July Drive-By

My, my, how time flies by and leaves us standing in the dust of our best intentions.  I was on track for several months to add bi-weekly notes to this blog, but in the middle of June my resolve ran up against the Kansas climate and melted like butter on a stove. This toadstool photo, taken this morning, is illustrative of our gardening year here.

You see, friends, I came into this gardening year so excited for new life and new growth.  Ample rains in March and April erased our long drought and opened up all the nascent promise of
my garden, a green and growing paradise in my immediate vision.  It was almost perfect right up until we received the hailstorm in the last week of April, a hail that stripped leaf and promise and future.

May was quiet here, quiet except for the few peony buds and roses that survived the hail.  There were few irises, peonies, and roses in my early garden, and as the season developed, it was apparent that there were to be no strawberries, cherries, peaches, or apples to console my feelings.  I struggled even to enter my garden, pained by the lack of bloom and vigor, but I held out hope for my stalwart daylilies.

And then, in late May and through June, the heat struck and the rain stopped.  The garden dried and the ground cracked.  The grass turned brown and even the daylilies slowed their onslaught.  Hemerocallis is a tough genus, but not tough enough for early drought.  They bloomed, but not in their usual numbers or robust cheerfulness.

In late June and early July, it rained again, and kept raining at regular intervals, a unusual pattern for Kansas, and the grass greened up and the weeds rushed in.  Weeds, weeds everywhere, but not a domesticated flower to be seen.  Normally, in July, I can count on mowing every other week and relaxing from the heat.  Not this year, for I have been forced into weekly mowings of the entire yard and weeding at every opportunity.   Roundup is my new best friend.  And the ground is wet, wet enough so that toadstools grow in July right by the front walk.  You can guess that the tomatoes in this area are not performing very well in the wet clay.  Right now, the only crops that look to be decent are watermelons and cantaloupes.

And so I stand, on the brink of August, too busy with other things to garden, too depressed to even look at my devastated strawberry bed, too chagrined to even hope for a colorful fall.  I'll write when I can.  I've saved a few photos of the best of the year.  Maybe I can summon the cheerfulness in August to highlight them.

Until then, adieu.

Beautiful Edgings

'Beautiful Edgings'

I'm not leaving the daylily world behind me this year without a "shoutout" (to use vernacular from my students) for my favorite daylily.  This delicate creature is 'Beautiful Edgings', and I know that she's not flashy and that she doesn't have the biggest blossoms, or the brightest coloring, or the most rain resistant petals, but she still is my favorite.  Please allow me to explain.

'Beautiful Edgings' is a midseason "reblooming" daylily hybridized by Copenhaver and introduced in 1989.  She is officially described as cream-edged rose with a green throat, but I find that after colder night temperatures she has strong yellow tones like those at the left.  A 'Best of Friends' seedling, she stands around 30 inches tall in my garden and bears flowers that are around 5 inches in diameter.   She has received a number of awards including the Stout Silver Medal Runner-up in 2006 (missing the award by 7 votes), the 2006 Lenington All-American Award, the 2002 President's Cup, the Award of Merit in 2002, and the 1999 Honorable Mention List.

  My original plant was in the front bed, on the northwest side of the house, and she was fortuitously planted near where I walk every day.  Once I accepted how fabulous she is, I divided her again and again and I now have 5 or 6 clumps spread around the area.  This time of year, when she is blooming, I make sure to observe her every morning as I walk the dog, and I occasionally refresh my memory of her delicate fragrance.  Fragrance is rare enough in daylilies, and 'Beautiful Edgings' has one of the best in my garden.

I've never been able to fully understand the term "reblooming" as it applies to daylilies.  Certainly, I can understand "reblooming" in relationship to my detested 'Stella de Oro', continually blooming for months, and I have a couple of daylilies that bloom now and then will put out a token bloom or two in the fall.  Many other daylilies, however, display what seems just to be an extended bloom period, and for those, my "anti-marketing hackles" are raised.  How much is real reblooming and how much is hype to capture gardeners who look for "reblooming" on the label?

Regardless, while 'Beautiful Edging' is one that only has an extended period of bloom, I'm glad to great her each morning as long as she will stay, each morning that I'm awaken by the intrepid Bella whining to alert me to her urinary bladder discomfort.  I'll eagerly crawl out of bed and perform an unpleasant task to experience such beauty.

Krazy 'Kwanso'

Oh, no.  We're not leaving orange daylilies behind us without discussing that most classic of "ditch lilies," Hemerocallis fulva 'Kwanso'.  Here it comes, just when you thought it was safe to reenter the garden.

For most of my gardening life, I have enjoyed 'Kwanso' and defended it against all detractors, foreign or domestic.  It was one of the first daylilies I grew, and, as you already know, is tough and hardy and difficult to kill.  It's also colorful and fragrant as all get out.  In short, it would seem to be the perfect daylily for a beginner gardener.




Invader #1, 15 feet away from source.

Unfortunately after years of mutual enjoyment, my 'Kwanso' has become a thug.  I'm aware that the term "thug" has recently become politically incorrect, but I know of no better descriptive term for its behavior.   It's the same old story; you nurture and pamper one of your children and then it enters puberty and runs amok with newfound freedom.

I first noticed that 'Kwanso' had become a problem last year when I recognized a thicket of healthy, tall daylily fans was starting to strangle the vigor out of my 'Fantin Latour' rose.  Acting in what I thought was a perceptively preemptive fashion, this Spring I pulled up many of the individual crowns and roots of 'Kwanso' in this area, applying herbicide to any stragglers in order to leave a single manageable clump in the area.



Little did I know, however, that the prescient promiscuous beast had already made a break for freedom.  Suddenly, these past few weeks, another overly-healthy daylily clump in a nearby bed revealed its true identity as it engulfed a more modest cousin (photo above).  I've now found three other clumps of H. fulva as they bloomed in different spots throughout the garden.  'Kwanso', unbeknownst to me, spreads aggressively by seed as well as by stolon, presumably with bird or rodent assistance.



Invader #2, 40 feet away from source

If you have these or similar forms in your garden ('Kwanso' is a double form of the species and there is another cultivar, 'Flore Pleno' with 18 petals), stand fairly forewarned and destroy them now!  To reach a proper prospective, I would recommend that you rewatch the 1958 classic film, The Blob, and picture me in the starring role so well portrayed by Steve McQueen (but younger and much more hip than Steve), trying to convince the unsuspecting townspeople that a crisis is at hand.  Because that is my goal now, to spread the truth far and wide.  If 'Kwanso' can survive Katrina's flooding, as reported, it has the potential to be an invasive weed at best, a complete monster at worst.

P.S.  I've seen reports that there may be a variegated form of 'Kwanso' available.  I'd be interested in hearing if it is less invasive or whether it reverts to nonvariegated easily.

Hemerocallis Haiku

'Bettie Mae Ferris'

After making fun of Mrs. ProfessorRoush's tastes in daylilies in the last post (as previously noted, she considers orange daylilies to be the height of fashion), I thought that I would try to atone with a carefully-written haiku:


Sun seared daylily
Golden rays within become
Shining floral love

'Tuscarilla Tiger'

I didn't promise you it would be good haiku, did I?  To fully appreciate my efforts at reconcilation here, you should know a piece of our history.  Early in our courtship, Mrs. ProfessorRoush attended college far away and I attempted to keep her attentions from wandering with lousy love-stricken poetry delivered by snail mail.  She, in turn, tolerated said poetry because she was stuck in a news-less limbo and needed my continued letters to inform her of minor world events such as the 1979 Iranian Embassy hostage crisis.  To be a helpful and attentive boyfriend, I also wrote sonnets and poems to improve her English 101 grades.  I know, that was cheating, but it was done for love and I disclose it only now, certain that the academic statue of limitations has finally passed.  I've always been pleased, since I never had a single day of college English, that her instructor made her read one of my sonnets aloud for the class.

So here, my darling, is a charming haiku to the genus Hemerocallis, accompanied by some of the classic orange daylilies that so warm your heart.  Can I please stop sleeping on the lawn now?

Daylily Spectacular

'Forbidden Fantasy'

Daylily season is just moving beyond its peak here at Garden Musings, so I thought I would provide some colorful entertainment in the form of some of my favorite daylilies.  There will be, of necessity, less of my usual colorful commentary, however, as this is a pretty long post full of photos.  I'll start off with the daylily that I think is the most spectacular my garden:  'Forbidden Fantasy'.  Go ahead, let go of the ruffled rim and slide down that purple surface into the bright yellow and green center.  Titillating, isn't it?

'Alabama Jubilee'

All daylily affections are dependent, however, upon your personal color palette and taste.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush, for instance, likes the oranges, the more gaudy the better, and she has expressed her appreciation for 'Alabama Jubilee, a somewhat tasteless addition from last year.

'Amethyst Art'

A long time stalwart in my back garden beds, however, is 'Amethyst Art', which has unfailingly provided me with loads of flowers for the past decade.  I think the shade of pink-purple here matches the center perfectly.

'Bubblegum Delicious'  2015

I purchased 'Bubblegum Delicious' about 3 or 4 years ago and it has developed into the most prolific clump of flowers.  Look at that display coming on in the photo at left!   I'm disappointed, however, that this year the colors seem muted compared to last year.

'Bubblegum Delicious' 2014

'Butterflies in Flight'

'Slender Lady'

Sometimes, in some years, my tastes change and I enjoy the yellows again, either in subtle, tasteful forms such as 'Butterflies in Flight', or, when the spiders catch my eye, as in 'Slender Lady'.  The latter is quite the image of a bulemic model, isn't she?

'Laura Harwood'

'Southern Wind'

'Southern Wind' (left) and 'Laura Harwood' (right) are two new daylilies for me this year, two of the few times that I've selected a daylily by seeing the actual bloom instead of just the plant tag.   'Laura Harwood' has an enormous bloom, larger than my outstretched hand.  And everyone knows that anything over a handful is wasted.

'Margaret Mitchell'

'Margaret Mitchell' is a wonderful symphony of subtle color; here she blooms hidden deep inside a lilac. She's a canvas of pink, purple, white, and yellow, all designed to lead those pollinators right to her luscious core.  I need to make a mental note to move her out into the sunshine this Fall.

One of my favorites this year, and always, is this bright red daylily that I have evidently split into several clumps and spread near my Griffith Buck rose bed.   Here it blooms alongside yarrow 'Pomegranate'.  I think this is most likely 'Seductor', since it bloomed with the 'Seductor' that I have identified in another spot, but another possibility is 'Old Barnyard Rooster'.  Anybody want to weigh in?

'Seductor'???

I hope you enjoyed the show.  I certainly have enjoyed them this year.  And to all the daylily aficionados who have recognized that these are not even close to the newest and fanciest daylilies out there, you just keep sneering and keep dividing your daylilies for club-support sales.  I'm happy to take any of the newer ones off your hands at $3.00 a start.

  

Opinionated Gardening

'Stella de Oro'

Are all gardeners so opinionated, or is it just ProfessorRoush?  Because he has definite opinions about almost everything in his garden.  Sometimes even he tires of his opinions, his interminable rants about disease or weeds or flower color or poor performance that keep him from enjoying the garden.  Is it really necessary to constantly pontificate about whether this rose is better than that one, or how one grass is a thug, sprawling over everything in its vicinity, while another grass adds a really nice structure to the garden?

Take, for instance, his opinion about 'Stella de Oro'.  If you've read his blog for more than a few days, you know he detests the orange-yellow color of 'SDO'.  You've seen him rant about how tired he is of seeing it everywhere, often displayed in combination with a purple barberry or a group of banal junipers. One of the reasons that ProfessorRoush believes in a single deity is that creating 'SDO' as the most reliable, easy to propagate and longest-blooming daylily on Earth is surely a little cosmic joke made while God was in a good mood and resting on the Seventh Day.

'Happy Returns'

There are certainly better alternatives.  'Happy Returns' blooms a little less frequently, but the two fewer shades of orange in 'Happy Returns' makes it a much prettier addition to the landscape.  It is just as healthy and, these days, just as easy to find.  But, I guess it just doesn't contrast with purple barberries as well so it doesn't satisfy the peasant sensibilities of modern landscape designers.  And there are similarly named Stella's, such as 'Purple de Oro', which should be better, but they're less healthy and don't bloom nearly as often, at least for me.  The latter also isn't that purple, but that's another rant entirely.

Don't get me wrong, I grow 'Stella de Oro' in spades.  ProfessorRoush wouldn't, with his unlimited mental budget for plants, but I do.  In fact, a few weeks ago, it was the primary blooming plant in the landscaping in front of my garage, as you can see below.  'SDO's are almost all of the yellow that you see here, with the exception of a single 'Happy Returns' at center left.  In my defense, I'd like to tell you that I was a beginning gardener at the time and didn't know any better, but, truthfully, I grew 'SDO' in a garden before this one and I also hated it there.  Unfortunately, if you want to buy a lot of daylilies on the cheap at big box stores, you get 'Stella de Oro', sometimes even when it is labeled as something else.  And I was working on my budget, not that of ProfessorRoush's.  Thankfully, as I'll blog about in a few days, the 'SDO' are resting now and other, more attractive, daylilies and lilies are center stage.



Some would suggest that ProfessorRoush should strive to develop a more open mind and keep his opinions to himself.  But then what would he write about?  Endless essays about the beauty of every living creature would either cause his arteries to explode from the suppressed inner tensions or, alternatively, he would quickly run out of complimentary English language adjectives and his writing would be as boring as a landscape composed entirely of purple barberries and 'Stella de Oro's.  Writing, and gardening, is so much more satisfying if you can make use of all the options available.

Daylily Confusion

I know that this non-posting spell has been my longest in quite some time, but I didn't know that I had disappeared long enough for it to be daylily season again.  What, it's merely 18 days since my last post?  Then this daylily, Hemerocallis 'String Music', is deeply confused, because it is blooming nicely here in late September, over a month since the last daylily ('Final Touch') of my season.

'Final Touch' bloomed at a normal time for that cultivar.  'String Music' is a bi-tone diploid hybridized in 1996 by Niswonger, and according to every source I can find, it is supposed to be an early midseason bloomer.   Translation:  'String Music' should have bloomed in early July here.  It's parents, 'Cisty' and 'Southern Charmer', are midseason-late and midseason bloomers respectively.  Ma and Pa Daylily are likely quite disappointed at their tardy offspring.

I, however, am not disappointed at all.  I'm pleased at the unexpected but stunning gift of a daylily blooming this late in the season (I'm purposely not considering, of course, the ugly and ubiquitous 'Stella de Oro' as worthy of notice, even though it still occasionally blooms).  I'm also impressed by the vibrant colors of 'String Music' on these almost-Fall days.  In her normal cycle, in July, the scorching temps and blazing sun bleach her out to a boring light pink.  Now, blessed by the cooler mornings, her perky colors drew my attention from across the garden, a "what the heck is that?" moment of excitement bestowed on a fading garden.

To be completely truthful, I should add that I did experience one disappointment on the same trip outside that presented 'String Music' to my heartstrings.  Our now not-quite-so-small dog Bella failed to alert me to the presence of this adolescent Great Plains Rat Snake (Pantherophis emoryi) laying in the crease of the 1st and second steps out the front door.   What use is a dog, if not to alert one to such imminent disaster.   I stepped right over this foot-long snake on my way to take Bella out to play, and only saw it upon turning around to see if the door had shut properly.  All in all, it seemed much to late to scream and jump up in the air, so I calmly recorded the incident on my phone to show Mrs. ProfessorRoush how badly her little precious had erred.

 

Pink Daylily Rap

'Frosted Vintage Ruffles'

I like pink day-lilies and I cannot lie

You other gardeners can't deny

When a bud pops open
with a pretty lacy bloom

And a pink that's over the moon

You feel young

Sung, of course, to the melody of Baby Got Back.  I'm not in the habit of singing rap composed by Sir Mix-A-Lot, but I couldn't help thinking of this one in regards to my pink daylilies.  I would advise older male gardeners who like my revised lyrics to make sure they sing the words rather than hum it when they are near their spouses.  Most wives just don't seem to react well to spouses humming Baby Got Back in their near vicinity. Ask me how I know.

'Siloam Double Classic'

I realized, as the main daylily bloom came on this past week, that this year it is the pink-toned daylilies that are bringing me the most pleasure.  And not just any pink daylily, but primarily those with clear clean pink tones.  From top to bottom, the first three daylilies pictured here are 'Frosted Vintage Ruffles', 'Siloam Double Classic', and an anonymous beautiful pink daylily that I'm in love with.  You can be sure that I'll be dividing these clumps  to spread others around my garden this Fall. 

'Jolyene Nichole'???

Of these three, 'Frosted Vintage Ruffles', a 2000 introduction by Begnaud, is my favorite for its delicate porcelain petals, the shading from light to dark pink, and its excellent fragrance.  'Siloam Double Classic', by Henry in 1985, is indeed a classic and a multiple award-winner including a Stout Silver Medal Runner-up.  It deserves a place in everyone's garden.  The name of the third daylily has been lost to my poor records system, but is likely either 'Jolyene Nichole' or 'Siloam Full Dress'.  The former looks a lot like it, but the latter's description also fits and I can't find a picture of it online for comparison.  I've got a huge clump of it shining pink at me from all the way across the garden.

'Bubblegum Delicious'

Pinks that are not quite so pure are doing nothing for my soul this year.  This fourth daylily, 'Bubblegum Delicious' is a more recent (2010) introduction by Kelly Mitchell that I planted in 2013, but despite all the edging and ruffles, it leaves me unimpressed.  The overall combination is just a bit too gaudy for my tastes.  Daylilies are just getting too fancy for me.

(returning to Baby Got Back)...
So Gardeners! (Yeah!), Gardeners! (Yeah!)
Is your daylily good and pink? (Heck yeah!)
Then you should show it (Show it!)
Show it! (Show it!)
Show off that healthy bloom!
Daylily Got Pink!

 

Speaking of Presents

'Timbercreek Ace'; Lovell, 2004

While I'm on a roll with gifts from fellow gardeners, a pair of other long-awaited newcomers to my garden bloomed for the first time on Tuesday last.  The beautiful yellow-throated deep purple daylily to the right is 'Timbercreek Ace' (Lovell, 2004), a gift this Spring from a K-State client whose hunting dog I was treating.  Somehow, veterinary visits with me often end up in discussions of gardening, prompted perhaps by something the client was reading while waiting or an offhand comment that is made.  In this case, I discovered the client was a daylily aficionado, and he learned that although I'm a rose nut, I occasionally dabble in daylilies, resulting in the welcome gift which was planted in a prominent place in my garden.  'Timbercreek Ace' is a diploid, early to mid-season, reblooming daylily officially listed as a black dark purple self above a yellow green throat. 

I should note here that as a state employee, I can't accept gifts of over $25 so to the K-State auditors listening in, I checked and a start of 'Timbercreek Ace' is commercially available for under that price...at least from some places.  As a 2004 variety, it is, however, both one of my most recent daylilies and one of the pricier ones.  I'm grateful to the client for it, especially after reading that a mature plant will have better than 22 buds/scape.  What a display this will be someday!

The gorgeous bicolored daylily to the left is an unnamed daylily(#45BO5) bred by a local Hemerocallis activist and breeder, Dr Steve Thien.  I obtained it two February's back as the winning bidder in an auction to benefit the K-State University Gardens.  It wasn't, therefore a gift to me, but it was a nice gift from Dr. Thien to the Gardens that I "intercepted."  Last year, it struggled in the drought, overshadowed by a native Asclepias tuberosa that I allowed to grow too close to it, and it didn't bloom.  This year, with the butterfly milkweed cut back, it's doing better and has two nice scapes full of blooms.

Daylilies take a lot of grief from WEE (wild-eyed environmentalists) who disdain non-native plants.  While I grow as many native forbs as I can in my pseudo-lawn of native prairie, and allow the self-seeders into my garden beds when I recognize their seedlings, I still appreciate daylilies for their acceptance of the searing summer heat and their bloom during an otherwise dead period in my garden. 

Daylily Disappointment

If some of you have been waiting for some daylily pornography from the Flint Hills, I'm afraid that you are just going to have to share disappointment this year with the rest of us.  It has been a bad year for many plants, to say the least, but the daylilies have been hit the worst of all. 

Bed "A", 7/2/11

Just take a peek at this bed as an example.  The picture at the left is from July 2nd, 2011, and the picture at the right below is the same bed, from roughly the same angle, on June 24th, 2012.  Both were about at the point of peak bloom in their respective years.

Bed "A", 6/24/12

We knew it was going to be bad with the Winter and Spring drought here, but I never dreamed that daylilies would struggle, rain or no rain.  Clear back in May, the Master Gardeners in the area were debating whether the foliage loss was due to fungus or drought.  I was on the drought side of the argument and I even broke down and watered once this year.  Looking at these pictures, I think the drought proponents were correct.

Bed "B", 7/2/11

I've actually been trying to hide my daylily failures this year, but I figured it was time to come out of the closet when emails from the local Hemerocallis Society, who put on an exhibition at the town mall every July, were discussing whether or not there were enough blooms to even bother this year.  At least I know that the experts are missing their daylilies too.  Look at my second bed, as photographed last year on the left, and then again, this year on the right, below.

Bed "B", 6/24/12

I may, in a later post, show a few of the daylilies that did make it though summer heat to shine as bright spots, but first I have to edit their pictures through my tears.  Maybe next year, if the daylilies survive, I'll have more to offer.

Daylily Drifting

'Night Embers' ?

As a gardener, one either seems to "get" daylilies, or one doesn't.   I've never been a rabid daylily fan myself, but their utility in a Kansas garden is such that most who garden in the Flint Hills will inevitably turn to daylilies as a way to fill border gaps with a minimum of fuss.

The real beauty of daylilies, however, is the versatility of their form and color and in the way my favorites change year to year.  Every time that I'm about ready to stop growing a particular color or form of daylily, when yet one more another look at a brassy orange or a muddy red ruffled flower leaves me near screaming, another season rolls around and I cease and desist in my extermination plans.  I sudddenly find the ugly ducklings are now the beautiful swans, and the daylilies that I liked last year are just not quite as appealing.

'Little Grapette'

I've drifted through love-hate phases that are likely common to many Hemerocallis growers.  The "hate the oranges and apricots" phase.  The "hmmm, the oranges look pretty fabulous this year" phase.  The "I'm wild about spider daylilies" phase.  The "subtle pinks and corals turn me on" phase.   The "eyed daylilies are the cats meow" phase. The "anything but Stella de Oro" phase.

This year, a poor year for daylilies in the dry Flint Hills, I'm in a "dark red and purple" phase.  Where 'Beautiful Edging' seems to have failed me, and where "Kwanso" is leaving me a little bit uneasy, the dark daylilies are standing out in sulky splendor.  'Little Grapette' is really purple, for once.  'Prairie Blue Eyes' is full of deep almost blue hues it has lacked in other years.  The dark reds are not quite black, but are certainly drawing me deeper into their mysteries than ever before. All this yet another example of nothing under God's creation lacking value.

So, just as a piece of advice from ProfessorRoush to reader, never turn down an offered daylily, no matter the color or form.  You may hate that brassy orange this year.  You may detest the short, stature and light yellow of 'Happy Returns'.  Apricot daylilies may leave you sick to your stomach, and purples with yellow throats may appear clownish in your garden this July.  But someday in the future, every daylily will have its moment in the sun, and you'll be glad they're still a part of your garden. I'm glad this year that the purples are here and I wish, once again this year, the oranges and 'Stella De Oro'  would die.  I can't just spade-prune the oranges, you understand, because Mrs. ProfessorRoush isn't as fickle in her daylily tastes and the oranges are her favorite every year.  When she wants me to plant more of them this year, I plan to smile, nod, buy more purples, and lie.

Thank you, Milady

Sorry everyone, I've been in a bit of a posting funk this past week, probably as a result of the lack of green vistas or other garden stimulation to get me moving.
 

'Milady Greensleeves'

Thankfully, I was momentarily rescued last evening by an email from a daylily hybridizer/AHS volunter asking to use my 'Final Touch' daylily picture to serve as the picture of that particular cultivar for the online AHS database.  I got a little excited about the thought that, however anonymous and unanticipated, I am able to make a contribution to the database.  That got me to looking at my other daylily pictures from last season, which led further to this post.

A standout daylily picture that caught my eye this morning was that of 'Milady Greensleeves'.  I captured 'Milady' on the 3rd of July, just at the beginning of our summer heat wave.  She is a delicate but large blossom, 7 inches in diameter, and fragrant as a rose.  I love the gradation of the green throat morphing into yellow and leading to the pastel lavender petals, marred in this picture only by the orange pollen staining the top petal. 'Milady' is a dormant midseason daylily, and despite her size is supposed to be only a diploid.  Hybridized by Lambert in 1978, I think she displays her color better on cloudy days here in the Flint Hills, where a harsh mid-day sun will bleach her out in minutes.

It interests me that I have used a number of pictures of daylilies from this 2011 group, but that until now this picture had escaped my notice.  Am I so hungry for color and the start of the new garden season that I've widened my criteria of beauty?  Or did I just get overwhelmed last year in the midst of all the blooms and photos and miss this delicate prize?

Unknown Yellow Daylily

Regardless, if there was ever a perfect yellow daylily, it is pictured at the left, another forgotten photo that I ran across.  This one is an unknown for me, but the soft yellow hue and perfect form has no peer in my garden.  Those frilly petals and ribbed sepals rival the finest ladies lingerie, I think.

 Gracious, what am I thinking about?  I most definitely must need some warm weather, sunshine, and flowers to work off my pent-up winter energy.  For now, still in the grip of January, a cold shower and dreams of daylilies will just have to do.

Best Laid Daylily Plans

My, how often the best-laid plans of mice and gardeners succumb to the realities of life!  I really thought I had it set up perfectly this year, my latest attempt at the acquisition of cheap, perfect daylilies, but alas, I failed again miserably in the execution of said plan.

I always look forward to the first weekend of September, because it promises the Daylily Society sale at the local farmers market. Thus it appeals to my miserly gardening pocketbook.  But in the past, I've come to the sale completely unprepared, choosing daylilies because the name sounded nice or because the description of the color seemed promising, only to later find myself disappointed once again that "melon" was orange, and "peach" was orange from more than two feet away.

But this June, I made a special effort to visit the local indoor mall during the annual Daylily Display, an event at which the local Daylily nuts...err..uh...enthusiasts display their prettiest daylilies during the height of the season.  These people are pictured in the dictionary next to the term Addict Enablers, in this case the addiction in question being my incontrollable need to grow the newest daylily varieties.  Several of the evil Hemerocallis pushers are local breeders who also exhibit their latest creations at the Display.  Unlike my previous visits to the Display, however, I came prepared with pad and pen, writing down the names of what I considered to be the choice 15 to 20 varieties. 

When I got home, I even went one step further and typed up the list while my memory was fresh, in lieu of my usual policy of relying on my mostly illegible handwriting and failing memory come September.  I also purchased, for the bargain price of $10.00, an annual membership in the Flint Hills Daylily Society, which entitled me to attend a pitch-in dinner and have first choice at the daylilies for sale on the night before the big public September sale.  I couldn't miss this time.

Well, I did miss.  Work intervened and I didn't make it to the pitch-in daylily dinner, nor to the Extension Master Gardeners bimonthly meeting on the same night.  Desperate, I went first the thing Saturday morning to the sale, armed with my list of delicious names such as "String Theory", "Red Hot Mama" and "Bella Donna Starfish".  And they didn't have any of those varieties for sale.  Oh, some of them had been in the sale the night before, but they had all been snatched up by my fellow FHDS fiends.  So I resorted to looking at the pictures compiled by color of each variety, a time-consuming activity, and I missed several other beautiful cultivars while doing so.  There was even a special table of "expensive" daylilies, some divisions as high as $10, and I failed there as well, looking at the names and then looking at the pictures, and then finding the ones I wanted snatched up before I could decide about them.

But, I guess I did okay in the end.  I came away with 12 or 15 varieties (see the picture above), generous clumps for $5 to $7 dollars apiece that were actually often three small divisions in each clump, leaving me with 35 or 40 new daylily starts for $99.  And such pretty names and colors too. 'Apple Tart'.  'Butterfiles in Flight'.  I'm just sure that the highly touted melon and peach daylilies I purchased won't look orange this time.

Final (Touch) Daylily

'Final Touch' daylily

Whew!  One of my favorite daylilies, dual clumps that lie next to either side of my front steps, had not bloomed at all this year and I had given them up as bad drought actors until yesterday.  Daylilies, however, are as dependable as the sun in Kansas and finally these late actors both bloomed, taking center stage as my landscape begins to take on Fall tones.

This is 'Final Touch', a late-blooming daylily as one would expect from its name, but I never expected it to start blooming quite THIS late.  This beautiful diploid has 4 inch soft bicolored pink and cream flowers with a green throat and it is quite fragrant.  It is classified as winter dormant, but of course that means nothing to gardeners in Kansas since every daylily is dormant here.

'Final Touch' belongs to a group of daylilies labeled as "Trophytakers®."  I had never heard the term before, and my Gogglefoo powers must be weak today, because I still can't definitively find out what organization or individual is behind it.  The original website for the group seems to be down.  From hints here and there, I think these may be selections by famed daylily breeder Darrell Apps of Woodside nursery;  not all are his daylilies, but I believe he was the evaluator of all of them.   I was able to find out that it is a group of 50 outstanding daylilies that must all bloom for a minimum of 42 days, more than double the average daylily.  I can't find what climate they are supposed to bloom for 42 days in, but if Mr. Apps selected them all, it must have been in Kentucky.  Certainly, any daylily that starts to bloom in Kansas in late August may not have 42 days left until first frost.  Trophytaker® daylilies must be vigorous growers and hardy to Zone 5.  They must be "beautiful" (however that may have been determined), the foliage must remain attractive till late in the season, and they must be insect and disease resistant.  I don't know why I've never heard the term, because I grow a number of the other Trophytaker® daylilies; 'Barbara Mitchell', Red Rum', and 'Joylene Nichole', among others.

Regardless, I view 'Final Touch' as a fitting end to my daylily season. If there has to be a rear end to the long string of daylilies, at least it's a beautiful rear end.

Daylilies Still

Hemerocallis 'Chorus Line'

I note that my earliest post about daylilies blooming this year is on June 23rd, but here, over 8 weeks later, a number of daylilies are still bravely holding on even after one of the hottest July's on record.  And I'm not just talking about 'Stella de Oro' or 'Happy Returns', either.  Despite the heat, the colors seem to be more vibrant than ever.  Now, I give you 'Chorus Line', a 1981 diploid, in brighter and more refined color than any of the thirty or so pictures of it I found on the web:

Hemerocallis 'Old Barnyard Rooster'

Tetraploid 'Old Barnyard Rooster', a red self, is holding up well and bright as the dickens.

Hemerocallis 'Dream Legacy'

Tetraploid rebloomer 'Dream Legacy' bloomed throughout the season, but seems to have lost most of its purple edging to the heat.

Hemeroclalis 'Frans Hal'

And then, of course there are the oranges.  Old standby 'Frans Hal', introduced in 1955, is a late bloomer that performs well despite the browning foliage supporting it, as does the unnamed orange daylily below.

And, proving once again that you don't need to know your name to be both beautiful and tough, this lovely lavender in my front bed is numbered "7", but I have no idea what its name is today.  Gorgeous, though, isn't it?