A New Daylily and Iris Bed

Last week I put together a daylily and iris bed to cultivate and divide more plants for my little plant nursery.  Daylilies and irises are great plants for any garden since they offer so much for so little.  They grow strong without too much attention, enjoy the sun, and are tolerant various soils - which is good since this area has quite a lot of clay!

My daylily and iris bed is a small one but will be expanded onto later.  It's about 12 feet long and 4 feet wide.  I tilled it first - which was a challenge since it was on a slope, then raked it smooth and tried to remove any grass clumps left behind.  Ideally I would have located it on level ground but I wanted to keep the level areas of the yard open for three crazy children that need room to run.  Who knows when we'll need to turn the backyard into a baseball diamond, volleyball court, or kickball stadium?  Kids need room to run! The bed itself is leveled and sloped inward toward the hill to allow water to stay present in the bed a little longer.  Sloped areas have a tendency to dry out faster than you would like.



A month ago I picked up several highly discounted daylilies.  At $1 per pot it was hard to pass up.  I divided (more on dividing daylilies) the three pots of 'Fragrant Returns' into about 15 plants and one pot of 'Entrapment' into 4 and filled up a row.  I added a few more divisions from my garden including 'Primal Scream'

'Primal Scream'

(which is awesome) 'Crimson Pirate' and an iris called 'Solar Flare'.  There's still room in the rows but it's really amazing how fast it all fills in!


I used some old tomato stakes that i broke in half as plant markers for some of the daylilies.  I didn't have enough stakes to label them all so the re-purposed mini-blind tags were used for some.


I have quite a few unnamed irises that need divided so it won't take long before I need to add more area to this bed.  I may have to terrace the slope in some fashion to make it more usable for my growing needs!

'Crimson Pirate'

I'm continuing with my plans for hybridizing daylilies and irises.  I did some experimenting this year and successfully managed one cross between 'Crimson Pirate' and another daylily.  Most of my other attempted were foiled by the dry June weather we experienced.  I didn't label the cross and so I don't know the other daylily.  Currently I have two seedlings growing from that cross.  There may not be any value to that cross what so ever aside from the hybridizing learning experience. But you know, knowledge is valuable!

'Primal Scream' Daylily AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

The other day I mentioned I had another daylily that was about to bloom called 'Primal Scream', well that daylily is screaming now! 'Primal Scream' has large orange blooms that have faint hints of reddish coloring in the outer edges of the petals and a more true orange color the further toward the center.

I planted my 'Primal Scream' daylily in the birdbath garden which unfortunately no longer has a birdbath. The soldering fell apart around the bracket that held the copper birdbath onto the post. One of these days I'll get around to repairing the old copper birdbath or maybe I'll find a new one.

A Master Gardener who lives nearby recently invited our garden club to visit his garden that houses over 600 daylily varieties. I've been very curious about his garden for a while now and hope to make a stop up there while the daylilies are still in bloom!

I have to say that 'Primal Scream' is one of the most vibrant daylilies I've seen but I know that with the ease of daylily hybridization there must be thousands of high quality daylilies available. Now if I can ever get my act in gear maybe I'll actually hybridize something!

Blooming Daylilies

Daylilies are one of those plants every garden should have. Unfortunately I've been lax in adding daylilies to the garden over the years. I'm not sure why really. It might be the fact that daylilies in the garden centers aren't all that thrilling and that is where I do most of my shopping. I've perused catalogs for various online nurseries and seen some spectacular daylilies. I tend to be hesitant to order much through online nurseries since the plant size tends to be fairly small.

I bought a new daylily this year called 'Primal Scream' which won't be featured in this post (You can see 'Primal Scream' here). It's a few days from its first blooms but sports brilliant orange blooms when it does. Or at least it's supposed to, I haven't seen it yet! Here's what our current daylily collection looks like:

Stella D'Oro Daylily
Stella may be common but when used in the right places can really add some color. I can't say for 100% certainty that his is a Stella since it came with the house but the odds are good.

'Red Volunteer' Daylily
This beautiful daylily was just given to use last weekend by a friend who lives on the other side of our neighborhood. It has a nice form and a beautiful color don't you think?

Forgotten Name Daylily (edit: 'Pardon Me')
I'm guilty of completely forgetting the name of the daylily that Frances gave us a couple years ago.  I always try to keep up with all the names and cultivars but sometimes my memory fails! It's done very well in our garden and has been divided and moved into a couple locations now.

'Crimson Pirate' Daylily
Arrrr!!! Need I say more? Probably. 'Crimson Pirate' came from a box bought at a box store. The petal shape is quite different from the other daylilies we have. It's more of a spider type daylily.

Ye Old Ditch Lily
We have quite a few ditch lilies around the garden. It's taken some time but I've realized that the proper place for these in the garden isn't among the other plantings. Ditch lilies should be planted enmass for a full effect as filler plants in their own special area.

Do you collect daylilies? How many varieties do you have?

Two More Daylilies!

Yesterday I brought home two more daylilies to add to our daylily collection.  Please welcome 'Serena Sunrise' and 'Custard Candy' to the garden!

'Serena Sunrise' Daylily

Both of these daylilies have already been crossed with each other (yesterday) and with my favorite daylily 'Primal Scream' (today)!  I can't wait to see the results, but wait I must!

'Candy Custard' Daylily

Both of these daylilies are going to be a part of this month's Lowe's Creative Ideas project which involves planting an edible garden area that is also ornamental.  Daylilies are well known for having edible flowers and when mixed in with more traditional edibles should look fantastic!  For May I put together a vertical garden that uses gutters as planters.

Our Daylilies of 2012

It's nearly summer which means that it's time for the daylilies to be showing off their flowers. Daylilies aren't native plants by any means but they do really well here in Tennessee.  They have very few problems and tend to grow nearly untended!  I'm sure that combining their low maintenance attribute with their beauty is why they have become so popular. They are definitely not deer resistant and may need protection from deer if the daylilies are planted in a deer prone area, although I don't think we've had the deer eat any of our daylilies yet.  Daylilies get their name from the blooms that open and flower for just a day.  Despite this they can be blooming for several weeks during the summer due to multiple scapes (flower stems) and multiple flowers on those scapes! 

I'm getting into daylily hybridizing this year in a more serious way (which means I'll actually collect the seed this time!)  When hybridizing it's important to know which flowers are diploid or tetraploid.  Diploid flowers have two sets of chromosomes where tetraploid have four.  The two types won't cross over with each other.

Here are a few of our daylilies:

Lavender Dew (or at least that's the plant tag I have!)

Diploid

A double ditch lily (Hemerocallis fulva)

Diploid

Red Volunteer

Tetraploid

Crimson Pirate

Diploid

Primal Scream

Tetraploid

Pardon Me

Diploid

I have several more daylilies on the way but most likely they will not be flowering this year.  Of course I'll show them when they are!

A Quick Update from the Garden

This week has been eventful. I haven't been able to post much about the garden due to the happenings here but I did want to catch everyone up on how things are growing.  Here's a quick update on the garden.

The beans are climbing the bamboo trellis I put together.  I gathered it up from a roadside where someone had left it for the city to come by and remove.  I figured I could make good use of them as a bean tee-pee.  It will look more impressive as the beans climb their way to the top.

Our lavender is having its best show ever this year.  The honeybees are happy to have it around.  I would bet that the honey they make would be very good from lavender flowers.  I have noticed a drop off in the amount of bees in my garden this year although perhaps their number is rising as the season progresses.  Many beekeepers have reported significant losses in our area due to the cold weather and late frosts as well as other factors. Avoid the pesticides please!

The daylilies have begun their blooming in our garden.  Here are a few but I'll post again with a more daylily specialized post later.

I cleaned off the porch the other day.  My Coral Red honeysuckle was getting out of hand.  I think I need to move it permanently to another location.  I guess that means I need to build another arbor or a fence.

The farmers market business I have selling plants is doing great.  My income is much higher than it was last year which I believe has to do with what I've produce for the market.  I grew more heirloom vegetables and herbs than I did ornamentals.

But by far the most important update isn't actually in the garden...at least not yet.  One day I'm sure she will be.  Meet my newest daughter Marian!

Both baby and mother are doing great!