Hurry Up and Wait

Well, I was in the middle of unloading groceries from the car this morning when a strange man pulled into my driveway, driving an expensive car and talking on a cell phone. My neighbour who had just pulled into her driveway looked quizzically, and just a bit nervously, over in the direction of the car. I'm sure my expression mirrored hers -- until I noticed the baseball cap on the driver's head. It was the Man with the Plan himself, our landscaper. I didn't recognize him without his big maroon pickup truck.

Unfortunately, he arrived with bad news. Our stone could not be delivered this week after all. He suggested that he could send the guys over to dig up the side and get everything ready to put in the stone on Monday, but my first thought was, "What if it rains?" (I'm sure he and the guys are not worried about a little mud, but I've got enough dirt in my house already without risking any more.)

So we agreed to start the job on Monday when the stone arrives.

I Did Say "Ongoing," Didn't I?

WARNING: This Post Has Ugly Pictures

In a previous post I believe I described our backyard landscaping work as "ongoing". (Of course it has to be that way because the budget doesn't run to doing it all at once.)

Well, here we are with possibly the final phase coming up. The owner of the landscaping company came by this morning with his can of orange spray paint to mark out the work to be done at the side of the house.

We will be getting a 36" wide flagstone path along the side, with some potato stone (3"-5" river rock) and beds to fill in the remaining space.

To keep everything level from the driveway, armour stone will have to be installed to support parts of the flagstone path. We will keep a gully in place for the water to flow down during rainstorms, and the downspout by the garage will hook into some big 'O' pipe and flush the water under the path and into the gully.

The path will swing along past the air conditioner, then join up with the existing flagstone in front of the deck. At my husband's insistence, the landscaper took a tiny piece of flagstone from in front of the deck so that he could make sure and match up the colour correctly.

Our Man with the Plan helpfully marked out the area beside the chain link fence with the word "BED", so we know that will be a place for dirt and mulch to break up the hard landscaping. (Our previous neighbours installed the fence a couple of years ago. Chain link would not have been our choice; unfortunately, we have to live with it.)

The landscaper was quick to pick up on my daylily thing, so he suggested we replace those tired old stones at the bottom of the deck with some nice daylilies to hide the lattice. He doesn't have to tell me twice!

My only regret is that, for it to look right, they will probably all have to be the same flower. I am thinking of something in a burgundy colour, with a gold throat, maybe more of a spider shape if I can find one. I guess it depends what is still for sale when I go out looking on the weekend. There were some Bela Lugosi at Grand Valley a couple of weeks ago. Maybe they still have them. And we haven't looked at Belgian Nursery for a while, since they are pretty far out of town and closed on Sunday. So, we'll see.

Garden Design

My philosophy of garden design (and I do have one) consists of both following and ignoring current advice in gardening books and magazines.

Being Canadian, the magazines I consult most often are
Canadian Gardening (http://www.canadiangardening.com)
and Gardening Life (http://www.gardeninglife.ca).

My favourite gardening book (not about design, though) is Growing Perennials in Cold Climates, by Mike Heger and John Whitman. Also good are gardening books published by Lone Pine.

So, back to garden design. Here is my list of general ideas:

• Lay out your garden with different areas (known as "garden rooms").


• Create a mosaic of colour and texture.


• Plant plenty of trees.


• Create focal points with structures and statuary.


• Use containers to liven up flat areas like decks, porches, and patios.

Here are some ideas specific to my garden:

• Plant plenty of deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs to provide shelter for birds.


• Include birdfeeders and a birdbath.


• DON'T install a pond (too trendy).


• Concentrate on the three H's: hosta, hemerocallis (daylilies), and heuchera (coral bells).


• Use creeping juniper for groundcover to anchor the soil.


• Combine different evergreens to create colour, texture, and winter interest.

In the above picture you can see, far too crowded, from left to right:

1. Wilton carpet juniper (tiny bit between rocks)
2. Mugho pine
3. Dwarf globe blue spruce
4. Dwarf Hinoki cyprus
5. Saybrook gold juniper

Constructing a Garden

Let me state here that I loathe the term "garden rooms" but I understand and use the concept in the layout of the garden. The first things that defined the backyard garden layout were the deck, the patio, and three trees. The deck had to be in a certain place because of the back exit. The patio naturally filled the remaining "floor space" at the back of the house. Our first thought of a GARDEN was to plant three trees.










The next thing was to hire a landscaper. They killed all the grass (no great loss), and brought in a lot of rocks and dirt. Then they planted a small amount of new grass.














Then we laid down some mulch (5 cubic yards -- they still sell it in yards, even though this is Canada and it should be metres) and started planting. The planting hasn't stopped since, though we are running out of room now so it's slowed down a lot.










By early Fall 2003, after getting the shed installed and building the arbour bench, the garden looked like this:

Wildlife

It's raining again... which reminds me of a Supertramp song from the 70s. But it also means there are no new photos today, no new blooms today, nothing to really talk about. I guess it's a good day to tell the skunk story. (This all took place nearly a year ago, on the Labour Day weekend last September.)

THE STORY -- One morning, our neighbours had a skunk in their garage. That same morning our front garden had been really dug up (all my freshly planted icicle pansies!). The back was also being dug up. Mike kept asking me, "Do you smell a skunky smell near the shed?" and I would say, in denial, "No, it's just the composter."

We spotted the skunk near the shed at 7:30 one evening. We tried trapping, but the skunk was too smart to be caught. So we hired the professionals, the ones who charge a lot and don't use traps. They skunk-proofed the shed and installed a one-way door that would allow the skunk to leave but not re-enter. Meanwhile that same night Mike worked frantically to block off the spaces under the deck to all access. In the middle of doing the work he noticed that the one-way door was closed. After that, he whistled while he worked (just to let the skunks know he was there so he wouldn't surprise them).

Apparently the skunks moved away and spent more time at their secondary den. In the meantime, they kept showing up and digging up the garden for a while, but at least they no longer lived under our shed. (And we were better off, because they did not end up having babies under there when spring came along).

We have other wildlife in our garden. Snakes, for example. Other than that, there have been regular visits by a family of cardinals and a blue jay, occasional sightings of chipmunks, hummingbirds and hawks, annoying visits by voles, and one memorable visit by a young robin (see photo) and its mother.

Who Knew Hostas Were Fragrant?

This evening as I was bending to clear away some of the overgrown lamb's ears near the Camperdown elm I was surprised by a delicate fragrance floating on the air. The source was a hosta whose large white blooms were not only visually pleasing, but also bore an agreeable scent. (What's even more amazing is how close that hosta is to the composter, and it still smelled good.) Who knew hostas were fragrant? I have several in my garden, and most of the larger ones are flowering now, so I had to go around and test each one. Each variety had its own scent, and all were lovely.

I have previously discovered that some daylilies are scented too, mainly the large ruffled ones. (Ruffles and scent seem to go together in flowers. Ruffled pansies are scented while ordinary varieties are not.) The daylilies Barbara Mitchell and My Hope are feasts for both the eyes and the nose.

Today, Royal Palace Prince had two blooms. It was sunny and cool early this morning (the humidity finally broke) so these flowers were looking good. The heat tends to leach the brightness out of the pink and turn it a dull brownish colour.

Not Much to Say Today

Not much to say about the garden today. We had a thunderstorm this afternoon. The last Catherine Woodbury bloom opened. I really should plant the last daylily I bought, and the annuals that are meant to refresh some of the front planters. Cast iron urns in full sun are tough. Everything fades and dries out. I guess Fall will be better. I can put some millet and fall mums or something like that. But for July and August? Full sun? I need some better ideas for next year. Maybe geraniums.

Paradigm Shift

This changes everything....

The unknown mini at the bottom of the garden bloomed today. It's a real bonanza (Bonanza, that is). Spider-like, orangey-yellow, with a raisin-coloured eye.

You know what that means? It means that the one I called "Bonanza" before, is really... (wait for it)... Lavender Rainbow.


So if Bonanza is really Lavender Rainbow, then what is the other daylily under the Deborah maple? I have to rename it again. Canning's Mystery is still a mystery, but I didn't get it at Canning's. So now the mystery has increased. I don't even know where I got it. I need a new name for this plain pink daylily:


I think I'll call it "Unsolved Mystery".

There's another mystery waiting to be solved, too. I probably won't solve it until next year. What happened to Forty-Second Street? Where did I plant it? Why didn't it bloom?

What Else Is There?

There's more to a garden than just daylilies. Heck, there's more to a garden than just plants. There is nothing interesting going on with the daylilies, except perhaps that Siloam Merle Kent is single again (sounds like a soap opera). So today I thought I would talk about structures in the garden.

What do I mean when I say "structures"? It's a way of talking about fixtures in the garden. They may be furniture, accessories, add-ons, or even buildings. Given that we live in an average suburban home with an average-sized back yard (most of which is sloping towards the house), there isn't a whole lot of space to work with. However, we do have a garden shed, an arbour bench, bird feeders and a bird bath, a deck and patio.

The shed is useful, but also became a temporary home for a family of skunks last fall (long story, another time).


The arbour bench was a fun weekend project for Mike and me. He built it, but I did most of the sanding and staining.


The main bird feeder is a source of entertainment for us. We can watch the birds and squirrels while we sit at the kitchen table. The birdbath is a functional piece of "sculpture".


The deck was built the first summer we were in the house. We stained it a couple of years later when we discovered that paper wasps were chewing it to bits. Another couple of years later we modified it to add a privacy screen when our neighbours installed a swimming pool. (The following picture was taken last year. The garden has grown a lot since then.)


The patio was part of the ongoing professional landscaping we've been getting done over the past few years.

Planters or Containers?

Do you call them planters, or containers? I'm not sure. In my quest to include entries that have nothing to do with daylilies, I am going to talk about containers today.

Having a deck, a patio, and a front porch, I do a lot of container planting. This is potentially a big topic for me so I will stick with succulents for now.


Two summers ago I got some concrete troughs for the patio. I filled them with steppables (thyme, irish moss, ajuga) and succulents (hens & chicks, stonecrop). They lasted nicely through one winter and went on display for one more summer. Unfortunately, the second winter was unkind and they simply crumbled when spring came.


Now I am using shallow bowls for the same purpose. These are more portable than concrete troughs, so I will put them in a protected place for the winter. In addition to the bowls, I also have a planter that is designed to look like a carved rock. It is filled with creeping thyme and curly ivy.


I also have a blue bowl planter that adds some colour to the rocks under the maple. It contains some dragon's blood stonecrop (love the name!) and a reddish hens & chicks. Finding the best picture of it will be hard, because I have lots of them.

Some More Daylilies

I know, I know, daylilies again. But these are some new ones that bloomed for the first time today. In the backyard I have been waiting patiently for Vanilla Fluff, a creamy peach double. On the front, it's the lemon yellow, slightly ruffled Grecian Gown, along with a somewhat disappointing Royal Palace Prince.

I seem to have convinced myself that I might have bought a daylily called Daring Deception last year, and that is the true identity of what I have been calling Strawberry Candy. That would allow for the unknown coral daylily with a red eye to be my Strawberry Candy. It still means I am missing Forty-Second Street, though, and I definitely have a tag for that one. It's all so confusing.

In the pictures below, the first (peachy-coloured) one is Vanilla Fluff; the second (lemon yellow) is Grecian Gown; and the third (pinkish with white midribs) is Royal Palace Prince.

Okay, Enough with the Daylilies

Although I have called this a gardening blog, so far it's all been about daylilies. Well, today I will actually mention other plants.

Both my butterfly bushes (purple on the front and white in the back) seem to have suffered from the weather this year. Gone are the huge bushy plants from previous years and in their place are a few scraggly shoots. The purple one always flowers first, and it is flowering now, but the poor thing looks wretched. I hope it recovers next year.

What has done well this year is the trumpet vine on the arbor bench. For the first time it is blooming with fleshy orange flowers. Most of the hostas are in full bloom, except the early ones that are finished already. The echinacea I planted next to the east fence in 2003 are strong and healthy.

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Siloam Merle Kent's Gone Double

There haven't been any notable new blooms lately, but there is an interesting development. (I was going to say "exciting development," but then I thought, "Get a life!")

Siloam Merle Kent is blooming strongly, with plenty of buds. Of three blooms today, two were doubles.

Seed Pods

Last year I got my first viable daylily seeds without even trying. (I can say with certainty that they were viable, because I planted them and about half of them sprouted.) This year I have decided to try to get as many seeds as I can, and to mix up the parentage a bit to see what interesting new plants I can create.

I was a bit worried that only my proven Moonglow would give me pods. But after feverish efforts fertilizing as many different blooms as I could manage, I have found more varieties that will allow me to harvest seeds. Although I don't want to count my seedpods before they mature*, I can say that my most well-established plants (Catherine Woodbury, Little Business, Razzamatazz) have multiple pods so far, while the following varieties have one pod each:

• Daveo Holman
• Summer Wine
• Joan Senior
• Barbara Mitchell
• Siloam Plum Tree
• El Desperado

Of these, only Siloam Plum Tree has completely finished blooming. Moonglow finished about a week ago, and Catherine Woodbury is getting close with only a few buds left to bloom. I still have a couple of new varieties that haven't bloomed at all yet. Grecian Gown, Scatterbrain (or is it Vanilla Fluff?), and an unknown mini at the bottom of the front garden. So there is still ample time and opportunity to play bumblebee and see where it takes me.

* It is wise not to count seed pods before they mature, as so many of them wither and fall off early in their development.

Deadheading

Some thoughts on deadheading daylilies. According to advice, deadheading will prevent the formation of unwanted seedpods. But if you are curious and experimental as I am, you don't want to prevent seedpods; you want to encourage them (more on that another time).

Anyway, if you are going to deadhead daylilies, let's say to give your garden a neater appearance, then there are a few things to watch out for.


A daylily bloom lasts one day. The next day, you have a "spent bloom" (that is the official term). Don't deadhead day-old spent blooms. With larger flowers, the spent blooms are full of a jelly-like substance that can be very messy (see photo). Also, the flowers will still cling tightly to the stem at this point. If you have a heavily branched stem, simply tugging on a spent bloom can detach a whole bract, new buds and all.

Better to wait at least two days to deadhead spent blooms. Wait more if you can. When the blooms dry out, they will detach easily, or fall of their own accord. Then, if you want to tidy up the garden, you can just pick the blooms off the ground or out of the foliage where they've fallen.

Shopping for Daylilies

Shopping for daylilies in early May or late July can get you some deals (more so in July than May), but as usual it's buyer beware out there. Except for miniature daylilies, with their smaller foliage, most daylily foliage looks the same. When buying out of blooming season, you are relying on photo tags or description labels for identification. Here's where it gets tricky. Watch out for these problems:

1. Mislabelled pots - This can happen at artisan-style plant outlets that get their stock from offbeat sources. I'm still trying to figure out the true identity of what I'm calling Canning's Mystery, which I bought as a Lavender Rainbow.


2. Old ID tags - I've been caught out by this one, buying what I thought was a cream daylily, only to discover it was actually a faded photo of a bright yellow one.


3. Wrong image on ID tags - Druid's Chant is a lovely lavender daylily with dark purple eyezone. But the flower on the tag photo was yellow. (This is one of those mistakes that actually worked out for the better.)


4. Homemade photo tags - Again, this can happen at artisan-style outlets. 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.

I Want More

Today I went shopping for some bargain annuals to renew my flower baskets, and ended up buying three new daylilies. Well, they were bargains, too, since most of them are past blooming now and I won't get the benefit until next year.

Today's purchases were Night Beacon, a black-purple one with chartreuse centre and green throat; Pandora's Box, a cream daylily with raspberry eyezone and yellow throat; and Destined to See, creamy white accented by a deep purple picotee edging, violet purple eyezone and soft yellow center.

Mystery Daylily

No new daylilies today, but I missed one yesterday. It's a mystery, too. I can't identify it. I have several theories, though.

1. My first theory is that it might be a double (Forty-Second Street) that is blooming as a single. The colouring seems right for that theory, although I'm not sure Forty-Second Street has a border.


2. My second theory is that this could be my Strawberry Candy, and the one I thought was Strawberry Candy is actually something else. (Wouldn't be the first time.)


3. My last theory is that it is something I planted in Spring and forgot to keep the tag for; or maybe there was no tag, only a sticker on the pot when I bought the plant, and I threw the pot out.

Anyway, here is a picture of that mystery daylily:

Two New Blooms

My first entry. Today, two new daylilies bloomed: Ida's Magic and Joan Senior.
Ida's Magic is a ruffled daylily with pink petals, white midribs, yellow eye, and green throat. There is a yellow border on the ruffled petals.

Joan Senior is a plain cream daylily.