Mears Garden news- Summer week 3- July 5, 2009

The daylilies have taken over the garden. They dominate in part because they take so much attention. They are also peaking at this point, even though they will bloom like crazy for at least several more weeks. The day starts with early morning deadheading. While this is a cleanup ritual it also requires you to get to all the corners of the yard, seeing what just started to bloom. Then you go take pictures.

Another really neat part of the daylily season is to see my own hybrids start to bloom. Daylilies cross so easily. You can do it with your fingers. Just take the pollen from one plant to the other. Then rather than deadheading those flowers the next day you just cut the old flower back several inches above the point of attachment. Within 2-3 days you will be able to see if you are setting seeds.
I have maybe 20 of my own crosses so far. Some carry the creative name of Mears seedling number 5. It takes about 3 years to get a seedling to bloom. If you have new seedlings each year then each year there will be some new surprise.
In the bonus section of the blog there are 3 pictures of daylilies blooming right now. Two are the parents of the third. The cross is rather apparent. I am not sure the result is a major improvement but it sure worked.

Of course the daylilies have competition for subjects to photograph. The Oriental lilies have started as well as all the crosses with Oriental lilies. There are also some wonderful combinations, particularly with the coneflowers scattered around.

So what about pictures? This group of four for this week’s poll was somewhat hard to pick out. I omitted the water lilies as I have decided that they are just unfair competition. They do appear in the bonus pictures.

The first picture is this great double black daylily called Night Embers.










The next picture is Oriental lily Silk Road. I have three of these that are now about 6 years old. They are almost 6 feet high each and rather sturdy even with their half day of sun. They do tower over a bed.












Then there is daylily Primal Scream. Don’t you love daylily names? This picture does come close to capturing the really vibrant orange of this flower.












Finally there is this Orientpet (Oriental and Trumpet lily cross) called American Heritage. This plant is six feet tall after 7 years and has no problem standing up by itself.











Those are your poll pictures this week. In last week’s poll the daylily close-up finished with more votes. All four pictures received good support, which is what I try to do with my selections.
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In the bonus pictures I start with the three daylilies blooming this week that are a family. The two parents are San Ignacio and Mandalay Bay. The third picture is my cross which gives San Ignacio the Mandalay Bay frilly edge. It worked, even though I do not know that the cross was an improvement over the parents.


















In the other pictures the group daylily shot is a plant called Bahama Butterscotch. This smaller daylily has maybe 23 stalks this year, each with 10-15 buds on it. It is just about the most prolific lily I have. It is in the little bed of 7-8 lilies on Fairview Street just north of the crabapple trees. If I had to have one daylily only, this one might be it.
The water lily picture in the group was taken on Saturday when we had what farmers call a million dollar rain. We needed rain and got over an inch over an 8 hour period. It all soaked in and made weeding today a dream. It also brought out the bugs. If it is not one thing, it is another.





































































Enjoy the week.
Philip

Mears Garden news- Summer week 2- June 28, 2009

Summer continues. The caladium are thriving. The time of the daylilies has begun. It is also so very busy.
There are several reasons why it is busy. First daylily season really requires deadheading. I know you should deadhead lots of things, like daffodils and iris and peonies. But somehow with daylilies you just really have to do it. I think it is because the flowers really only last one day. There are then many other buds that will be there on each stalk, blooming over a several week period. One plant can have 150 buds, given the correct conditions. In order to have the plant look good, you do not want the spent flowers in the picture. In fact some old blossoms look downright bad. Slimy is one word that can come to mind with certain varieties. I once heard that hybridizers were trying to make daylilies where the old bloom would just fall right off. It hasn’t happened. So each day I tour the garden with a bucket and deadhead. I wasn’t doing this a month ago. I wasn’t doing this a week ago.

There are also so many picture opportunities. There are all those daylilies and lilium and caladium. The caladium themselves will create pictures for several months. Sometimes they positively glow with the light from some new angle.

Did I mention that it was hot? It has been hot this past week, even though it is to cool off this week. That does mean that I have to water a few things. Impatiens are nice and they have been on sale. But they do take a lot of water, as does almost anything in a pot.

And there are the plant sales. Annuals are on sale at this point at the farmer’s market. I do have to plant this week’s purchases in order to get any next week.

So there you go. I am deadheading and photographing and watering and planting and buying those last few things.

How about some pictures. I have a few.

First there is the daylily close-up. You could just take 25 of these each day. Here is one of the first of the season. We could have a vote about whether light is more important than color. What if I suggested that light is a color?










This is a little tiny lilium called Tinkerbell. I got it two years ago and it is slowly getting bigger.













This is the white caladium called White Queen that I got this year. Caladium are so big that in the morning they can catch the sunlight so easily.











Speaking of sunlight here is an Asiatic lily out in the front parkway catching the morning sun.













I hope you will like these pictures.

Last week you liked the Michigan lily. That was a good choice.


In the bonus pictures this week you will see what else is going on. There are Japanese iris including the big pink one called Fourfold Pink. There are lilies and daylilies and one of the first coneflower pictures. My, they are nice with the other colors in the garden this time of year. And that doesn’t even count the wonderful patterns you can get in the center of the flower.























































































I hope you have a good week.
Philip

Mears Garden news- Summer week 1- June 21, 2009

It is really and truly summer. It is also difficult to pay attention to the garden or photographs of flowers, as people are beaten or worse in Iran. I remember watching the news reports from Tiananmen Square, twenty years ago. I was getting my first daylilies just about that year. You feel engaged by the drama, but even more helpless than with the drama of our own election a year ago.
But the opposition movement in Iran has chosen green as their color, a good pick. So in the tiniest gesture, the blog goes green.

And with a little effort I will think about the garden. It can be a way to maintain the calm that is so needed. Think caladium. This humidity. Think daylilies. Think mosquitoes.

So it is summer. All of a sudden the temperatures at night are above 60. They even stayed above 70 degrees 2 nights ago. Going outside in the afternoon for 20 minutes of weeding is somehow not as attractive as it was a month ago. But my goodness, how everything is growing.

The Asiatic lilies are bursting forth. The first daylilies are blooming. A few of the caladium even have big leaves. It is time to buy impatiens on sale at the farmer’s market. Did I mention slugs?

I do have pictures for you this week.

The first picture is a native wildflower, called at least someplace, the Michigan lily. It dangles from tall stalks that increase by 1-2 each year. There are now 6-7--
Did I mention the tornado siren? I guess the Shakespeare in the park will not get through the play tonight.
Later….










The second picture is this wonderful Asiatic lily set in with the gold coreopsis.











This orange amaryllis is about the last amaryllis to bloom, since I moved them outside. A blooming amaryllis can dominate an area just the way you draw it up. Please check out the picture in the bonus section.











Finally here is the speckled Asiatic lily, Latvian Promise. Speckles are really in these days.










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In last week’s poll the Iceland poppy edged out the columbine and the pink orchid cactus. Sometime I should post the best of the Iceland poppies over the years. It would be quite the set of pictures.

For the abbreviated bonus section there is Long Stocking, which is an early spider daylily, another Asiatic lily, complete with side shot, and the first Caladium picture of the summer.
I close with the long shot of the orange amaryllis in the front parkway, dominating the scene.












































Stay cool and pray for the people of Iran.

Philip

Mears Garden news- Spring week 12- June 14, 2009

As I bid spring a farewell it is time to reflect a little, thinking about what went right and what went wrong. Along the way I can think what I learned. Sometimes that can lead to what I plan for the future. One of the features of a blog is that you can go back to March and read the posts and look at the pictures.
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Actually I never know how much you really want to read my musings, as opposed to simply looking at pictures. Why don’t I show you some pictures and then muse away.

Here is a columbine. I enjoy columbine. At the same time I find columbine not a real reliable perennial. Maybe they can be coxed back a second year. And then maybe they will send out seeds. But they can be started from seed inside and if planted one year they should come back a second year. They are really quite variable in shapes and colors.










This is one of the Iceland poppies, grown from seed. You may see an Iceland poppy each week for a while. I have this nice little clump that should give pictures for several weeks. I do find that they burn out in the hot weather, so I treat them like annuals.









Pink orchid cactus!!! It turned out that I do have a piece of the one that was stolen. See post from July 27, 2008. This particular plant had not bloomed for me before, so its color was a mystery. This plant can really stop traffic, which of course led to its downfall last summer.










This last picture is a Japanese iris. I have pieces of this variety throughout the garden. It blooms just about the exact same time everywhere.









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In last week’s poll you preferred the white poppy.
This week’s poll should be interesting.
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So let me muse about the garden spring.

In reflecting on the Spring a place to start is to remember what kind of spring it was.
It was a cool spring, staying cool right into June. At the same time there was no really killing frost that I can remember after the middle of April. As a cool Spring bulbs lasted quite a while, and certain plants like lupine were around for a long time.
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What was good:
Winter aconite is just about the best way to start the spring. They are inexpensive. Just plant 50 a year for 5 years and you will have a good start. At some point they will start to spread on their own.
Dogtooth violets, erythonium, are on my get- more list. The variety I liked this year was Pagoda, but I think there are many more varieties to try.

Bluebells are good but several things should be kept in mind. First big daffodils make for a great companion. Tahiti was a variety that timed its blooms about right. White lion or Acropolis should do the same. Big hosta also make for good companions. Second, there are places that bluebells will crowd other stuff out. There really can be too many bluebells. But you should just identify those areas and pot up any bluebells that come up there.

Little bearded iris are just about the best. See the May 3, 2009 post. I really should divide them to keep their vigor. Of course the downside there is that you wind up with a whole lot of little iris.

I should get more Korean Fairy Bells. Of course like the Pagoda erythonium, the question will be how will they come back the next year.

Allium bulgaricum was in fact something that did come back the second year. I should get more. See picture on May 31 post.

Starting California poppies inside worked. I had established plants to go in places where the seeds would have taken way too long. Actually I should start some seeds July first and see if I can get a September crop.
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What did not work?

Keeping the calla lilies in the garage when the temperature outside got to -25. Toast. Time to start over on the calla lilies.

Bringing the clivia outside too early. Those plants sunburned something fierce. They will be quite happy on the porch if they have to come outside. It just takes one 2-3 hour period to ruin many leaves for the rest of the year.

But now is the time to get this post up and running. I will talk more about plans next week. Here are some bonus pictures. The hosta is Pandora's Box and it is just about the cutest mini hosta I have ever seen. That is a regular sized hellebore behind it.
The lilies are called Lollipop. The two pictures give you a good contrast between a picture of a single flower and a picture of the group. The blue flower is a clematis that would like to get vigorous but hasn't done that yet.








































Did I mention that the daylily stalks are looking real good so far?


Philip