Lots of Daylilies Today

Hang onto your gardening hats! Today there were a lot of different daylily varieties blooming in the garden, and I'm intending to show as many of them as I can. Here goes:

Blueberry Candy



Bonanza



Canadian Border Patrol



Catherine Woodbury



Daring Deception



Destined to See



Edge of Darkness



El Desperado



Grecian Gown



Lady Fingers
(Polytepalous Spider, First Bloom Yesterday 21/07/07)



Moristar Mix



Peach Magnolia



Razzamatazz



Siloam Doodlebug



Strawberry Candy



Wayside King Royale


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


(Not shown, but also blooming today: All American Plum, Barbara Mitchell, Dad's Best White, Little Business, Purple d'Oro.)

Earlier in the year, I thought we would be on vacation this week. I knew exactly what I'd be missing, so I had actually made arrangements with a friend to come and photograph my garden for me. While I would have enjoyed the vacation, I'm also kind of glad I'm not missing all the blooms in my garden.

Shapes and Colours

Just to start off with something different, a 'White Swan' echinacea in my front garden by the porch.

'White Swan' Echinacea



Now, to daylilies of varying shapes and colours. First the "firsts".

'El Desperado' First Bloom



Cassadiana First Bloom



Now, some others whose photos turned out nicely today.

'Siloam Plum Tree' with 'Cimmaron Knight' in the Background



'Country Melody' with 'Cassadiana'



'Sabine Baur' (Bottom) with 'Daring Deception' (Top)


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

Ladybugs

Just some pictures of ladybugs in my garden.

Ladybug on a Spent Daylily Bloom



Ladybug on an Echinacea Bud


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

Rainy Day Post

Thanks to everyone who stops to comment. I enjoy finding out that people have been reading this blog without telling me. I also enjoy hearing from my old garden-blogging friends.

Today we had early morning and late afternoon rain. The rest of the day was naturally quite humid, since the temperature was also high. I did manage to get a few photos a few hours after the rain:

New Rudbeckia Flower



Damp Asiatic Lilies



Cricket Dance in the Lattice Border


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

More Daylilies in the Garden

I've been waiting for 'Elegant Candy' and it finally had its first bloom today, elegant as ever.

Elegant Candy



The other first bloom today was 'Strawberry Candy'.

Strawberry Candy



And now the rest of the post is just different pictures of daylilies in the garden.

'Canadian Border Patrol' and 'Chicago Atlas'



Last year on this blog I had a big dilemma about where to plant my 'Black-Eyed Susan' daylily, since its bright orangey-yellow colour was so uncharacteristic of my garden. Here is where it ended up.

Black-Eyed Susan in the Garden



I showed a photo of 'Daveo Holman' yesterday. It had four or five blooms today, but they are all very much smaller than usual. And, as I said, the buds on it this year are all looking a bit deformed. Here is one of the flowers today. It's a very unusual daylily because the streaked petals are its natural colouring.

'Daveo Holman' Today



'Siloam Doodlebug' was a reliable bloomer in my garden last year. Now that I've planted my hardy geranium 'Splish Splash' in front of it, though, it seems to be overshadowed. So much moving around needs to be done to get things to look their best.

'Siloam Doodlebug' in the Garden



And here's another Siloam in the garden; this one is 'Siloam Merle Kent'.

'Siloam Merle Kent' in the Garden



And finally, I've decided (once again) that this unknown should be called 'Daring Deception'. I know that they were on the shelves for sale at the same time as 'Forty-Second Street'. It would have been a simple matter of someone sticking the wrong tag in the pot. It might not have been on purpose, but you never know. Maybe someone was intent on committing a daring deception.

Daring Deception


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

In the Garden Today

A funny thing happened today. It's not exactly a rare occurrence to have a bird fly pell-mell into our patio doors. It happens maybe once or twice a year. But we've never had one that left an imprint before. (Must've been a dirty bird.)



While I'm on the subject, one of the successes in my garden has been (the other side of) this lattice wall, on which I installed some trellises for the harlequin honeysuckle to climb. When first installed, the honeysuckle, and in fact the whole bed, was fairly immature.

Lattice Wall, June 2006



In spite of being infested with aphids earlier this year, the harlequin honeysuckle has really taken off.

Lattice Wall, July 2007



The garden under the elm is not doing too badly either. Well, okay, this is my version of showing an "ugly" part of my garden. (I forget who it is, but there is someone who's been encouraging fellow garden bloggers to show the less savoury areas of their gardens.) It's not actually that ugly, but it definitely has its flaws. Like the insect-eaten elm leaves, and the shabby-looking lamb's ears. (I am actually considering ripping the whole clump of lamb's ears out and starting from scratch with new plants.)

Elm with Buddha and Daylilies



I love how the woolly thyme is so thick it's creeping up the rocks.

One of the things responsible for some bits of unpleasantness in my garden is a couple of chipmunks who have moved in. You wouldn't know it to look at them, though, because they are so cute.

Chipmunk



And, as a further respite from ugliness, I want to show you my two 'Lavender Rainbow' daylilies in context with 'Tequila Sunrise' coreopsis and 'Marmelade' heuchera.

Lavender Rainbow in Context



And finally, because we have opened the door to ugliness today, I must show you that the only first bloom I had on this date was 'Daveo Holman'. Never a spectacularly pretty bloom anyway, this year the buds are all small and even slightly deformed. So it won't be a great year for this variety, as seen by the condition of this bloom.

'Daveo Holman' First Bloom Today


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

Why Don't They Bloom?

New daylilies are still blooming in a steady trickle. Today's new blooms were Druid's Chant and an unknown one (mislabelled when I bought it as 'Forty-Second Street').

Here is a photo of Druid's Chant.

Druid's Chant



And here is the unknown.

Unknown (Possibly 'Daring Deception')



While it's encouraging to see new blooms, the more plants I get, the more I am seeing of quite a different phenomenon. The number of plants I have that are not sending up scapes is quite dismaying! Some of these have not bloomed since the first year I bought them:

• Scatterbrain (2004)


• Ida's Magic (2005)


• Nile Crane (2006)


• Franz Hals (2006)


• Spider Miracle (2006)


• Flamboyant Eyes (2007!)

I've researched reasons why daylilies don't bloom, and it appears to be that their needs for sun and water are not being met. It is possible to plant a daylily too deeply, which can affect its ability to bloom. There is also the possibility of overcrowding. With 'Scatterbrain', I suspect it's being strangled by the vinca that surrounded it in the summer of 2005. I have moved 'Ida's Magic' this year to a place in the sun, and I am paying more attention to watering it.

'Nile Crane' is (I'm hoping) a very specific problem that won't repeat itself: a squirrel planted a corn seed in the early spring right where the daylily was growing. The corn was indistinguishable from the daylily until it grew into a recognizable corn plant about a foot (30 cm) tall. By that time, the corn roots had grown over the daylily's crown, pretty much "strangling" it.

I suspect overcrowding is an issue with 'Franz Hals', since three daylilies are sharing a small space that is rapidly being overtaken by a large evergreen tree. 'Spider Miracle' probably needs a new location with more sun and less competition for water. And finally, I don't know what's up with 'Flamboyant Eyes'. It's a brand new purchase that never got scapes. I'm thinking of contacting the place I bought it from.

However, one new purchase this year is looking very lovely. 'All American Plum' had three blooms today.

All American Plum


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

The Middle of July... Already?

Well, there's been so many daylilies on this blog lately that I thought I'd add something more this time around. I briefly considered doing a Garden Blogger's Bloom Day post, but most of my blooms are daylilies anyway, with the exception of some hostas, heucheras, a lone scabiosa flower, two of my hardy geraniums ('Roxanne' and 'Hokus Pokus'), 'Tequila Sunrise' coreopsis, various echinacea ('White Swan' and 'Kim's Knee High', with buds on 'Magnus' and 'Ruby Star'), one rudbeckia bud, and that's about it. Oh, and the asiatic lily my mother gave me as a gift last year.

Pink Asiatic Lily (Gift from Mom)



As far as the daylilies are concerned, there were only two new first blooms today. One of them was 'Razzamatazz'.

Razzamatazz



The other was 'Canadian Border Patrol'. When I purchased this plant last year, I purposely chose one that was a delicate pink with a dark pink eyezone. Unfortunately, it didn't grow with those colours this year, so it actually looks identical to 'Moonlit Masquerade'.

'Canadian Border Patrol' 2007



Flower Purchased 15/07/06 (Same Plant as Above)



Finally, we had a visitor to our garden today. We are not surprised anymore by our various visitors. We've had a family of skunks, a jackrabbit, frogs who rest in daylily flowers, nesting mourning doves, and lately some cute (but annoying) chipmunks have taken up residence. However, today was our first visit from a turtle.

Turtle Visitor to Our Yard


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

I was not aware that turtles had such nasty claws, until I saw this one up close.