Just A Little Too Much

 After two days of rain we had a thunderstorm last evening that sat over us for almost an hour and a half.

 

 

The garden beds in the lowest part of the back garden were flooded. During a lull in the storm, my DH ventured out and saw water overflowing the waterways he had created to divert the rainfall that he had hoped would prevent this from happening. If this much rain had fallen over a longer period of time I think it would have.

 

 

 

Our land drains fairly rapidly because it is mostly limestone with many underground caverns. But with this much rain it will take a while for all of it to drain away.Then the cleanup can begin. 

June Blooms for GBBD

H.  'Texas Beautiful Bouquet'

Mid June brings the beginning of our daylily blooms.  We are growing close to  600 cultivars with bloom dates that range from mid June until the end of July.  The daylily pictured above is one of my favorites of the early blooming ones.

H. 'Richard William Haynes'

Blooming in a bed nearby is another early favorite. This one is classified by the American Hemerocallis Society as an unusual form.  I love the long curling petals and sepals. I first became interested in growing daylilies after seeing the round ruffled ones but I find myself drawn more and more into the unusual forms.

Echinacea 'Daydream'

There are several of the cone flowers that are beginning to bloom. E. 'Daydream' was added late last year so these are the first blooms on this plant. I am very pleased with it so far. It is planted in one of the daylily gardens.

Echinacea 'PowWow Wild Berry'

 

Last year I purchased several of the variety E. 'PowWow Wild Berry' but several of them developed the aster yellow disease. I destroyed all the plants that displayed any symptoms and so far this year have not seen any evidence of the disease. I have not purchased any new cone flowers this year. I love these colorful plants and will really miss their presence if the disease appears again this year.

 

Achillea x 'Moonshine'

 

 

Coreopsis 'Sienna Sunset'

 

The yarrow's and the coreopsis are plants that can take a lot of neglect and keep right on blooming. The coreopsis have been divided several times and moved to other areas of the garden because I can count on them to bloom.

 

Hydrangea however are not always so dependable in my garden. I keep searching for the perfect spot and I may have found a good one for the one in this first picture. It may just have been the mild winter but I am hoping that its the location. Only time will tell.

 

Hydrangea macrophylla

 

 

Hydrangea quercifolia

 

This is the first bloom ever for my oakleaf hydrangea. The deer munch on this plant every fall and winter and I was sure I would never see a bloom. I had to move the Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow' in order to get a good picture. But at least I have proof that it bloomed once.

 

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lady in Red'

 

The 'Lady in Red' hydragea does bloom most years. There are lots of buds this year so I will get to enjoy it longer.

 

 

The final picture is of a Blue Star Creeper. It is new this spring and I am please that  it is blooming and spreading. This area is a small slope at the end of our rock wall garden. I am hoping that it will be vigorous enough to cover much of the slope and grow between the stones that are on the slope.

 

Isotoma fluviatillis Blue Star Creeper

 

Hope your garden is full of blooms for you to enjoy.

 

 

Sue Ellen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red in the Garden

"If one says 'Red' – the name of color – and there are fifty people listening, it can be expected that there will be fifty reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different." -- Josef Albers

H. 'Places in the Heart'

I have been drawn to red daylilies since I started to collect them a few years ago but it is very hard for me to describe the color. Reds can be so different.

H. 'Round Red Ruffles'  

Red is considered a warm color in landscape design. Its appearance in the garden has an energetic effect.

H. 'Sanford Code Red' 

When I first began gardening warm colors were always dismissed in favor of all the cool colors.

Age has changed my thinking since I find myself drawn more and more to the vibrant and warm colors.

H 'All American Chief'

Choosing red daylilies is the easy part for me. Choosing the best companions for them is much harder but is something that I want to accomplish as I continue to garden.

Wordless Wednesday

Consider the lilies, how they grow....

Scenes from the Garden

This morning was foggy and overcast which allowed me to capture a few scenes from the garden. 'Spiderman' was full of blooms and looked great against the canna's. Everything is so much earlier this year. I don't remember the canna's ever being ready to bloom in May.

'Bill Norris' and 'Primal Scream' which are both winners of the Stout Award were also full of blooms. The ornamental grass on the right was something my husband purchased. It will mature at almost 10 feet tall. I love the color of it in the early part of summer but it loses much of its variegation by fall. I placed it there to partially hide the work shed.

'Jim Brown' is in view from the benches in the pergola. A large wisteria grew here until early this spring. Although it has been planted here close to 10 years, it had never bloomed. In April when my grandson was visiting, the equipment came out to remove it. The trees that are planted on each side of the pergola are large enough to shade the seating area but there is also enough light that I am growing some containers there.

Garden in Late May

This is what I see when I step outside my sun room/office door.  There are lots of daylilies in bloom which is unusual for late May. The Knock Out roses are recovering from the late frost we had and are coming into full bloom. There are eight of the double reds, a double pink and a  single pink Knock Out along this walkway.

'Larry Allen Miller'

Going down the walk toward the pergola one of the daylilies you will see in bloom is 'Larry Allen Miller. I like the gold edge and the deep purple color. Although it really is not visible it has a green throat.  It is by far the best this plant has looked which is no fault of it's own. It was in a very crowded bed until last fall. We re-did both sides of the walk and gave all the daylilies more space by moving some to other beds.

After going through the pergola and to your right this is the scene you will see. There are many more daylilies in bloom in what we call the rock wall garden. The purple leafed tree in the background is a 'Forest Pansy' redbud.

'Dizzy Miss Lizzy'

 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' is one of many daylilies which reside in this garden. It is an unusual form which also has that beautiful green throat. 

 It is a joy every morning to go see what is blooming for the first time this daylily season. There are many more to have their first flower for the 2012 season so there is still much to look forward too.

Bloom season has begun.

Daylily blooms are popping up all over the garden. Pictured above is H. 'Happy Returns' blooming with an orange Asiatic lily.

Stella is blooming in the shade garden. She doesn't seem to mind the dimmer conditions.

H. 'Texas Bouquet Beautiful'

This daylily is certainly living up to its name today with its lovely bouquet of blooms.

H. 'Artemio'

Artemio has been blooming for three days. This is the second year in the garden for this plant and to me the blooms are much prettier than they were last year.

H. 'Richard William Haynes'

 

Richard William Haynes is the first of my unusual form daylilies to bloom.

There are many more blooms to look forward to and I hope to share a lot of them here. 

Shrubs in the Garden

 

Buxus microphylla 'Wintergreen'

Boxwoods are an often used shrub in the our garden. These are among the first planted here. I love the structure that they can provide. The daylilies that are planted in the middle of these areas are dormant now but the boxwoods will remain green all winter. They are sheared at least once in the spring to maintain the shape of the beds.

Buxus sempervirens 'Suffruiticosa'

I love to grow them in containers also. Planted in these containers are dwarf English Boxwood  .  Because they grow so slowly (sometimes as little as an inch a year) they are perfect to leave in containers for several years.

Wintergreen Boxwood and White Out Hydrangea

They are planted in borders with other plants to give the garden winter interest when the other plants are leafless. They provide a beautiful backdrop for annual plantings.

Eyes and Edges

'Woman at the Well'

When we first started to collect daylilies we didn't include many of those with
edges and eyes.

'Crazy Ivan

As the collection grew we started to add more with this characteristic.

'American Icon'

These bloomed in my garden this summer, for some it was their first year here.

'Loafin in Lahani'

I have really enjoyed the striking contrast of these eyes and edges.

Jackie Kropf

Pale Pastels

'Isle of Wight'

There are daylilies that need to be enjoyed up close.

'Northern Dawn'

They don't shout at you from across the garden,

'Coming to America'

but if you take the time to stroll,

'Pink Praise'

you will be amazed at their delicate colors

'God Alone'

and their ruffled edges.

'Winter Treasure'

They will make you  smile and be glad you decided there was time to slow down and stroll through the garden to discover its quieter side.



August Garden Notes

August has been a really busy month. We have dug, divided and replanted one main bed of daylilies in our garden. The daylilies in this bed were so crowded that this years bloom on the most crowded ones was less than in the past. In order to make the spacing between the plants greater we had to create a new bed to hold them. We put back in the garden bed at least three or four fans and planted the  extra fans in another area in order to offer them for sale next spring.  Rainfall has been scarce this month which helped us get as many moved as we did, but it also meant dragging hoses and watering the all the beds.

We still have a few more that need to be divided this fall if possible, there is the mulch that needs to be put down and the rest of the daylily beds need a final cleanup. I want to cut the foliage back so there will be less of the old foliage to remove in the spring. Sooo, September looks as if it too will be busy. There has been little time to photograph the garden, since we used the early morning and late evening hours as much as possible to do most of the renovation.  I hope to soon be able to get back out with the camera, so that I can  show some before and after shots of the bed that we redid.

 The lack of rain is definitely creating fewer rebloom scapes but there were a few that  were blooming this past weekend. A couple of those blooming are

'Worth It All'

'Circle of Fire'

This is the first year bloom for both of these plants in my garden.  I am looking forward to more blooms on them next year.



Canna

The canna's are still blooming. They seem to be one of the humming birds's favorite sources of nectar in the garden. This is a plant that I never thought about growing here because I thought they had to be lifted in the fall. A few years ago someone mentioned they couldn't get rid of them so I had to experiment. I planted a few tubers in October with no special protection. Those same plants are still returning year after year.

I have added a couple of the dwarf varieties this year, we will see if they are as winter hardy as the red one. Both of these dwarf are planted close to the pond. I got these tubers at an end of season sale so I won't be too disappointed if they don't return.

'Pink Praise'

I still have a few daylilies blooming and I am beginning to see some rebloom scapes on a few of them. I hope that there will be more late blooms if the tempatures cool a little.