Charlie Brown's Daylilies

I think just about everyone is aware of the iconic cultural image in the Peanut's cartoon strip where Charlie Brown cannot resist trying to kick the football held by Lucy, who pulls it away from him every time.  From now on, when you think of Charlie Brown with footballs, think of me with daylilies.

'Lady Betty Fritz'

 I am well aware that most daylilies are some shade of orange, despite what we want them to be.  Years ago, I read and took to heart the excellent summary of daylily colors by Cassandra Danz in Mrs. Greenthumbs, where she translates daylily color terminology for neophytes from "melon," "peach," and "deep red" to "orange", "light orange", and "looks like orange from a few feet away" respectively.  I don't really mind orange daylilies.  And I do believe that the red daylilies are starting to really look red, and there are some excellent purple daylilies out there, even though they do not stand out well in a dark green border in the garden. But, unlike the 200+ roses in my garden and numerous irises that I can identify on sight, there are very few daylilies I can differentiate.  The whites all look alike, the purples look similar, and I have no hope for the apricot-melon-oranges.

Yet, I cannot resist some naive impulse that allows me to believe the fantastically colored pictures on daylily plant tags.  Yesterday, Hemerocallis 'Lady Betty Fritz', pictured at the upper right, bloomed for the first time in my garden..   Although admittedly it is a first bloom on a small plant, it bears little resemblance to the fantastic coloring on the plant tag, as reproduced to the left, nor to pictures one the web.  Nor to the description on the back of the tag; "flowers ivory with a red eye and double-red gold edge above a green throat."  Now, I don't know about you, but I would call the eye "maroon" or "deep purple-rust", not "red."  And the "double red-gold" edge is barely present.  And there is no ivory that I can see.  I purchased this one at a reputable nursery, so I don't think it is merely mislabeled.  And I don't think that I've misplaced the plant;  it is one of only three new daylilies I've planted this year.  The bloom size WAS very large.  But I can only conclude that daylily describers are all just imaginative Lucy's.

I've been taken in again and again, long enough that I suppose I'm beyond hope for learning the lesson.  At least the local annual Hemerocallis Society sale, where I buy most of my daylilies at cut-rate prices, throws the fans on tables labeled "orange", "yellow" and "pink", and so I'm less likely to be disappointed.  I just need to stay away from catalogues and fanciful plant tags.  Perhaps a local Daylilies Anonymous would be helpful.  Anyone else care to join?

A better KnockOut

All of you know that I pretty much despise the wildly popular 'Knockout' rose, right?  No surprises there for any regular readers.  Well, I'll show you a rose that, if we must have a rose whose primary purpose is to bloom and bloom for landscaping enhancement, has 'Knockout' and its relatives beat to shame.

That rose is 'Champlain', a 1982 Canadian rose of the Explorer series, named to honor the founder of the city of Quebec, and touted everywhere for its continuous flowering habit by everyone who grows it.   In fact, it is the third longest blooming rose of the Canadian releases.  I have two, one in full sun in a long border in the garden proper and a shaded one in my front landscaping near the house that has only a northeast exposure.  The latter also has a tree to its immediate east, so it might see direct sun 4 hours a day in the summer and barely at all in the winter.  Both bloom their heads off, although I have to admit the one in the sun does have a more continuous bloom pattern.

'Champlain' is a healthy rose, free of mildew and almost free of blackspot (I see a little on them in humid August every other year and they lose some lower leaves).  Flowers are bright red (a much better red than vivid pukey off-red 'Knockout'), are 6-7 cm in diameter, and have 30 petals.  There is an occasional white streak to the petals as you can see in the second picture.  'Champlain' is a complex hybrid of a cross between 'R. Kordesii' and 'Max Graff' on one side and a seedling from' Red Dawn' and 'Suzanne' on the other.  It seems to be easy to start from softwood cuttings because that is where my 2nd plant came from.  Hardy to Zone 2, it has never had any dieback here in zone 5.  Canadian climates do have some dieback as noted in Robert Osborne and Beth Pownings Hardy Roses.

In front, part sun 

So how many ways is 'Champlain' better than 'Knockout'?  Let's see, better color, better hardiness in the far northern climes, and likely a more continuous bloom.  I'm actually going to count weeks this year for the 'Double Knockout' and 'Champlain' in my garden to determine the latter once and for all.  'Champlain' has a better shrub form, with thinner canes than the hybrid-tea-like gawky canes of the original 'Knockout'.  But most importantly, both my 'Champlain's have grown to three feet tall and wide and have NEVER been pruned.  Never.  Not a single cut.  Around here, many commercial places trim their 'Knockout' to the ground each year, or at least trim them to keep them within reason because it can get to be a six foot bush when left alone.   'Champlain' seems to reach an "adult" size and then just stop growing.  How cool is that?  Heck, even Martha Stewart approves of it.

In back, full sun

Sadly, although it is listed in Ag Canada's Winter-Hardy Roses as having a little fragrance, I can detect none with my middle-aged male nose.

I point out that single drawback solely in hopes that not all of you will choose to grow this nearly-perfect landscape rose.  If 'Champlain' was grown everywhere by everyone, I'm sure that I wouldn't like it nearly as much.  I'm peculiar that way.

Evasive Maneuvers

Well, since Connie at Hartwood Roses has been distracted this week with a resident mockingbird and now a vacant nest, I feel I should gamely (chuckle) follow that theme and show you my own avian close encounter.

Mama Killdeer looks angry!

Again this summer, the long straight lines of my lawn mowing pattern have been interrupted by an intractable Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) who has insisted that her nest be placed in my front lawn in the short grass.  I thought I would avoid the problem this year by leaving a few areas unmowed on the fringes of my mowed prairie grass yard, but evidently the shorter grass is the preferred habitat.  I first spied this little dinosaur remnant staring at me as my mower edged closer and closer.  She is definitely give me a beady-eyed stare.

Killdeer feigning a broken wing amidst the buffalograss

As you get closer to their nests, those of you who know about Killdeer know that they will try to lure you away by pretending that they have a broken wing, hoping the stupid roaring green predator (I mow with a John Deere tractor) will ignore the nest and go after the injured bird.  They have a pitiful cry as well (the "vociferus" species name), just in case the broken wing wasn't enough to lure you in.  If you follow them, they'll stay just far enough ahead to keep you coming on, away from their nest, until they decide that enough is enough and demonstrate that they can fly quite fine, thank you.

If you notice where the little harlot started her dance, you can get a visual treat and see her clutch of (usually) four eggs laid in a small depression in the ground, camouflaged by their shell pattern and surroundings, but without any other protection. Once I find the nest whose position the parent betrayed to me, I give it a wide berth with the mower.  No sense in having smashed eggs or mangled little chicks on my conscience on top of everything else.  And anyway, Killdeer primarily consume insects, including grasshoppers, caterpillars, and other pests.  The more Killdeer I have around, the healthier my garden is.



Killdeer nest on bare ground

Killdeer can have two broods a year, and both the male and the female incubate the eggs and rear the young, so I really don't know if my pictures are of a male or female (I thought it would be rude to lift her tail to check).  In a couple of weeks, these eggs will hatch some chicks who will appear to be composed primarily of legs.  They will leave the nest behind within a couple of days to seek shelter in taller grass, so unless I watch them close, I'll see eggs and then see nothing, just a little tuft of dead grass on the lawn to tell me where they used to be.  Nature waits for no gardener.