Royal Palace Prince
Philosophical Karen © all rights reserved
Yesterday we visited my favourite daylily farm, Floral and Hardy Gardens, to see what late-blooming daylilies they had available to add to my collection. Here is my favourite shot of the AHS Display Garden on site (although I took many photos of this beautiful garden).
Daylily Display Garden
Philosophical Karen © all rights reserved
And when I went shopping for my garden, there were so many daylilies to choose from! I was sad when it came time to pay for my choices that I had to give up some of them which the farm needed to keep for restocking. A beautiful healthy purple spiderform that would have looked lovely in my garden had to be abandoned at the till. But I still came home with plenty. Here are some of my purchases, waiting to be planted.
Some of My Daylily Purchases
Philosophical Karen © all rights reserved
Here are a couple of blooms shown in a bit closer view.
Green Eyes Wink (New Purchase)
Philosophical Karen © all rights reserved
Stoplight (New Purchase)
Philosophical Karen © all rights reserved
I have what may seem like a long list of new daylily purchases from this trip, but this year I have made fewer trips, so over the length of the summer this is no different than in previous years. (Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
- Bama Bound
- Coal Miner
- Green Eyes Wink (see above)
- Ivory Edges
- Little Red Spring Song (blooms early June)
- Lucky Catch
- Spiritual Corridor
- Stoplight (see above)
- Strutters Ball
- Sunday Gloves
- Tang Dynasty
- Thomas Lee
- Tuesday (Klehm, 2003 -- no image currently available)
Other stories I'm sticking to: my husband and son helped me shop. They are the biggest enablers on the planet.
You might recognize some of those daylilies from a list I made last January. There would be more from the January list, but some I was unable to get on this trip because we couldn't find them, or they were sold out.
I also took the opportunity to pick up some more Postman's Pride sedum, and a new sedum called 'Xenox' which is a most intriguing pinkish-purple colour. It was a MUST HAVE for my garden.
Xenox Sedum
Philosophical Karen © all rights reserved
We have already started on the big rearrangement in the garden. Since the Eco-Lawn grass was such a nightmare we are tearing it all out and I am making a daylily bed instead. We have also torn out the overcrowded evergreens and overgrown shrubs (well, I say "we" but Mr. Wonderful did all the heavy digging -- I just chopped branches). A westward view of the maple garden now looks like this.
Garden Looking West
Philosophical Karen © all rights reserved
I don't know if you can see in the above photo the toll that the rainstorms have taken on the slope this year. There is almost no mulch left, and the water is starting to erode little channels through the dirt. Whereas normally in August we would say the dryness is killing the garden (unless it is planted with drought-tolerance in mind) this year it seems the water falling from the sky is damaging roots and leaves and killing off certain plants, while causing others to flourish beyond the means to control them. (Periwinkle is a case in point.)
Anyway, to get a better idea of the "cleared" look of the maple garden above, here is the same view at the end of July, 2006. You can see how the evergreens were already overcrowded at that time. Now that they have been removed, the garden has more room to breathe.
Maple Garden 2006
Philosophical Karen © all rights reserved
Oh, and just as a follow-up to something I said in a post about how the goldfinches like the sunflowers that have grown up around the feeder. I thought I would fill people in on what the goldfinches do. You see, to get to the seeds, they perch on top the sunflower and pluck the top petals off. This allows them to get a better foothold and bend down from the top and peck out the seeds. It results in a messy-looking collection of droopy, dismembered flowers. (It's totally worth it though.)
Food For Goldfinches and Squirrels
Philosophical Karen © all rights reserved
At this point, some of the flowers have now drooped so low they are lying on the ground. Along come the squirrels to solve this problem. They chew through the stem to remove the flower and then carry the entire flower off to hide it somewhere.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if it ended up somewhere in my backyard neighbour's flowerbed. Only because of what they did to my vine. (I'm just sayin'...)
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Copyright © all rights reserved. All text and images in this post belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com.
6 comments:
I bought Bama Bound and Strutter's Ball a few years and and they are some of my favorites.
It's hard to go home without one you had chosen. I had to do the same thing. She looked at the only plant she had and decided it was too small :( But then there's always online purchases and ebay!!!!
You bought some real beauties! I particularly love the Tang Dynasty, but they're all gorgeous. We bought Strutters Ball last year. It's small yet, and only had a few blooms this year, but it's a lovely one.
Your garden is looking very pretty.
We have sunflowers too. As well as enjoying watching the goldfinches, I love their calls and chitters, don't you?
Our whole summer has been much like yours, but there's been plenty of sunny periods for gardening as well, until these last 2 weeks. We've had some humdinger storms and downpours, some with hail.
i'm with you on this rain thing, i never thought we could get too much rain, but my lawn is like a sponge when you walk on it and the lack of sunshine is have an impact on some of my plants, the foliage is nice and green, but no flowers.
Okay, now I really want to add 'Xenox' to my garden, too! Unless, of course, he blooms a cotton-candy pink... but in bud he looks cool. The color of his leaves looks so much richer than my 'Purple Emperor.'
Your slope garden still looks pretty... but of course, I just see it as it is, not as you had it in your head to be.
The picture of your sunflower all drooped over looks a lot like ours. They haven't quite hit the ground but are getting ready to. I'll be on the lookout for squirrels because we were hoping to harvest the sunflower seeds as a winter snack food. Guess that reminds me - need to post on our blog pictures of our sunflowers. Some got nearly 10 feet tall! Vikki at www.thorntonwilliamsfamily.blogspot.com
Great daylily photos.
You garden looks well thought out and put together. A perfect place to enjoy a pleastant fall afternoon.
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