Thursday, June 30, 2005
Orienpets
Orienpet lily 'Visa Versa'; when this new class of lilies first came on the market (a cross between ORIENtal lilies and trumPETS), I wasn't all that impressed, but the newer crosses are just gorgeous, with enormous vigor, thick substance, bright colors, and some with a wonderful scent... sweet, but not as cloying as its parents. Visa Versa may be my pick as the best of the lot, but I'll show more as they open. A garden filled with these giants would be spectacular indeed.
A Walk In The Garden Today
Daylily Red Alert; an older hybrid, but still a good one, with very stiff, tall stems even in shade.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Iowa Summer
The humidity today has been incredible, with a heat index of 101 degrees, and tonight a powerful cold front is sweeping into the state from Nebraska, with the radar showing ugly amoebas of red racing to the northeast at 45 miles an hour, as the cooler, drier air rolls across the prairies, lifting the moist, heavy air to form billowing thunderheads to 50,000 feet. I turned on the garden lights and went for a walk, with distant lightning flickering constantly on the western horizon, and a warm wind from the southwest, starting to swirl and gust fitfully, rustling the leaves in the tops of the tall black cherry trees. Wind to 60 miles an hour, rain, and possible hail are expected. It will be a rocky night.
A Walk In The Garden Today
On these hot, sultry summer days, the perfume of the trumpet lilies is so thick and sweet, you can almost feel it, and at night as we sit on the screen porch watching the lightning bugs, and listening to the frogs, every time a little breeze stirs, the aroma of the lilies wafts into the house . Add the rumble of distant thunder, and I'm in heaven.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Note To Self
When weeding in the garden with bare hands, try not to pull up a stinging nettle (ever again).
Flirting With The Dustbowl
This morning we woke up to the blessed sound of rain and thunder; it has been incredibly dry here in eastern Iowa, and it had been almost a month since our last rain. Gardeners tend to be a cranky and paranoid lot when it comes to the weather, always thinking, when it's dry, that rain clouds conspire to go around them. My brother has some quite incredible tales of rain storms making extensive evasive maneuvers to avoid his garden. THIS year, though, our paranoia has been justified; eastern Iowa and central Illinois have had the driest March-June since the dust bowl years of 1934-5. We have been trapped, sweltering, under a persistent cap of hot air, which consistently steers large storms around us, or like last night, huge storms head right at us, then fall apart 10 miles to our west, when they hit the cap. Most of Iowa has been deluged, with up to 10 inches of rain in just the last two days, and yet in east central Iowa we've had only 6 inches all year. Well, a powerful cold front may finally be breaking down our cap, and hopefully it won't just re-form. I will never take rain for granted; a wonderful sound.
Monday, June 27, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
The daylilies are in full bloom, with perhaps two hundred different kinds, making the garden quite spectacular right now, with the asiatic and trumpet lilies blooming above clouds of daylily flowers.
Hosta 'Pathfinder'; this hosta maintains a very neat clump... because of its incredible hard substance (like plastic), and its moderate size, it doesn't flop all over the place. It stays neat-looking all season.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Daylily 'Furnaces of Babylon'. This flower has a dynamite, deep orange-red, fiery color; one of my favorites.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Friday, June 24, 2005
A Walk In The Garden Today
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Daylily 'Forever Red'; I wish I had more sunny spots for daylilies... I'd love to have an area where you walk around a shady corner into a sunny area with about twenty different red daylilies. You're right if you just thought "I'll bet he had a shiny red sports car when he was young."
Daylily 'Awesome Blossom'. This flower truly is awesome; the substance of the petals is uniquely heavy, the color saturation is very nice, and in spite of the ruffles and crinkles, it opens well, and is even a heavy bloomer. If I was limited to only one daylily in my garden, this would have to be it; I still look forward to seeing it bloom each year. It was released by the hybridizer, Salter, in 1996, and is, I note, being used a lot in further hybridizing. Interestingly the daylily 'Wisest of Wizards' shown below is one of the parents. Some of the newer daylily hybrids are just jaw-dropping, but so are their introductory prices ($100-$200), so it will be MANY years before any of them grace this garden (Awesome Blossom is now available for as little as $15).
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Passalong
This red daylily is perhaps outdated, compared to some of the newer red hybrids, but it's priceless to me; you see it's a passalong from an old gardening friend, who died many years ago. It came with no name, but I call it "Dr. Ellyson", after my friend. There are many such plants tucked away here and there in our garden, all with shining faces, like my old friends.
Jewel of Summer
Azalea 'July Jewel' is my favorite June-July blooming azalea. It does lack one thing: fragrance, but otherwise it is a great summer shrub. The June-July blooming azaleas have smaller flowers that tend to nestle in the foliage, so the bright orange color of this hybrid is all the more important in making a display. It is vigorous, and drought-tolerant, and stays in bloom for a month in the hottest of weather; when other azaleas are wilting, this plant is as fresh and crisp as the day it opened...a keeper.
Jack or Jill
Pinellia tripartita is an unusual Jack in the pulpit cousin, with a long, green spadix, and leaves just like an arisaema. It stays in bloom a long time, and is just an all-around fascinating little plant.
A Walk In The Garden Today
Daylily 'Solar Man'; a great flower to lighten up the garden against a lot of green.
Daylily 'Wedding Band'; This plant got buried under an azalea, and I finally rescued it, bringing it out into the sun.
Daylily 'Graceful Grace'; an older hybrid, but a very heavy bloomer.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Small Illusion
When I first saw this little critter from a distance, I did a double-take, because I thought I was looking at a small insect waving lobster-like claws around in the air. As I got closer I could see it was just a little fly (a walnut husk fly?) that had these peculiar black markings on its wings. It constantly moved its wings back and forth as it sat there, giving the illusion of "claws" waving back and forth, and the illusion that its tail was the front end. I suppose this would give pause to, say, a jumping spider sneaking up behind it... rather clever.
