Let's Talk about Tags

Can we talk?

Honestly, can we talk about flower tags?

I've had it up to ... you know ... with flower tags.

'Alaqua' is just a recent example. This is the tag, and therefore the flower I was expecting.



The scanner boosted the yellow and faded the purple a bit, but other than that it's a fair copy. Look at those lovely rounded petals, like little circles. That is the flower I wanted. Not this. Hmm.

A similar thing happened to me with 'Russian Rhapsody'. See this previous post on the subject, an excerpt of which I reproduce here:

Check out the difference between the published photo and the actual flower for a plant that I bought in May this year.

The daylily I thought I bought (Russian Rhapsody) is shown in the first picture. The one that actually bloomed is shown in the second. Still a pretty daylily, but not what I thought I was getting.

But is this a tag problem, or a grower problem? ("Grower" meaning the large companies that grow plants for distribution to nurseries.) Why can't they produce plants whose flowers grow true to form and colour?

I was reading on a forum somewhere that it has to do with method of propagation. The large growers use tissue cultures to grow vast quantities of the same plant. The only problem is that that method is known to have problems producing plants that are "true" to the parent. (At least I think that is the gist of what people were saying on the forum.)

I guess I should just be happy with what I get and be done with it.

But really, these two daylilies in my front yard, planted less than two feet (60 cm) apart, are practically twins, even though they were supposed to be quite different, and they have different names and parentage. It's very strange. I will have to move one of them to another location in the garden. Arrgh!


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Anyway, while we're on the subject of daylilies (surprise, surprise), here is a picture of my one new bloom today. (Which, by the way, seems to be a mini, a fact that was not mentioned at all on the tag.)

Elegant Candy


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Three New Daylilies Today

There were three new "first blooms" today.


Mini Might



A miniature double daylily. "Miniature" for daylilies means the blooms are less than 3 inches (7.5 cm) across. This photo doesn't show very well that it's a double, but there is an extra set of tiny petals in the centre of the flower. I actually had two blooms on this plant this morning.


Alaqua



I am a bit disappointed in this daylily. The colour is what the tag photo promised, but the shape of this flower is undefined. On the tag photo, it showed a flower with distinctly rounded petals, and that is the look I was hoping for. I will say, however, that this Alaqua has very nice picotee edging on the petals, so that is some compensation.



Catherine Woodbury


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

My ever-reliable 'Catherine Woodbury' is one of the first daylilies I planted, along with 'Moonglow'. This one is also a constant bloomer, providing a show in the front garden throughout July.

The Rush Begins

Hooray! Five new bloomers today: Barbara Mitchell and the four in this post.

But first, as I said, the second-guessing has begun. I believe now that the one I have been calling 'Edge of Darkness' could be something else, and today's bloom is 'Edge of Darkness'. Here is today's bloom:




But my belief could change again by tomorrow. And as I look through my tags and photos, I might come up with some other completely different possibility. (Somewhere I have planted one called 'Mini Might' -- which is actually a good candidate for the one I have been calling 'Edge of Darkness'. 'Mini Might' is meant to be a double, which could account for the mutant bloom I posted yesterday.) Alas, that is how it is. Some daylilies I can never be quite sure of.

However, there is no doubt this one is 'Destined to See':




Now that's a daylily! Picotee edging. White midribs. Actually delivers on its promised colours. Sigh.

More prosaically, this new one is 'Ida's Magic'*:




*EDIT: No, it' s actually 'Country Melody'.

It's actually a bit more pinkish and not quite as orange as this picture shows.

This next one is 'Moonlit Masquerade'. There is no mistaking that classic appearance, especially the notched eye.



All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.


Today I played bumblebee. I have pollinated 'Barbara Mitchell', 'Moonlit Masquerade', and 'Woodside Rhapsody' with 'Destined to See'. I have also used 'Ida's Magic' to pollinate itself, 'Russian Rhapsody', 'Destined to See', and the new one I am now calling 'Edge of Darkness'.

NOTE TO SELF: The 'Moonlit Masquerade' spent bloom got broken off in the rain July 10, so no seed pod will form.

Beautiful 'Barbara Mitchell'

Needs no introduction. She is simply heavenly. (She smells good, too.)


Photo belongs to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Delphiniums (in Absentia) and Daylilies

There is lots of space left in the front garden, and now is the time to shop for plants.



I couldn't find 'Butterfly Blue' dwarf delphiniums, but while I was shopping I bought some blue delphiniums anyway.

(I used to have delphiniums, but one spring just as they were coming up I thought they were weeds and I pulled them out. I didn't really notice until July when I suddenly realized there were no delphiniums. Then I remembered my overzealous spring weeding.)

I have also bought three new hemerocallis: 'Mariska' (a soft pink with fleshy flowers), 'Siloam Doodlebug' (lemon yellow flower with a dark purple eye), and 'Cassadiana' (looks like a hot pink, I hope it lives up to the tag description).

And of course I took some photos of today's blooms. It was a first bloom for 'Little Business' -- the first of many, I think, as this one is a prolific bloomer with flowers all summer long.



Soon the second-guessing will start. Is that really 'Edge of Darkness'? Could that be where I planted 'Always Afternoon'? Am I calling it by the wrong name? But really, no matter what it's called, this one is a mutant:



Besides being blemished, there are four petals and four sepals. Too bad it's so ugly, because that's actually kind of cool.

Today's 'Woodside Rhapsody' was a little shy about opening, even in the bright afternoon sun:



Early this morning I thought that would be the fate of 'Russian Rhapsody' too:



But I got a pleasant surprise:



To me, that is approaching perfection, at least for a hemerocallis.

By the way, I took other photos too. Not everyone shares my obsession with daylilies, I know.

Petite Purple Hosta Blooms (Barely Visible)
with Pink 'Dragon's Blood' Sedum



Sempervivum Planters (with New Buddha Head)



Echinacea 'Kim's Knee High' and Sedum 'Chocolate'



Echinacea 'Double Decker' ('Doppelganger')


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

I am not sure whether the "double" blooms on the echinacea will happen later in the season, or if I will have to wait until next year for them.

Did You Ever...

Did you ever just see a plant somewhere and think, "I have to have that for my garden!" and then wonder how you would ever find it, since you don't know what it is?

That's why it's handy to carry a camera around with you.

I found this growing in a little narrow bed outside the restaurant we went to for lunch yesterday.


After an extensive web search, I finally found out that it's Dwarf Chinese Delphinium 'Blue Butterfly'.

Now I have to find out where I can get some!

Photographing Daylilies

Today's post is about photographing daylilies in new ways.

This morning I put my fast fixed lens on my camera instead of the usual lens. (Photographically, what this means is that the depth of field becomes very narrow, and you get a very blurry background.) For comparison, I took some photos with another camera, an older Sony. The Sony camera has a different colour balance, so I find that the colours from my Pentax are more true. However, the fixed lens does not allow for getting close to the subject. If I want a more "macro" look, I have to crop it. I haven't cropped any of these photos though.

First 'Russian Rhapsody' Bloom

These pictures were taken with the Pentax camera.





This picture was taken with the Sony camera.



'Woodside Rhapsody' Second Bloom

This picture was taken with the Pentax camera.



This picture was taken with the Sony camera.



Moonglow

Since the Moonglow are not dark-coloured daylilies, there isn't as much of a problem with the colour balance. This picture was taken with the Pentax camera.



This picture was taken with the Sony.



One drawback of 'Moonglow' daylilies is that in rainy weather they get very ragged. However, this is because their petals are quite delicate, which is what I like about them in dry weather.

Two 'Edge of Darkness' Blooms Today

There were two blooms on 'Edge of Darkness' today. One looked great, and the other was a more "blemished" example. As I was taking photos after the rain this morning, I decided to shake the water off the plant. I shook a little too vigorously I guess, since one flower fell off. Of course it was the pretty one.

Here is the blemished daylily taken with the Pentax camera.



Here is that daylily taken with the Sony camera.



This is the one that fell when I shook the rain off (taken with the Sony).



Now it's in a bowl.


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.


[Carol, I considered frying it up for my breakfast, but it was just too pretty to eat.]

Usually I like to play bumblebee with my daylilies, but even if it were not raining I couldn't do it today because these daylilies are not producing pollen. Later in the season I will have plenty of opportunity to create interesting mixes and harvest the resulting seeds.

My Garden This Morning

Garden View Looking East in the Hazy Morning Light



First 'Edge of Darkness' Bloom



Pair of 'Moonglow' Daylilies



My New 'Honey Baby' Honeysuckle
(A Dwarf Bush Variety)



'Rozanne' Hardy Geranium



Not a Sight We Gardeners Like to See
(Snail Amid Vinca and Thyme)



Echeveria Flowers


All photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.

Rhapsodic

Woohoo! My 'Woodside Rhapsody' daylily bloomed this morning!



We finally planted 'Rozanne' in her new place. And while we were at it, we extended the mulch by about a foot (30cm) onto the semi-grassless slope. Might as well, there's no grass there anyway.



We gave the new cranesbill some nice compost to grow into, since the soil where we planted it is like fine beach sand.



Our compost is in pretty good shape, but those biodegradable plastic bags are not decaying as quickly as I thought they would. (I will not tell you what kind of a surprise met me when I was digging out the compost today, but those of you who have ever changed a baby's diaper would find it awfully familiar.)



We got a new umbrella for our patio set and some new hanging baskets today. Here is a seldom seen (at least on this blog) view of our deck. The lattice in front of the steps is not ornamental; it is there to deter animals from using the area under the deck as a den.



Being near the end of the garden centre season, the baskets I bought were a bit neglected, so I had to tidy them up and trim them back. I also potted up some coleus (about time, I guess). Here is a picture of my work space. I do not have a potting bench, but a deck box and a bucket of soil will do in a pinch, I find.



Basket Number One



Basket Number Two



A third basket can be seen in the photo of my workspace. I always favour pelargonum geraniums for planters through July and August. They are colourful, constant bloomers, and they are nicely forgiving of forgetful waterers.

And finally I leave you with, of course, another gratuitous garden view.


Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.