Red Daylilies & Over watering Kills

I have not been out in the garden much since last week.  I took these pictures of blooming phlox and daylilies a few days ago.

I have this phlox planted in a number of different areas. It's the one I used for the ice cream sundae bouquet.

Speaking of that little bouquet, I changed it yesterday after I accidentally broke off one of my 'Hot Papaya' coneflowers.  I didn't want to waste the flower, so I picked off all the petals and just used the top to put a big cherry on my bouquet!

Works perfect for a cherry, don't you think?

I  have a lot of these red daylilies.  I like them since they bloom in an in-between stage of gardening--right after the first big flush of Asiatic lilies is over

I have not been deadheading my daylilies this year.  It's a big chore, so I said to heck with it. 
Next year I think I will go back to deadheading each day after work.  I can't stand how messy daylilies look without deadheading. I need to either deadhead them or don't plant them. I am not doing them justice by allowing them to look like this.

Not pretty at all.

Remember the gorgeous green coneflower and red rudebeckia I bought a few weeks ago from Home Depot?  If you forgot, the following pics won't help you remember because they are only the decayed corpses of their original bodies.

 Overnight they both drooped and within two days looked like this.  I thought it was impossible to overwater during 90 -95 degree days.   Just for kicks, I pulled the plants out and was quite angry to see this tiny root system just three inches from the top of the container:

 Had I known there was no root system, I would have never bought these plants. This is the first year I have had a problem like this.  I guess I need to take the advice I have read on the net and BEWARE OF HOME DEPOT PLANTS! 

I Checked Off One Spring Garden Chore Today

The ditch lilies are now gone from this area.  DH was kind enough to do the heavy digging to release them from the soil, then I loaded them in the big wheelbarrow.

The root system is large on these lilies and I could not shake off much soil.  The wheelbarrow  was so heavy that I could not even push it!  These lilies are hard to get rid of.  I am sure I will be digging up shoots for the next few  years.

I know it's impossible for you to know where these are in my garden, so I found a couple of pics from the past to give you a better idea of what was removed.

 Here is the same area viewed from the opposite side of the garden:

This is prime garden area--lots of sun, no rocks and right next to one of my arbors, so I think I can do better with something more interesting.  It's not that I don't like these orange lilies, because I really do.  It's just that I have a GAZILLION of them  in the wooded area where nothing else will grow. 

What's a GAZILLION, you may be wondering......................well, here is  picture from last July:

I don't think I will miss that little patch, do you?  LOL.

Ditch Lilies

"We get no respect," said one Hemerocallis fulva (ditch lily) to the next.

Some people cringe at the mention of these orange flowers that commonly grow in roadside ditches in Michigan. Many people know them as Tiger Lilies (though they are not). The mere thought of planting them causes eyebrows to raise and uppity noses to twitch with disdain.

In my garden, ditch lilies have their week of stardom. Just yesterday DH said, "I really love all those orange flowers."  I don't think he's ever mentioned liking any particular flower before.

 All of my ditch lilies came from a few  that I dug from my mom's garden about twenty years ago.  She had gotten hers from my aunt Mary's home in upper Michigan.  So Aunt Mary these are all offspring of your farm house lilies!

Without further commentary, I proudly show you the many areas where I have planted the common ditch lily (if your nose is beginning to twitch, you may want want to hit the X in the right top corner) :)

The Garden Suffers when I go Back to Work

I have completely ignored the garden for the past two days. When I am working, there is nobody to dead head all of the daylilies. I hate when they look like this!

or water the deck containers. This huge barrel of liatris is desperate for water. All of the bud heads should be standing tall toward the sky, not flopping over like this.

Even if I stayed home all day, there is no way I could dead head all of my orange ditch lilies! This is just one area of them:

You can see a few others to the left of this arbor.  I think I will be replacing those with a Ninebark shrub (now that you've all gotten me hooked on Ninebarks! LOL)

 'Tiramisu'  seems to be having a problem. Even though its advertised as more sun tolerant, I think this spot may be a bit too sunny.  I am going to leave it here a bit longer to see if it adjusts. I really need it in this spot because of the color.

When I get home from work today, I will have to go out and water again. It's dreadfully dry here.  I hate when we get a drought!

Changed the Wagon Wheel Garden

You may have noticed in Saturday's post that I had moved the aqua milk can from the wagon wheel garden.

There used to be an aqua watering can here.

I swapped the two around.

The wagon wheel garden now looks like this:

I also moved the clump of tall purple phlox to the side of the stump. I like it better now. The tall milk can with the cobalt blue container was too much in one area.

Here is the view from across the path:

The gold lilies in front are the 'Condilla' double daylilies. The big yellow daylily is 'Charm Bracelet'--it has huge 5-inch blooms with ruffled edges. They are lovely when they bloom, but a big wet mess the next day!

I have been trying to think of a color to paint my dining room walls -- when and if they ever get re-drywalled--all the contractors are busy and taking forever to give me a bid...........anyway, I love this dining room:



Right now I am planning to paint the walls a light aqua and paint my dining room chairs white. Of course, that is subject to change...

Blooming Tuesday

'Kentucky' Tango lily burst into full bloom this weekend. I showed you the first bloom, but I think 'Kentucky' deserves its full-bloom glamour shot, just like the other 4 Tango lilies had.

I want to order more of these. Three is just not enough. Here is the view across the grass path to the other arbor garden:

A little further back my purple phlox has begun. I have a few different shades of purple/pink phlox. Some of them are twenty years old and I have long forgotten their names.

Phlox is such a staple of my late July/early August garden.

This red striped/blotched Rembrandt dahlia just opened yesterday.

I'd be totally ga-ga over it, if it had a few more petals with the bold red stripes. Maybe some of the other buds will have more red. You never know what you will get with the Rembrandts. That's part of the fun about growing them. It's exciting to run out each day to see what the new flower looks like.

Update: 4:30 p.m. July 20, 2010 I just went out to see how the dahlia looked today. The next layer of petals opened and I see a lot more red stripes! I am almost

ga-ga! If I had this dahlia at Christmas time, it would be the centerpiece of my holiday dinner table--it reminds me so much of candy canes!

This Rembrandt is not lacking in red color!

I love the purple center petals. I have had this one for a few years and it never ceases to fill me with pure Rembrandt love!

Here is another of my original Rembrandt dahlias. They are purple and my least favorite.
So wouldn't you know that the purple are what I have the most of! I ordered another Rembrandt collection last fall. So far none of them have bloomed. I am hoping that I do NOT have more purple in my new collection!

I just went out and cut down the orange and red spent lily stems around the globe thistle.

Now all of those lovely orbs show up nicely. It won't be long before they turn blue. I am hoping that you won't be seeing that pile of top soil much longer. I have been asking DH to knock in down for the past two years. I have been waiting at least 104 weekends....maybe next weekend will be the one! It's getting small enough that I can probably do it myself. It ruins all of my pics!

I got down close to the ground for this shot. I wanted to get the red-striped Tropicanna leaves in. This canna is planted right in the ground and is not growing as fast as the cannas I have in containers.
Last year the one I planted in this same spot did not bloom. I am hoping for a better outcome this year.

Right now I have a lot of red daylilies blooming -- many of them are called 'Red Fan Fare'. They are a fairly short daylily - -about 12 inches tall--I like the yellow centers -- they look like they are on fire!

So that's what's new in my garden. Now head over to Jean's Blooming

Tuesday to see what everyone else has. Jean has a lot of different coneflowers--all colors. I am going to see the others right now.

The Orange is Gone

I am always amazed at how this border changes each month. All the bright orange Asiatic lilies and daylilies are now gone and it's returning to mostly purple and as soon as all the black-eyed Susans bloom, there will be a lot of gold.
I realized today that most of my flowers have finished blooming already. I only have Sedum Autumn Joy and asters left.

Another season is almost over!

Echinacea, et al.

The herb that grows like a weed for everyone but me. I can barely get it to survive.
There are no big patches of it in my garden, even though I have tried and tried. I get a plant here and there to throw up a bloom or two, but that's about it.

This website extols its medicinal virtues:
"The active constituents of Echinacea work together to help inhibit the influenza and cold viruses by increasing the body’s natural production of interferon and should be taken as a preventative during flu season. Once a cold is in progress, Echinacea can stimulate your immune system to help speed recovery. Sore throats, cough, and congestion all can enjoy quick relief with the use of Echinacea.

Echinacea is available in capsule form, in teas, and in a liquid extract. Gingivitis, canker sores, recurrent ear infections, and yeast infections can also benefit from the immune boosting properties of Echinacea.

I just think it's pretty and I wish I had masses of it.


Here's another plant I'm having problems with -- the ligularia (yellow right side).

I bought two of them last year. One of them threw up two tiny little leaves and struggled for survival. It lost it's battle last week. (At $16.50 per plant, I was not happy).

This one is about three feet tall (they should be about 6-7 feet tall with huge leaves), but at least it's living and blooming.

Oh, here's my latest daylily bloom

It's a peachy color. I don't know its name, but I sure do like the lilies with dark eyes.

I think I only have two daylilies left that have not bloomed. It's hard to believe the season is going by so fast.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise

Gives Zoey bags under her eyes!

After spending three hours last evening in the garden, digging and moving plants, wouldn't you think I would need a full night's rest?
I thought so, too, but I woke up at 2:00 a.m. At 2:45 a.m. I was still awake, so I got up, made coffee, and read blogs for the past 2 hours.

It was quite enjoyable, but now I will be tired all day.
I have a lot of work to do in the gardens today.

I am in one of those periods when everything looks run down and all I want to do is grab a shovel and remove plants! It happens every year at this time.

When you have a LOT of the same plant, they all die at roughly the same time. Everything starts to look like this:

I need to cut down tons of Shasta daisies and remove quite a few orange daylilies.
It's 5:00 a.m. right now. By 6:00 a.m. it will be light enough and I will be out there.

While some plants die, others are born. I did have two morning glories bloom this week. These plants self seeded in my hibiscus plants. They have been doing so for two years now. I just let them climb their way through. I like the purple shades with the orange/red of the hibiscus.

The Truth about Daylilies

But first, here's my new bloom today


'Condilla'- a double gold.
The color is off in the pic. It's really more gold than yellow.
I like this one a lot. (I say that about quite a few, don't I?)










And here is a deformed red lily.
Isn't it the neatest thing? It should look like the red 'fan fares' I posted below. I don't know what happened to it. It's the only bloom on the plant.


I bet there are some non daylily people coming here (and to all the blogs posting all those beautiful macros of their daylillies) and thinking that they may want to grow these, too. Everyone knows they are so easy to grow -- just plant them and they bloom for years with no work. I bet some of you think maybe you would like a big garden full of them.

Well, before you dash off to buy truck loads of them, here is something to consider.
If you do no work, they look like this



Not too pretty with all those deadheads dangling about, are they?

Sure, they will grow with very little work, but if you want them to look good, it takes a LOT of work.
They need daily deadheading to look nice.

Do I do it every day?

No, not any more.

I now have so many that I would have to quit working to have enough time to do them every day.

I don't worry much about them until the weekend. I will deadhead them all on Saturday and again on Sunday. I will most likely use a pair of scissors because it's faster and my fingers don't get all sticky.

And that, dear readers, is the truth about growing daylilies.