Dreaming of Blooms

The weather has been so warm lately that I have started to plan for this year's planting season. This weekend with its cold wind and low tempatures reminded me that it's too early to get excited yet. But I can't keep my thoughts from being more and more on what this year's bloom season will brirng.



Last fall we divided and moved a number of daylilies to a new bed. We left plenty of space in between the clumps of daylilies to add other plants. We like to give the daylilies about three feet of space so we mark off the beds to indicate where plants can go. There are still flags visible indicating open spaces for new plants.

Echinacea 'Daydream'

Photo courtesy of Terra Nova® Nurseries, Inc.

www.terranovanurseries.com

One of the new plants that I already have on order to arrive this spring is this echinacea. I have other echinacea in the pink and white shades but this will be my first of the dream series. This series is advertised to be superior in landscape settings so I am anxious to give them a try.

Seeing Double

H. 'Peggy Jeffcoat',  Joiner-J,  1995 

Daylily blooms can have many forms such as this double. From the AHS daylily dictionary:

"A double flower has more than one petal whorl (hose-in-hose), or a stamen whorl that contains petaloid (petal-like) stamens (peony type double)."

H.'Condilla', Grooms, 1977

There are about 35 daylilies in my collection that are classified as doubles.

H. 'Cardigan Bay', Trimmer, 1996

Some have so many of the extra petals or petaloid tissue that the stamens are not easily seen.

H. 'Lemonberry Truffle', Kirchhoff-D, 2000

There may times when a daylily that is classified as a double does not produce the extra petaloid tissue and it will bloom as a single. This cultivar lists in its registration data that it doubles 94% of the time.