New players on the Oak Lawn stage... ~ handmade home

Thứ Bảy, 13 tháng 7, 2013

New players on the Oak Lawn stage...

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Unnamed hybrid from another's program

Yes... hemerocallis season has begun in earnest here at Oak Lawn. I don't generally spend a lot of time thinking about daylilies... that is, until they start to bloom and I am freshly reminded how lovely they can be. It's definitely one of the major hurrahs of the summer garden and each day there are new faces to greet. If you recall, I tried my hand at hybridizing several hundred new plants over the course of a couple years and it's just plain fun to see them bloom for the first time. This season I am starting the culling process and ridding myself of plants that don't excite me from among the several hundred I've created. Mind you... this has been a very unscientific process and I'm sure there is nothing really outstanding in my collection of self-created hybrids... it's just been fun and something every gardener should try at least once in their gardening life.

My daylilies are either named varieties, hybrids from an acquaintance's program, or my own hybrids. I've labeled them in each of the photos below...

"Joe Marinello"

Unnamed hybrid from another's program

my hybrid

Unnamed hybrid from another's program

my hybrid

Unnamed hybrid from another's program

"Virginia B. Hanson"

New asiatics planted last fall and this spring are also showing their faces for the first time as well as some that are like old friends of many years...

I have a couple good sized plantings of my favorite yellow daylily 'Joel', as in this situation on the north side of the garage. By the way, this stone wall was one of my first stone projects in which my then young teenaged older son and I worked together to create the structure. Good memories...

Sempervivums and sedums bloom in the rock garden and hyper-tuffas. I particularly like this white flowered sedum in bloom...

Pictured here is a stand of 30 or so 5' stems of trumpet lily. My success with this cultivar has been based on planting one bulb, waiting 25 years to divide, add a year for adapting to the transplanting of the prodigy of that lone bulb... and voila... a nice stand of a single variety just ready to come into bloom... (I guess there may be quicker methods to achieve the effect).

Just to the right of this quiet pathway all sorts of things are happening. This is where the five large trees were removed in early spring and today the stumps were removed. With all the other work in the gardens, we didn't get to this area until recently... we've removed and gifted hundreds of intermediate irises. Once that was done the problem was to deal with the horrible stand of weeds that had developed. The solution was quite simple actually and worked amazingly well... let's just say it involved bringing in a backhoe which dispensed with the weeds in short order! The future of this area won't be nearly as exciting as I first imagined... a few specimen conifers, more rock walls perhaps, and grass... At first thought, I decided that laying sod might be the solution... now I'm thinking this might be the perfect spot for some no-mow grass that I discussed earlier in the spring and I will research this as well as visit a planting in the next couple weeks to see how I like the appearance. I am getting to the point where I realize there is simply too much garden to maintain at the level we prefer... I guess this realization eventually comes to most motivated gardeners. I'll never forget our younger son's comment to someone inquiring about his dad... "My dad has more ideas than he has years"... very true unfortunately!

I'm very much liking the effect created by planting a bed of my hybrid daylilies and surrounding them with bright yellow marigolds. It is obvious to me that this idea will work only as long as space between the hemerocallis is well maintained. Basically what that means is that each plant needs to be kept to 2-3 fans so almost yearly division will be necessary. I will know better if this is an idea whose time has come as the season progresses... will the look hold up to scrutiny over time, as it were.

The remaining photos are of the area that I have called the 'althea walk'. I'm now reasonably sure that I'll rethink the idea of so many altheas in one area as I like the openess here that will be lost when the shrubs get large. By the way, we have been reveling in the fragrance of several stems of regale lilies in full bloom in this area just now. As I sat in front of the TV this evening, the scent came through the open window on the breeze... what a blessing so easily forgotten until one re-experiences it each new season.