least they haven’t shown any interest in the petunias.

So a pretty upbeat post in spite of the deer assault last night. Things look nice and most of the worst of the work is done… which should be good but it also gets me antsy. What should I be doing with my time? The houseplants love the heat and humidity and maybe I should take cuttings and divide things. Do I have enough annuals? I set up the drip irrigation in spots, and adding more containers really doesn’t add any more work so maybe I need more pots?

I would order mulch but every time I think about it, the tuition bills yell at me. Hopefully the beds can handle a skipped year or two while we work through this. Maybe a GoFund me is a good idea. Not for college bills but for mulch of course, and if it takes off I’ll add a water garden and greenhouse… never mind. Stay cool, hope you get the rain you need, and hopefully August brings you all the enjoyment and relaxation you need.

Almost There

Jul9

So it’s the night before we head up to Buffalo for ‘The Fling’! and of course I’m unprepared. Naturally you would think I could focus on something like finding a phone charger or making sure the car has gas, but instead, after weeks of neglecting this blog my priority is to put a post up. Perhaps it’s the peer pressure of peers I have yet to meet? They’re all fellow bloggers or garden writers or videographers or who knows what else, but they all have a thing in common, and that’s a regular online presence so I think I should dust off my presence real quick before I go.

These cannas have been sitting in a black garbage bag on the driveway for two months… but suddenly it’s a priority to get them planted, and a weed a bed that’s been covered in weeds all spring…

So why am I not ready? There were good intentions when I went through the laundry to see if I had a few stain-free shirts to pack, but then I ended up cleaning out the whole closet, the car needed air in a tire so out came the vacuum, towels and windex to detail the whole interior, there were a few coleus cuttings to plant so I fertilized everything in the garden before spraying all the daylilies with deer repellant… they haven’t been sprayed at all this year… and that takes me to the cannas. I took a look at my nails and realized the dogs had better manicures than I did so there I sat with soap and a brush, clippers and a file, and cleaned them all up, but then went outside for “one last” look at the garden and ended up ripping out tons of daisies to make room for the cannas. Don’t even ask if I wore the gloves which were sitting just a few feet away.

The cannas did not go into the tropical bed. That’s become a mess of self-sown wildflowers and a few neglected daylilies even though tropicals are what should really line this path to the pool.

I will claim that it’s not my fault, and I’m sure my nails will clean right up now that they’ve been warned, so might as well mow the lawn quick.

The daylilies are very nice now that we had some rain. Here they are alongside the Queen of the Pairie who is looking more tired each year.

Truth is I really don’t want to leave the garden. I rarely say this but after enduring the heat, and choosing the path of watering, and then a day and night of steady rain, the garden looks good. Not REALLY good as in there are no weeds in sight and the mulch is fresh and it looks like someone gave thought to design, but it looks like a riot of color, all flowery on top of green on top of plants which seem happy to be there and I’m loving it this week.

Ending on a houseplant? Philodendron maybe ‘White Princess’ out for her summer vacation and loving the heat and humidity.

So I want to enjoy it but sometimes time away is good as well. I could use some adult supervision and maybe another point of view will steer me away from obsessing about houseplants which also just happened. They look so happy with all the rain and warmth and maybe I bought a new palm to see if it would stop my obsessing over that palm for the last two weeks, but for now I need reasons why I shouldn’t go any further. Just because my philodendron has roots searching for some kind of support doesn’t mean I should just build something for it and repot it and start growing big leaved things on moss poles… no that’s a bad idea. This is why I need to get away. I’m sure being with a group of garden-crazy plant people for four days is just what I need to come back to reality.

But I’m keeping the palm no matter what anyone says. Have a great week!

A Party

Jul3

There was a little pressure this spring on cleaning up the garden and getting it visitor-ready. Parts are often nice enough, but to have the whole thing somewhat weeded and looking respectable all on the same date is not how things roll here, but a graduation party in the garden sounded nice (it was), even if the process of getting there seemed like a brutal amount of work(it was) combined with expensive combined with the many ‘ifs’ of weather and bugs and number of guests and reliability of plumbing etc. In retrospect it’s possible there was more than one occasion where the dad of the grad thought it would be a whole lot easier to just write a check and show up, but of course that always comes at a point when it’s too late to change the path of the massive tanker we’ve set into motion.

Visitors didn’t seem to mind having signage blocking the view of the rock garden. I guess not everyone came to see plants…

I think it worked out well. As is typical here there were a few ‘haha gotcha’ moments where tent sizes were a surprise and cars started acting up and maybe we should go to the Energency room, but if you get home by 3:30am I think it’s still just a visit, and not an overnight stay so all is well.

The party begins. Clouds kept things cooler and the rain stayed away!

As is the norm for me only about four photos were taken of the whole event, and three were attempts to get someone to keep their eyes open, so there’s not much proof of the evening but I believe some of the kids had cameras and maybe a few other pictures were taken. It was a good time. My mantra for the day and perhaps a few days prior was ‘it’s fine’ and that really cuts down on the stress and mania. A neighbor once told me that people who know, know enough to not say anything, and the rest won’t notice, and that was my guiding light as I considered the trim in the house which shouldn’t still be missing after six years and the unfinished deck details which were put on hold the day before our last big party (*cough* two years ago).

The potager is awash with a white froth of Erigeron annuus, which sounds far less fancy when you call it fleabane, and lesser still when you admit pretty much everything blooming white in the garden is technically a weed.

If our guests noticed a bunch of flaws they were nice enough to keep it to themselves (or to just a few closer friends) and there were no awkward confrontations about growing pokeweed or having clover in the lawn. If awkward was in place it was mostly on my part as I deflected compliments and undercut the work it took and then changed the conversation back to the food and the graduate’s plans. Then is quickly became awkward again when I had no answers on how the graduate and her parents were going to pay for her next few years at Clemson University.

The firepit and ‘waste area’ did not frighten people off this year. A planting of zinnias came into bloom just in time, and the weeds which were smothered to create this bed are politely dying… I hope…

So how did the garden measure up? People mentioned it. They said it looked great, and it was the steps up the berm and my little calamondin “orange tree” which brought on the most questions and compliments. I was happy to see the calomondin getting so much attention since my fingers were crossed for the last month or so hoping for at least a few orange fruits to remain.

One of the planters at the base of the berm steps. Thanks go to my friend Kimberley at Cosmos and Cleome for the color and plant consult for these planters, I do like how it all turned out.

Perhaps the garden really did look good. The berm had been weedwacked and that probably distracted people from the uncut meadow which has grown well now that it’s less shaded. Two aspens were cut this spring to give the meadow more light, and more importantly to keep the lanternflies away from the stone wall. Lanternflies really don’t damage stone walls, but when they sit in an aspen tree above it and pee 24/7 the stone develops a black smut of moldy honeydew, plus the idea that the ‘mist’ you feel is insect excretions does not make for a pleasant garden stroll, so the trees were cut and the stones were powerwashed. Also for good measure I capped the end of the wall with a few pavers so there’s another flat spot for more containers of succulents. I was getting a little anxious over a topsy-turvy collection of pots along the top of the wall so the pavers are my solution for a more level collection, but a whole wall capped in pavers is a lot. In a moment of inspiration -fueled by rabbits decimating my ground level planting of hens and chicks- I wondered if I could just dump plants on top of the wall and perhaps hope for an elevated safe space where they could grow in spite of having no soil. I don’t think it’s the craziest idea. Hens and Chicks are also referred to as houseleeks, roof foil, thunderplant, homewort, and the scientific name of Sepervivum tectorum roughly translates to ‘always-living’ and ‘of roofs’ so I think throwing them on a stone wall is perfectly fine for a plant which is already accustomed to being thrown on roofs. Watch them die now, that would be just my luck, and as far as the rabbits go? I already saw one perched on top of the wall nibbling around, so my plan may still have a few gaps, but at least in theory my stone wall is protected from lightning strike and perhaps evil in general as per the sempervivum entry in wikipedia.

A freshly washed and planted stone wall with orange butterfly weed in the meadow and stone steps in the distance. Looks classy until you realize the dish garden at the front filled with succulents is actually our old satellite dish.

Don’t get the wrong impression. A cleaned up wall and some weed control on the berm can barely keep up with the eternal pull of chaos, and there are still a plethora of weeds and borderline decisions to cope with. It’s turned hot and the next few days will force a decision on (1)water it and keep things going for the summer or (2)let the heat fry things and then just rip it all out for the ‘spare’ look. So far I’ve been watering.

Never fear, there are still plenty of weeds such as milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) keeping things on the wild side. I’ve begun to look forward to their flowering and fragrance, even if my milkweed doesn’t bring all the monarchs to my yard.

The forecast shows a few thunderstoms on the 7-day and that’s hopeful, because I did plant a few more annuals this year as per a graduate’s request for pink/pale yellow/ and purple, and annuals are not as forgiving as the perennials.

Annual pink thunbergia (blackeyed susan vine), actual black eyed susans (rudbeckia) and some red hot pokers (kniphofia) in a bed which was weeded but could use it again.

So next week’s weather will determine how the rest of summer goes. It’s pretty hot right now (96F/35C) and humid but as long as a little water comes their way things should be fine. It’s not like I’m growing delphimiums and meconopsis and other cool weather things, this garden is set to thrive or just endure a hot summer and not faint as soon as the gardener cracks a sweat… which he did already this morning, just on a walk about with the dogs…

More red hot pokers (Kniphofia). An appropriate plant for the day.

Hmmm. This is the miserable kind of heat where it’s fun to go to daylily farms and see how they and their growers are surviving. Of course they’re full sun plants so that’s even better but for now I shall not burden you with the glories which are begining to open in the daylily farm… which by the way is still operating far far far in the red without a single actual sale…

Another hot color for a hot day, Heliopsis ‘Bleeding Hearts’ is easy and long blooming.

But before I visit any daylily farms I have bus-full of other visits to make. This summer and actually next weekend specifically I’m joining up with the Garden Blogger’s Fling aka ‘The Fling‘ taking place in and around Buffalo NY this year. “THE FLING is an annual meetup of garden bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, podcasters, and other online self-publishers since 2008″ and it’s a networking meetup which sounds quite official for someone who’s not a networker and can barely get a post up once a month, but I’m going anyway. There are a ton of gardens to visit and it’s just a four hour drive away and a few of my garden friends and future friends are also going to be there so I’m excited. Back in 2017 I almost went to the DC/VA fling, back when it was mostly just bloggers wanting to meet in person and hang out in too many gardens together, but was too scared to ask the boss for time off from an 8 and 10 yr old… but now? Our new graduate and even older graduate might not even know I’m gone.

If will be fun. I just have to watch myself because thinking back a year and reflecting upon other awkward moments which live forever in my head but barely register to others, there’s this interaction: I was talking plants for 30 minutes with a new friend and they asked what other hobbies I had. It caught me off guard. To what ends could this possibly go, so I panicked and said none. Hmmm. Silence and what looked like escape glances. I spent the next two hours driving home and reminding myself that I have a family who I love, a job which brings something new each day, and books and outdoor adventures and weird curiosities… all those things which escaped me at the moment. This time I’ll be prepared. I’ll be a networking machine just as long as no one expects me to remember their name or the names of anyone I’ve know for less than two years because that’s kind of a challenge as well, so wish me luck! And stay cool, it’s miserable out here.

Flock Finger Lakes Visits

Aug17

Given the choice I will always turn down the stage and hide on the sidelines, but not everyone thinks that way, and where I naturally hate speaking in front of people, they do not. It amazes me to see this and to see people on stage, out front, capturing people’s attention and engaging an audience with ease and doing things like creating YouTube channels and traveling all over the world exploring places and talking to people. I met two of these people a few weeks ago, Summer Rayne who you’ll meet and Sander behind the camera, and they put together a video which I think is pretty cool. I’m sharing it here in spite of the fact I really prefer to feature plants instead of myself but I guess it’s one of those moments when I have to pull up the pants and be a big boy. Not bad for someone who not so long ago thought having a hand as part of a picture on this blog was too revealing… now there’s a whole ‘me’ on this blog, talking as well, complete with ratty t-shirt, who-knows-what hair and an old man scowl but whatever… I’ve already overthought this too much. >here’s a link<

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I did, they did an amazing job directing and keeping me on track, and Summer Rayne’s interest and enthusiasm really keeps the video fun. Biscuit helps as well, he’s got quite the stage presence and I hope he remembers us when Hollywood comes calling. In all I’m surprised at how well it turned out, the garden looks much better and more interesting than I see it on the daily, and at one point I turned to my daughter (we had a viewing party) and told her I wished I could visit that place. It was magical. Surprise and magic, that’s my attempt to turn things back around to plants, because late August is the start of Surprise aka magic lilies season…. also known as hurricane lilies or naked ladies but perhaps those are two things we shall not bring in to today’s post.

Pink magic lilies (Lycoris squamigera) are probably the most common magic lily to show up in the north. They seem to do best when abandoned and neglected so here they are amongst the trash and stored debris of the compost pile.

Things can get a little tedious mid August, as the heat and rain/not-rain drag on, but magic lilies can break that up nicely. Out of nowhere stalks shoot up and burst into bloom all in a matter of days, and it really can be a surprise to see them out and blooming… unless they’re not. The not-part is where the disclaimer comes in. These plants can be jerks. They can sulk, fade away, take a year off, they’re not like Biscuit, all excited and anxious to please, they’re more like cats and don’t really care about what you want. Sun? Not that sun, I want shade until it’s too much shade. Feed me but not that food, but I know I’m hungry… Here are more flowers than you can imagine, no wait… I’m not feeling it this year…

Lycoris sanguinea, the orange surprise lily is apparently feeling it this year. It’s in a terrible spot but I don’t dare move it since there may be another four year gap in blooms as it works through whatever insult it feels.

The magic lilies don’t last all that long, but there are (hopefully) a few more later varieties yet to bloom. If you can drag yourself out through the humidity and bugs at least they give something new and exciting to see each morning before the heat drives you back inside. Magic lilies aren’t really true lilies, but there is a true lily I’d like to add in here as another reason to brave the outdoors. The Formosan lily (Lilium formosanum) blooms now as well, and this flower is Biscuit-approved. Not for eating of course since I think they might be toxic, but for something cool to admire in mid August this lily is… dare I say, easy? There is a dwarf form, but the ones growing here are the tall form and usually manage five feet but this year with all the rain seven plus feet is not unheard of. Fragrant, perfectly formed, like a giant easter lily (which some people don’t like, so if that’s the case skip this one) the Formosan lily can grow to blooming size in its first year from seed. I of course could never care for a plant that well, but even here they’re in flower the second year and they do seed around the garden if their seed can ripen before the first real freeze.

Pure white, fragrant flowers is what Lilium formosanum offers. Just watch out for those disgusting red lily beetles since they’re about the only thing which can bring this giant down.

I think you’ve heard enough from me today so I’ll just add one more thing. A trumpet flower, but not a lily, Brugmansia suaveolens is hitting its summer stride. This angel trumpet is a tropical shrub so I have my favorite local nursery to thank for a decent-sized plant, but I hope to overwinter it and have an even better show next year. They’re another easy to grow thing but just ask for endless water and fertilizer in order to look happy, and usually I slack in this regard but since I paid for this plant I’m really making an effort. It’s possible someone has already given me a cutting for a pink version, and perhaps I can round up a white and yellow cutting before next year and perhaps this means I’m obsessing about angel trumpets again but who’s really keeping track. It’s basically a zucchini, if you can grow that you can grow these, just without the fear of missing a harvest and ending up with a caveman club in your veggie bed. I guess I should mention that although I’m replacing zucchini plants with brugmansia in the potager, don’t nibble it during the garden tour since it’s quite poisonous.

Brugmansia suaveolens with canna ‘Bengal Tiger’ planted too closely. As long as it feels like the tropics here we might as well enjoy the look as well, and the fragrance too since the brugmansia is very fragrant once night falls.

So that’s a somewhat rushed summary of the garden. There’s more going on here and I’d like to go on about it but I’ll guess that this rambling on and a pretty long video are plenty so perhaps next post. Obviously that could be a while, this appears to be the ‘keep up with nothing’ summer and not the ‘finally post regularly, visit all my blogging friends, keep the weeds back, finish the projects’ summer which I always imagine but it’s still pretty good, even with someone needing senior pictures this afternoon rather than help with her scooter and I don’t know how that came around so fast either.

Hope you enjoy the video and the upcoming week.

The Livin’ is Easy

Jul31

This summer is going by way too fast and I am not liking that. Just a day left in July and then it’s August and once August starts my summer days are numbered, and it seems particularly frantic because I still have tulips and daffodils and snowdrops which I’ve been meaning to dig since June as well as a bunch of potted things which I’ve been whispering apologies to all spring and summer as I keep putting off that job as well. Don’t even ask me how the drip irrigation is going. It’s been raining enough that watering has rarely come up on the to-do list, so of course repairing the drip setup keeps getting knocked off the top of the list, and I mention that one in particular because I had to go around this morning and save wilted things since of course I don’t water until it’s too late. Have I mentioned in the last few breaths how much I hate watering? Probably, but let me say it again. I’d rather risk heatstroke weeding in the sun for a couple hours dripping sweat and covered in dirt rather than drag that stupid hose around.

The front border is lush and overgrown due to this summer’s steady rains. Even I think it might be a little “much” for along the street, but better too much than too little is what I say. This is lilium “Scheherazade” doing well, and also not on the lily beetle menu (yet) so that’s also good.

Risking heatstroke and actual heatstroke aren’t separated by much, and with our third day over 90F (32+C) I’m trying to walk the line and avoid drifting over to the actual part. Despite my love of lawn chairs and pool floats I’ve been far too busy outside feeding the gnats and losing water weight as I toil in the fields. Maybe that’s not the worst training considering our potential future, but for now I do it for the fun of gardening and imagine Martha and Monty just as sweaty and disgusting in the heat of summer when they have their own daylily farms to rebuild.

A daylily farm is rising from the ashes. I’ve regraded and seeded the grass path, and as of today I’m happy to report a green shimmer as the seeds begin to sprout.

My gosh, please skip ahead if you want to avoid the complaining, but it all started when I called the town a few days into staring at the bulldozed remains of my daylilies. ‘So what’s the plan?’ I asked… and then entered into a discussion which became quite vigorous after I realized they thought I wanted to do all the repairs myself. I did say that at the start when a hole at the street meant putting a few rocks back and maybe replanting a ninebark, but when the bulldozer and destruction moved twenty more feet into my yard and left a swath of raw shale and compacted topsoil, I assumed they might be able to spot me a little topsoil and mulch, even if they didn’t replace the farm or do any of the actual work. A meeting was set up. In the meantime I got to work.

First try to save a few things. About half the daylilies were left with crowns so I uncovered them and gave them a little feed. A few other things were uncovered along the street, and there might be hope for them over the next few weeks. All my stones were buried, but one of the backhoe operators set aside a few new ones he found, and I got brave and split a bigger one to end up with two big stepping stones along the street. The basketball hoop went back and then I regraded my little grass path. In all I probably pickaxed and hauled off about 20 wheelbarrows of stony, shaley dirt to lower the grade and then tried to spread whatever topsoil they left into the beds. That was awful, backbreaking work but then because I like a nice edge to a new lawn path, I dug up turf from in back and used it as sod to line the sides of the path. Then the easy part of seed, topped with lawn clippings to keep the seed damp long enough to sprout, and then wait. As of today, about a week later, the daylilies are sending up new growth, the grass seed is sprouting, and I’ve even popped in a few odds and ends like a new daylily or two, and some spare cannas and elephant ears to make it look less depressing.

There’s hope.

Since I took these photos, the town has come through with some mulch and topsoil, so more blood and sweat was shared for that, and we will see about the rest of the deal. Hopefully the next farm report will be overwhelmingly amazing. I have put some mulch down so I know at least that will be nice, and I’m in the process of picking daylilies to move in…. but enough of that… let’s look at where the rest of the garden is during these last days of July.

The agapanthus are blooming, and over the years ‘Blue Yonder’ has become a clump. I love it.

I have nothing bad to say about the agapanthus this year. They get no special attention yet are covered with blooms and have been perfectly hardy here for a number of years, with winter lows down to about zero and no protective mulch or sheltered location. It looks like a few have enjoyed all this year’s rains, but even in dry years they haven’t seemed to complain too much. I guess they’re as easy as daylilies, so I wonder if I can divide ‘Blue Yonder’ (my absolute favorite) and line out a row in the farm…. which would be awesome…

Some agapanthus from seed. These are A. campanulatus forms, the seeds of which were coincidentally saved from the bulldozers during the last sewer incident.

I guess I need to mention that not all agapanthus will be as hardy. If you’re in a northern area, check up on the hardiness rating before you plant it, out in full sun of course and then never do another thing for it other than admire the blooms and bask in the compliments.

A dwarf white form given to me as seedlings from a white Seneca Hills Nursery(Ellen Hornig) selection.

Here’s one more look at ‘Blue Yonder’ 😉

‘Blue Yonder’ has a richer color and flower heads packed with later flower buds, giving it a longer bloom time than some of the others.

I don’t know if I’d consider the agapanthus to be borderline hardy in my zone, I guess only a truly brutal winter would settle that, but I do consider some of the Crinum lilies I have planted to be borderline. Two other forms are less than enthusiastic about life here in NePa but ‘Cecil Houdyshel’ increases in size and puts out a couple flower stalks each year so we shall only talk about that one.

Crinum ‘Cecil Houdyshel’ in front of the dark foliage of ‘Royal Purple’ smokebush, alongside the driveway. Very elegant in my opinion.

As you would suspect, I don’t give this one any winter protection, and after our normal lows last year I was a little worried, but slowly he came back to life. All the rain and humidity and heat must really have him feeling at home this summer, so hopefully there will be several more bloom stalks to come.

Cecil has a decent form, not as sloppy a mess as some crinum like to be but that’s just my opinion based on one plant and almost no other crinum experience.

Seems like we’ve left the daylily farm for a Southern excursion, so here’s another thing from down South. Standing cypress (Ipomopsis rubra) is a native to Southeastern North America, or plain America as we in the US like to say, and it’s a cool thing. The hummingbirds agree, and they’re aways buzzing this part of the garden when it’s blooming. Two things though. Everywhere I see it referred to as a biennial or short lived perennial and that’s fine, these plants are from a new seed source and they grew fuzzy rosettes last year with a five foot stalk erupting this summer, but the ones I grow from another source are strictly annuals and never form rosettes and never live beyond year one. Who knows. It’s above my pay grade to wonder if they are all the same species but these are the curiosities which live in my brain so I’m sorry to put it in yours now.

Ipomopsis rubra, paired with the lovely neon green foliage of pokeweed (Phytolacca americana ‘Sunny Side Up’)

The potager is another curiosity. I wonder if I can still call it a potager when 90% of the plantings are not-vegetables, but can’t quite bring myself to admit it’s become another flower farm. Perhaps there’s an authoritative number listed somewhere in France for potager percentages but do supposedly-edible dahlia roots and figs-which-will-never-produce-figs count as veggies and fruit?

Cannas are blooming quite well in and around the potager. This is ‘Cannanova Rose’, an easy, quick to bloom selection which even comes true from seed.

Whatever. Potager it shall remain. If I can get away with calling a couple rows of daylilies a farm than I can stick with potager for this.

My little tropical hiding spot in the potager. Bananas are totally edible and potager approved even if there’s next to no chance I’ll ever see fruit, but the foliage makes up for any missing banana harvest.

I refuse to share a photo of my pathetically anemic tomatoes or the deer-chewed pepper stubs but I will share a single phlox photo. Only one because the rain-fueled hydrangeas have crowded nearly everything else out, but one should get the point across.

The garden phlox are a little late due to an early season deer pruning but they’re finally making a show.

Can I put in a good word for pears? As of today the tree is overloaded with a heavy crop, and although the gardener should have thinned them out for better quality (and to save the tree from collapse) my hope is that a few escape the deer and squirrels and chipmunks and make it to the dinner table. A bushel of Bartlett pears will really put the potager accounting into the black in a way that 3 raspberries, 7 gooseberries, and a half handful of blueberries will not. Someone really should have netted the berry bushes rather than continuously hope the birds ‘miss a few’.

This year’s Bartlett pear crop, heavier each day and hopefully not too heavy.

Maybe the berries didn’t go far in feeding the household, but they did contribute to a steady stream of fledglings coming out of the garden. I don’t really mind the loss, and actually resist netting the fruits since the dopey youngsters tend to get tangled and I prefer a fruitless pancake over a traumatic bird un-netting.

Yet another robin leaving the nest.

So that’s where we’re at. A lot of rambling so I’m wondering if perhaps the heat got to me more than I care to admit but hopefully there was something of interest in there. In spite of all the work summer is still quite excellent and so is the air conditioning when the heat gets to be too much so I really can’t complain. Enjoy your week!

A Clean Slate

Jul23

Well here’s a first. I had photos and a post started, with the usual apologies about the delay and how the pictures were already outdated, and promises to do better next time, and how this would still be the year things turn around completely and I bringing timely posts and amazing content, and then I deleted it. Not through some silly mistake, but because things changed here so much that none of it mattered anymore, and all that anticipation for the daylily farm season became pointless. I liked my daylily farm. It was fun. You may have already noticed the past tense.

I shouldn’t like all the soft colors and fancy ruffles on this Brookside Beauty seedling but I do.

So let me start the story by saying the farm was amazing a week ago with overcrowded plants blooming at their peak with more buds than ever before. It was a garden filled to capacity and I was almost willing to say it looked perfect… except what gardener ever thinks their garden looks perfect… but it was closer than I usually get so things were quite pleasing. I could almost finish the entire morning coffee in the daylily farm alone, and outside the dog becoming bored stuck in one place so long it was the place to be.

I’m starting to like the browns and smoky colors as well. They’re not as showy but…

I even reached the point were I said I really have to do something here, they’re getting crowded and it’s time for a few to move on. Some pictures were taken. A marketing and sales plan was put together. The daylily farm was about to become a cash cow I’m sure 😉

Another pale, yet simpler bloom, ‘Bus Stop’ calms the morning sun on a day which breaks humid and hot.

‘Lake Lurie’ has a paler eye zone and guess what? I’m really starting to like these as well

Here’s one last picture of the daylily farm. I took it with the intentions of posting a sale for anyone local who was interested in helping me clear the fields. Notice the backhoe near the street.

One last farm picture. Peak bloom. The grim reaper sits at the street, slightly hidden by the golden ninebark.

That photo became the before picture for when I needed to show the township just how much was lost. A sewer issue for the house next door warranted a hole near the street for repairs. They told me what needed to be done and I said no problem. “We’ll fix it back as good or better” was the promise, and there was the possibility they’d go as far as five feet in from the street and I might possibly lose the yellow ninebark which blocks some of the excavator from sight in the before picture.

Destruction. The whole daylily farm is bulldozed as well as the lawn and some of the front border.

I was home at the time and had checked in after they dug down to the sewer line. I saw the ninebark go and was a little sad but that’s fine, I was warned. Of course the air conditioning broke that same day so when the repairman came by and we walked out there to check on the unit I almost went into shock when I saw how far things went. Some of the line was damaged during digging, some of the hole collapsed in from under the street, the holes go down at least ten feet and we needed a bigger hole and that’s a lot of dirt and it had to go somewhere. The destroyed daylilies were one thing but snowdrops were also in the area, and it’s not promising to imagine a tiny bulb an inch or two down in the soil being able to stand its ground against a four ton excavator. The daylilies I can replace but the snowdrops not so much. Of course there were a few real expensive ones planted on the edges of the farm beds and around the weeping spruce.

Welcome to Garret Hill Daylilies, a real daylily farm. Where better to go when you’ve lost nearly 100 large, blooming clumps!?

Fortunately the trials of this garden are all manageable. Things could be much worse and most importantly my mom was able to visit just the week before when everything was much cheerier. I’ve already started the repairs, and no, they’re not doing them I am because I want it just so and their version of landscaped might not match mine. I can’t really fault them. Things happen, they could have let me know when they were coming so far onto my property, but when you’re ten feet down in a hole which could collapse around you I understand that’s a little more important. We’re still working out the details of what will make it right again.

The dust is still settling and I’ve already picked up three new clumps to ease the pain! Money can’t buy happiness but it can buy daylilies at least and that’s a start.

So I visited my local daylily farm, Garret Hill Daylilies in Honesdale Pa and started the unnecessary task of finding replacements. Yes I need replacements and they have so many cool varieties available but who among you thought I wouldn’t have a few backups around my own garden? I do and they need moving and more room but I think the healing process should include daylily farms and even more new daylilies 🙂

This one could be divided and for some reason I really like the wide open flowers even if I can’t remember the name at this moment.

The one downside is I’m repairing the damage and creating nearly the same garden as I had before and that’s totally not how I like to roll. Deja vu should be a mysterious feeling, not the realization that I did this all two years ago when my own sewer line was dug for different reasons. I’m building back better which is good, but I wouldn’t be doing this if I had the choice.

Daylilies in with the tomatoes? A good excuse to not plant as many vegetables, but these guys really deserve more room and their own space.

So that’s where I’m at. I get new plants and just have to ignore bulldozer tracks, crushed plants, deer visits, lanternfly plagues, gnat swarms, too much lawn mowing, too much container plant watering, and all the other surprises which a gardener deals with each year. It’s what we sign up for so please don’t feel bad for me, I’m really not upset about it anymore and the only thing still annoying me is the mud and waiting for mulch to arrive.

Hope your July is far less dramatic and you’re enjoying summer as much as I am! …hmmm, reading that back it sounds mildly sarcastic, but summer really is pretty excellent even when you’re losing shoes in the mud and the sweat is running down your face. There’s always the pool and a drink followed by lightning bugs and a fragrant night blooming daylily and you can’t get that in November. Have a great week 🙂

Pineapple Season

Aug9

It’s pineapple season here at Sorta Suburbia, and that would be the bloom season of sorta-pineapples, aka pineapple lilies, aka Eucomis in case you were wondering. Eucomis are an easy to grow South African bulb which I’ve recently discovered are hardier than you’d think.

eucomis oakhurst sparkling burgundy seedling

‘Oakhurst’ is a form of Eucomis comosa which comes up with dark purple foliage and and stems. This seedling comes up dark but fades a bit in the heat and dry of July, but I suspect its named parent would do the same here.

The first bulbs which I risked leaving in the ground year round were a bunch of ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ seedlings which just came out of nowhere one year. Actually I sowed the seed two years before so it was entirely my fault they were here and I had more than I needed, but from my experiences they sprout easily from seed. Mine were sprinkled into a pot one January, covered with a thin layer of grit and thrown out onto the sidewalk next to the garage to sit until the freezing weather until spring when they sprouted. Simple enough, right? I’m sure you have your own methods but sometimes I feel people are too impressed when I say something was grown from seed, so let me just say don’t be. Plants do it all the time, and I find the biggest struggle is getting the gardener to actually get them in the dirt.

Seedlings of Eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ planted in too much shade near the house foundation. They would likely be darker and less-floppy in more sun.

Once you have the plants going there’s not much else to do. Mine are in full sun to part shade, decent soil, ok drainage… they’re not difficult. Since this is not always a well-cared for garden I can say with authority they don’t particularly like really poor soil or a real hot and dry location, but a little attention to watering and feeding in your own garden would fix that.

Eucomis bicolor after its first winter in the ground. The speckling on this plant is a nice touch.

The first experimental plantings of the E. comosa seedlings is now pushing probably eight years with no fussing on my part and not a single plant has been lost. Our winters can dip below zero (-18C) as a winter low and the ground freezes deeper than the bulbs are, so I’d say they’re pretty hardy. Silly me to not think that any of their pineapple lily cousins would also be hardy, but it took a friend showing a photo of his plantings online for me to get that message. I left my E. bicolor bulbs out last winter and they were also fine. Our winter was extremely mild so I can’t personally say these are also exceptionally hardy, but word is they can be.

The flower details on the blooms of Eucomis bicolor are always cool. Maybe a few more seedlings and a bigger patch of this could be justified.

I’ve also been told there’s a really good chance my dearest pet of a Eucomis could also be perfectly hardy. ‘Freckles’ is smaller growing hybrid of E. vandermerwei that has been enjoying the potted life here for at least ten years. Pot goes out in the spring, pot goes into the garage in the fall, and sits in the dry dark for six months until the process repeats. It’s a no-brain process, but some would suggest I have too many plants in pots, so perhaps this will also break free of the potted life either this summer or next spring.

Eucomis ‘Freckles’ is a lower growing plant which shows the cool purple mottling of the species E. vandermerwei. It’s a late summer bloomer and is just starting to send up its little ‘pineapples’.

Two weeks ago the gardener here was looking for empty terra cotta pots and there was nothing to be found, so he decided he was bored with his last Eucomis, E. autumnalis, so he tossed it onto the compost pile. So much for that. After all these new thoughts on hardiness he has gone through the compost, found the roots, and given it a spot in one of the beds. Autumnalis looks a little worse for wear for its ‘adventure’ but in this garden that barely stands out.

Eucomis ‘Freckles’ from a prior year. Quite an adorable little thing in or out of bloom.

So that’s it for my pineapple lily sales pitch. One disclaimer is that the bloom stalks often flop after a couple weeks, but you’ll have to see for yourself if that bothers you or is worth staking for… and you can guess what my opinion on that is… and the final fun fact is that Eucomis can be somewhat easily propagated via leaf cuttings. If you’ve never done it give leaf cuttings a try, to me it’s one of those odd things which shouldn’t work but it does. Chop a leaf into two inch sections, stick them right side up into some potting soil and wait. Small roots and eventually bulbs will form and there you go. Snake plants (Sansevieria) will also work this way, so if you’re out of pineapple lilies try a snakeplant for now.

All the best for an excellent weekend. We are weathering the downpours of tropical storm Debby today which will be followed by cooler, dryer weather and I’m not sure how I feel about the cooler part. Low 80’s is entirely seasonal but after a stretch of 90’s it sounds almost chilly and makes me think of what lies in store. Hopefully a few days of sunshine which doesn’t make you melt can make up for that. Enjoy!

Less Work

Aug6

Every August there comes a point when I realize the garden is a lot of work, and as I stand there with itchy bug bites, sweat running into my eyes, and dirt all over (with a little blood here and there too) I realize it’s not always fun either. To that end I told the boy that on second thought he’s got to take out a bigger loan for college, and I was going to go ahead and use that budget line to buy some mulch after all. Mulch is a labor-saver, it looks neat, saves on watering, and keeps the weeds down and would be an excellent way out… until it was dumped in the driveway and someone had to spread it. More work, and the boy was oddly standoffish when I suggested he help.

Agapanthus ‘Blue Yonder’ has survived transplanting and division, and I was even able to split a bit off for a friend… although deep down I still wanted to keep it all to myself since it’s such a cool plant!

So for the last week there’s been more sweat and blood given for the garden, and again I’m wondering why I’m allowed to make these decisions without any real adult supervision. It’s obviously my own fault, but in the meantime there’s been more rain (and a relentless blanket of heat and humidity) and even with additional purges for the mulch to go down the garden does look pretty good and at least now the suffering isn’t all a wasted effort.

Holy color! My latest crape myrtle addition (Lagerstroemia ‘Tuscarora’) has burst into bloom and I think it’s the greatest thing. Southerners will yawn but I’m quite pleased. Fingers crossed it can overwinter decently enough to bloom again.

Besides making my life easier by having a well-mulched garden, I’ve also continued on my quest to add an increasing number of border-line hardy plants which will need more coddling than usual in order to do well, and obviously this goes against any less-work initiatives. “Zone Pushing” is what some people call it, but I’m going to go all silly on you and claim it’s just me getting a jump on global warming. Argue any point you’d like but when each ski season is worse than the last I would suggest the zones are creeping North and sooner or later will match my horticultural hopes. Agapanthus have been doing well for a number of years (hardy deciduous forms, not the evergreen types), hardier forms of Crinum lilies have had no problem overwintering for three years, and now I’m trying Crape myrtle again. The ones I planted years ago at my parents’ house on Long Island used to freeze back regularly but are now taking on tree proportions, so I think I can at least get away with them being root-hardy if not top-hardy. The two dwarf ‘Barista’ series shrubs I planted last summer are back this year and full of buds, so there’s hope.

Our hot and dry stretch has singed most of the lawns, but for a sunflower in a crack at the end of the driveway? No problem. I’m stupid for not just growing a yard full of sunflowers.

Something which seems like it should be a lot of trouble and work, but really is not… and is also absolutely hardy as well… are the Cyclamen purpurascens which are coming into bloom now. Unlike the other species of winter-growing hardy cyclamen, these tend to be evergreen and will bloom in August over a nice cover of patterned foliage. I’m tempted to go on and on about them but I’ll spare you the rambling and just say give them a try, and if they’re not happy try them somewhere else since these took a while to find their happy place. The best patches are under the carpenter ant infested cherry tree where it appears the ants have tossed the seeds they collect after they’ve eaten off the sweet coating at the nest, and the seeds happily germinate and grow in what would seem like a terrible spot.

Cyclamen purpurascens coming into bloom in the shade of a weeping cherry. They should continue flowering for several weeks, regardless of drought or heat or humidity.

So that wasn’t bad. I was barely distracted by the first cyclamen coming into bloom, and I also didn’t even mention that I’ve been digging and examining and dividing clumps of snowdrops as I mulch my way through the garden… but I will mention the waste space instead. The weeds were neatly mown for June’s graduation party and then mown again… and again, alongside the rest of the lawn since I guess that’s what one does when you’re trying to keep things neat, but of course that’s boring. And work, and it being work isn’t a deal breaker, but when it’s also boring and pointless as well, then I must object. Better to pickaxe a shallow hole in the horribly poor soil and throw in a few pumpkin seeds. Or ‘maybe-pumpkin’ seeds since they’re seeds which have been sitting in cups on a garage shelf for years and I can’t remember which amazing pumpkin or squash or gourds contributed the seeds several autumns past.

The waste space is now a pumpkin patch. If the rains and heat keep up there might still be enough time for some kind of late season squash to ripen, and if not… squash are always fun to watch grow.

Starting a pumpkin patch wasn’t much work at all but then when the anonymous seed actually started to grow, I felt guilty that the soil was so bad. When it dried out, any attempts to water would just run off, so maybe a mulch of free municipal compost could help. Then another two runs for compost happened because there’s no sense in being skimpy with free compost… and might as well scratch in a little 10-10-10 since this is all just construction fill and even maybe-pumpkins need some help to not look anemic… and then when you’re not mowing the weeds they grow tall and might shade the maybe-pumpkins, so better pull a few… and here we are. I don’t suggest you reduce your workload by starting a pumpkin patch.

And with a pumpkin patch to distract, and maybe even a few more spur of the moment crape myrtles ordered and in need of planting, you can see how well the mulch is reducing my workload this summer. Tomorrow marks one week of it sitting in the driveway and all I did yesterday was buy another bromeliad, and all I did today was repot a begonia. I guess I’ll have to get back at it tomorrow. Or not. There are just a few more snowdrops to attend to before I can mulch, and snowdrops can’t be rushed. It will all be worth it though, no more weeding and I’ll finally be on easy street… right?

Oh those lazy days of summer. I hope you’re enjoying them as well!

Love and Hate

Jul25

We went on a little trip a few days ago and were gone for barely two days and the garden fell apart. It was mostly the fault of the weather as temperatures sat in the mid 90’s each day (35C) but it didn’t reflect well on my plantings and I was generally disgusted to see them all go to pieces in such a short time. This post would have had a much more one-sided title had I put it together that next day, but fortunately things move slowly here and I’ve had a few days to reflect and recover before putting things into words (and pictures). Plus it rained. A summer rain storm can change everything, and between that and some directed culling and chopping and fertilizing, there’s a slight air of positive vibes drifting through the yard again.

Pots of succulents can withstand quite some abuse, so are perfect for the roadtripping gardener. Tools scattered about can also make things look busier than they really are… until someone asks when the last time they were used was…

As usual much of the problem is the gardener’s fault. Normally drip lines on a timer nurse nearly all the potted plantings throughout the summer, but “I think I’ll just rip them all out since I should probably re-think the layout” happened when the deck was worked on, and re-thinking doesn’t really get water to plants as well as a drip line does. So once the gardener chose to continue gardening for the year, the first thing on the list was watering containers. It should have been repair the drip lines, but it wasn’t, and it also wasn’t the second thing. The second thing was to either cleanup, repot, or toss any of the succulents which weren’t already out on the summering wall. I’d been holding quite a few back because they weren’t quite display-ready, but after seeing how they were the only things not complaining about summer I decided to reward them with a little attention. It worked, and things look better, and best of all anything which looked sad or filled with complaints was tossed. My theory on the last succulent pots was the same as what normal people apply to their wardrobe. Anything you don’t use or love or haven’t worn yet this season goes on to the ‘goodwill pile’ and gets recycled as compost 🙂

The sloppy little stone wall is again topped with various potted succulents and somehow I’m short on pots again. That could be an easy fix but the gardener is not allowed to visit the terracotta isle any more.

Purging the pots was a relief, and then trimming the box hedge and mowing the lawn were also excellent jobs for improving the gardener’s outlook. The lawn doesn’t really need mowing, but the weeds in it do, and trimmed up they look so much better.

Then I looked at the flower beds and purged them as well. Mid summer should be a lush highlight for the garden, but the heat has taken a toll and in the mood I was in there was no room for tired plants. So now I have empty spots and need mulch, but who doesn’t like spreading mulch in the middle of summer? Fortunately that same day we also opened the envelope containing the bill for the boy’s first year of college, and seeing that ‘realigned’ how much of the budget was going into mulch purchases!

Tulips (and plenty of weeds) finally came out of this bed early in the month and all the leftover cuttings and roots and tubers from the garage went in. There is a new crape myrtle, and it’s so full of buds I don’t even care if it’s hardy or not!

Summary so far: Most of the garden has been composted, but at least it looks neat. A good rain has helped.

A few of the ‘toothy’ daylily seedlings which have been added to the garden. They’re interesting and I think I like them, but I’m more of a craftsman style, and less Louis XVI.

The gardener should stop complaining. Flowers abound, the pool is perfect, the agapanthus are starting, and nearly every evening is filled with fireflies.

A few seeds were collected off the hardy agapanthus a few weeks before they were bulldozed into oblivion and now two years later we again have blooms. I’m quite happy with them.

Maybe now we will finally get to the stupid drip irrigation. It’s not hard at all to set up, but the gardener hates crouching under the deck to run the lines, and he knows he has to do a nice job this time since everything else looks halfway decent and a bunch of lines thrown around would not show well.

Have a great week and I hope your summer garden is doing well. If not I suggest a purge, a little mulch, and maybe a new succulent and things may improve immeasurably 🙂

The Daylily Farm

Jul7

Summer is going swimmingly, and although it’s been hot we’ve been fairly lucky with rain so the plants are holding up well and the gardener is glad he doesn’t have to drag a hose around any more than he has to. Not that he would, since our gardener tends more towards lazy than to ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’, but he does feel guilty every now and then when the same plant cries out for help each time he passes and he has to mumble a “sorry, I know this wasn’t part of the deal when I brought you home”…

The daylily farm

One plant which does seem to take all the neglect in stride is the daylily (Hemerocallis). Like dahlias and cannas, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but since the gardener is a coffee drinker anyway, it was just a matter of time until problems developed. A visit to a real daylily farm two years ago triggered the problem and of course with no friends willing to step in and squash it, things escalated. Actually friends suggested more visits, friends dropped daylilies off, friends invited the gardener over to ‘dig a few’…

Some goodies in the beds of the daylily farm

A few friends shook their heads and recommended counseling, or more finishing up of home improvement projects, but the gardener enjoyed visiting these daylily farms and with new plants rolling in left and right it seemed only logical to start his own. Sensible people pointed out there’s no room for a farm. The gardener laughed.

A friend gave me ‘Hawkwoman’ and she’s a star. A heavy bloomer with flowers nearly a foot across!

So now I have a daylily farm. A friend implied madness when confronted with several beds of daylilies filled with dozens of varieties in a garden which recently held only three, and I had to somewhat agree although he’s not one to talk with his house full of thrift store finds. Mine is clearly a business venture, so it’s ok. Small businesses are ok and so are entrepreneurs, and although the flow of daylilies is still only a one way stream into the garden I’m sure it will be turning a profit in no time. Think of how many farmers you know buzzing around in expensive sports cars and sipping lattes all summer. That could easily be me.

‘Nona’s Garnet Spider’ in one of the production (not sales) beds.

But until I decide to sell something the ‘sales beds’ are still just an excuse to line out daylilies in big blocks just because it’s cool as well as the other big plus. Having a daylily farm in your very own yard also keeps the gardener in the garden, since apparently it’s frowned upon for him to be off visiting other daylily farms every weekend in July.

‘Cosmic Struggle’ is another reliable, heavy bloomer who reblooms later in the season.

Maybe I will have a sale day this summer. Even after just two years they’re multiplying and maybe I don’t love every one as much as the next or I don’t need a row of ten plants of the same variety. It would be nice to have visitors at least since they do look nice this year and I think other plant nuts would enjoy it. In the meantime here are some more pictures of the madness. Not to single anyone out, but a blogger in Germany who might be named Cathy may have said they would welcome photos of daylilies a bit more than snowdrops and I didn’t know how to take that. How can you compare the diversity of shapes and colors and inherent grace of the snowdrop to that of the daylily? I don’t get it but here are a few more daylily photos with a little less babbling.

From a local breeder, ‘Brookside Mystery Date’ is a good growing, shorter plant with deliciously colored and textured blooms. I begged a friend to stop by the grower on their last open weekend to grab it for me since I was tortured by regret over not buying it earlier in the year.

Also from a local breeder, one of the unnamed Brookside Beauties which the farm offers. They’re seedlings they chose to leave unnamed, but couldn’t bear to toss out onto the compost pile.

For local people, the Brookside hybrids are the work of June and Dick Lambertson of Lambertson’s Daylilies. They were the farm which (unknown to them) started this all, and as they move into full retirement, Joann and Brad Lamberton (a coincidentally similar name but not related to the Lambertsons) of Garrett Hill Daylilies are picking up the legacy. And just to support my main supplier and dealer, I’m glad Garrett Hill has taken this on. They are building a beautiful spot and although I’m sure they question jumping in with both feet like this (on top of their day jobs!), a visit to their farm outside Honesdale Pa is a treat worth the trip.

Unnamed daylily seedlings purchased mailorder from Petal Pusher Daylilies in Fort Wayne Indiana. Some really cool forms came in my mixed box!

Green throated flowers are always interesting. Also an unnamed Petal Pusher seedling.

And “blue”? I’m not sure how I feel about this type since the color varies so much depending on the weather, but on this morning I was a fan!

One last unnamed seedling, possibly my favorite from Petal Pushers.

I could go on but I shall not. Just two final daylily confessions, the first being the Facebook page which was created to pollute the internet with even more daylily photos straight out of the farm here, and the second being the fact I’ve grown a few of my own seedlings here just to see if I could. You’re more than welcome to ‘like’ the Facebook page but the seedlings thing is a shady endeavor. With just a small patch of seedlings in bloom I realize I lack the vision and passion to produce anything which amazes anyone but myself, and of course I’m pleased with them, but they’re nothing special. Good news for the farm I guess, since it lacks the room for rows of seedlings, but on the down side it doesn’t stop me. I have dozens of new seedlings which need planting out this summer and I’m already eyeing pods forming on this year’s stalks 😉

One of the Sorta Suburbia seedlings

Gosh did I go on this morning, and still the house is quiet and breakfast has not been served so here’s the rest of the garden:

The potager is looking inviting and even a little under control. Vegetable plantings are sparse this summer, but you know something is always brewing 😉

The entry arch has clematis ‘Sweet Summer Love’ in full bloom. I was lukewarm the first year, but now that it’s hit its stride I’m a fan

I’ve finally managed to get a few nigella (aka love in a mist) seedling going, I don’t know why it took so long but I’m liking the airy look and the interesting seed pods which follow the bloom. It should be an easy reseeder now.

Blue hydrangeas are in bloom everywhere this year, since the non-winter failed to kill them back and a lack of late frosts spared the flower buds, This is hydrangea ‘Tuff Stuff’ which claims hardiness but has never bloomed like this before. I wouldn’t mind if this happened again some time.

The meadow garden is too shady now that the Aspen suckers have grown, but the rudbeckia is having a good year regardless. This area will be mown in August and kept cut until the fall.

I’ve been dabbling in red hot pokers and finally have a few which bloom reliably and for more than a week or two. Kniphofia ‘High Roller’ is just starting with several later buds still to come for an extended show.

The oxeye daisy season is getting a little messy and floppy, so out they come. The mower will take care of this mess, and hopefully the lawn can overwhelm the seedlings which this mess shall produce.

Still no sounds in this house, so I’ll end with just one more photo. The gardener added a few concrete blocks to the deck supply delivery and now it looks like there will be no new raised beds, rather a set of steps leading up the berm. That of course will involve more blocks, more leveling, more digging, and far more work than the gardener will consider on a day of rest but it’s going to sit in the back of his mind as a new source of guilt over an unfinished project which wasn’t even a project the week before. I’m sure it will be an excellent way to reach the top of the hill for weed control purposes.

That hill isn’t even safe. You almost broke your ankle last time you were strimming it.

So that’s pretty much the update from here. I shall now make some noise so someone feeds me and then spend the rest of the day either immersed in cooling water, hidden in the shade, or comfortable in the embrace of an air conditioning vent. Summer is pretty good and I wish it didn’t race by.

Enjoy your week!

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: summer