My daylily garden has multiplied in one year’s time which amazes and amuses me. Not only have the plants multiplied in numbers but so have the blooms. It seems the blooms are bigger this year and there are more blooms on each stalk. This year one of my daylily beds looks like this…
but one year ago, the first year for these daylilies, their bed looked like this… and while I did have some blooms last year, they were fewer and kind of smallish. I have nine varieties of daylilies snuggled in this bed. I started with 25 plants in all if I am counting correctly. This year there are about 43 plants in this one bed.
wow! now I’m really excited about next year! One because there will be more and that means my other bed will have multiplied too. And, I will be dividing and sharing some of my plants.
These plants are not only easy to grow, but they make you feel like you’re a successful gardener. I love that, goodness knows I’ve killed enough plants in my lifetime, and living through last year’s high temperatures over a span of 4 weeks, plus the drought, I’m even more amazed they are doing so well this season.
My daylilies come from my mother in law, who got her starts from her brother, who once owned a daylily farm with over 800 varieties. When he and his wife decided to more closer to their son, he wanted his family to get some of his plants. So my MIL, who lives in Northern Ohio now has about 125 varieties and she is now sending me starts of my own.
To be honest, I was terrified when I got my first batch…those are the ones shown in the pics above. But as you can see, I’ve done pretty good. I received my second share last fall and DH put them in our empty tomato bed. There the sat over the winter and since they were established, we just left them. All of those survived the the end of our heat wave and the mild winter except one and even though she sent 8 varieties, loosing one makes me sad. Now I’m secretly hoping she sends me another one to replace it.
Are you keeping count?
I have 16 varieties of daylilies in my back yard! If you had told me two years ago that I would one day have 16 different kinds of daylilies, living in my backyard I would have laughed at you. But now I can’t wait to see what my MIL sends next.
Here are some of the pretty faces I wake up to every morning…
Judith
Wild Wild World
Chance Encounter
Spider Man
El Desperado
Xon Valdez
Orange Crown
Queens Navy
There are more on the way but these were some of the early and mid blooming plants.
I love waking up to see what will be blooming that day. I also love capturing them in photos so I can enjoy their beauty long after they have bloomed.
InstaGram has been wonderful for grabbing a quick pic and sharing on my FB page and twitter. If you’re on InstaGram, look me up and follow along. You can find me under “rustiqueart” or you can now follow the rustique art photo adventures on Tumblr too.
Do you grow daylilies? Which varieties do you have?
Do you have a favorite daylily?
peace.love.rust
Rustique Art 