On a gardening note, the excessive heat and drought (which are now hopefully long gone) has given us a chance to evaluate all of our plants (not just our daylilies and iris), and we will be making some garden changes. Yes, I seem to be constantly moving gardens around and trying different things. I will keep you updated on all those happenings as we go through the fall and winter months.

For now, I am cleaning up the gardens and making plans on which plants to move where, and how to condense ro combine some of my ideas.

Daylily, Ed Murray

This last week we went on a trip and I stopped at Hem Haven Daylilies in Fairhope, Alabama (eastern side of Mobile Bay) owned by John and Nancy Falck. It is always intersting for me to see different operations and how they do things. I would say that Hem Haven Daylilies has about 3,000 – 4,000 daylilies all of which are in pots! They all looked great, even in mid 90’s with lots of hummidity. They are a registered AHS Display garden with specific gardens beds that include: a Stout bed, a historic bed, and a doubles bed. They also have a commercial area off to the side, and another area where they do their hybridizing.

What was amazing to me was that even in their display beds, all their plants were in pots – sunk in the ground. What John did is to “plant” a pot that slightly larger than the one he had his daylily in. Then he would slide his potted daylily into the sunken pot. When I asked him about this, he said that it made things much easier for him when changing plants around and he didn’t really have to “dig” any plants when he wanted to move things. He mainly used 3 gal pots for this. I have seem some similar things done in other home gardens and in some large commercial tree nurseries, but this was the first time it had seen it in the daylily world. It is an interesting concept. I may just try that later on in the fall in one of my demonstration gardens.

In his commercial area, he had all 2 – 3 gallon pots on black landscape fabric. In the hybridizing area which was under shade cloth  (so he could work longer in the mornings), he built large wood framed areas that held all of his 3 – 5 gallon pots of registered daylilies which he used in his hybridizing program. John told me that he is halfway through planting his 7,000 seeds this year and that he is using a deeper seed pot this year. Hoping that he will get more of his seedling better rooted before lining them out, hence a better survival rate. He also showed me one of seedling which he planned on introducing this fall. It was a creamy, light pink/yellow that was heavily ruffled and with a lot of substance to the petals. He told me that it would still look as pretty at 6 pm that night, as it did at 11 am when I saw it.

All in all, I had a great time. Of course I always do when I am looking at flowers, especially daylilies and iris. I would recommend seeing Hem Haven Daylilies if you are ever in and around Mobile, Alabama.

Daylily, Rapid Eye Movement

June is here and with it lots of record setting heat and virtually no rain. This year looks like it will be a record breaking year, but not the good records. Even the weeds are having a tough time this year. The good news is that daylilies and iris are both drought tolerant once they have been established. Your plants may look a little peaked, but they should be able to pull through to the fall when they will rebound nicely. There are a couple of strategies that can help them get through the heat.

The first is to make sure that when you do water, you water deeply. Water once a week and at least an inch water around your plants. If you use drip irrigation so much the better, because you won’t be losing water to wind or evaporation. Also you can help by watering either late in the day or early morning. I prefer late in the afternoon/evening because that way the plants will have all night to soak up the water.

The second thing you can do is to add a 2 – 4” layer of mulch around your plant (but not touching the fans). The mulch will help insulate and keep the plant a little cooler. If you have your plants in pots, move the pots where they can get afternoon shade. Your pots will need more water than your plants in the ground, but again drip irrigation will help.

I also know of a friend who trims his daylilies back to about 6 – 9” in the heat of the summer, so the roots don’t have to support as much top growth. I will be doing this on most of my daylilies to help them get through.

With bearded iris, moving or dividing is done in August and September, at which time you would trim them back before re-planting. If you are keeping your bearded iris in place, you can also go ahead and trim any brown tips off or just cut them back to about 4 – 6 inches now.

JD2 Ranch, Inc.
grower specializing in daylilies, iris, and seasonal cut flowers

Pearl Farmer’s Market
June 27, 2009 Our Spring Garden Day was a great success. Thank you to everyone who came down to Floresville. Our cut flowers are continuing with zinnias and sunflowers this week. If you have any specific requests, please e-mail me at jonelle@jd2ranch.com or call me at 830 393-5233. Please check out our website: www.jd2ranch.com to see photos of our plants. Our gardening blog will also have additional information on the farmer’s market and on gardening topics.

Daylilies

Potted: Bitsy,  Little Business, Condilla, Royal Palace Prince.

Bare root: Bare root daylilies will be on hold until September. If you would like to request any of our potted daylilies, just give us a call or send an e-mail.

Other Plants:

Sunflowers -
Sundance Kids 4″ pots, quarts
Sunbright Kids – 4″ pots, quarts
Sedums – 4″ pots
Herbs – 4″ pots
Bearded Iris – potted
Bulbine
Potscapes
Cannas

Cut Flowers

Zinnias and sunflowers are beginning to bloom. We will have solid bunches of sunflowers, zinnias, and a few mixed bouquets.

Coming Attractions

Cut flowers:  Rudbeckias, Cosmos, Gladiolus - ]]> http://site.jd2ranch.com/blog/2009/06/pearl-farmers-market-june-27-2009/feed/ 0 http://site.jd2ranch.com/blog/2009/06/jd2-ranch-spring-garden-day-thank-you/ http://site.jd2ranch.com/blog/2009/06/jd2-ranch-spring-garden-day-thank-you/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:03:06 +0000 JoNelle http://site.jd2ranch.com/blog/?p=573

Forbidden Fantasy

All I can say is WOW! What a fantastic Spring Garden Day this year. We ended up having over 500 people come through the gardens on Saturday. Our friend Rusty (the master griller) called me the “jackrabbit” because I just kept running back and forth through the gardens answering questions and digging plants for people. Marty and I didn’t get to take a breather until about 2:30 when we split  sausage dog. The sausage came from Pruski’s in Adkins for those who have asked, as did the hamburgers.

I apologize to those who were looking for me, but didn’ t get to me. Don’t hesitate to send me e-mails with questions or comments. If there are ways for us to improve the Garden Day (other than cloning ourselves) we will take it all in.

This season has been a rather strange one, since most of our blooms are anywhere from 1 – 2 months later than normal. Peak bloom for daylilies is usually in late May – as you could tell, we haven’t hit peak bloom yet. Probably in another week. The blooms we did have were great – I think the most popular bloom on Saturday was Forbidden Fantasy, next in line was Pastel Inspiration, and then all the blooming mixes.

As a side note, the fish emulsion seems to have been keeping the deer and the rabbits out of the garden – and it is a great fertilizer. I have been using it weekly.

I also heard from the other Markets in the Country sites (Rhew Peach Orchards, Green Country Farm Blackberries, and Cooper’s Garden Place) that they also had fantastic turnouts. I would just like to say Thank You to all those who came to Wilson County and Floresville to all of our different sites. We loved having you, and we will let you know when we are planning the next Markets in the Country.

Daylily in bermuda

The rains we had 10 days ago were great for our plants, but they were even better for the weeds. Every place that we weeded before the rains hit, are now having to be re-weeded for this Saturday’s Spring Garden Day/Markets in the Country event.  I even have Marty out there helping me and no, I will not get them all!

Since I do several areas with seeds, I cannot use a pre-emergent on all of my flower beds. I also have to wait anywhere from 2 – 4 weeks after transplanting daylilies to use a pre-emergent in those beds (you need to let them get established). I also cannot use my pre-emergent on my iris beds. I will say that where I have been able to use a pre-emergent, I still get weeds – just not nearly as many as an untreated bed.

I do use oak leaf mulch on some parts of my garden as well, and in those areas the weeds are a little less, but what I find is the bermuda goes under the mulch and comes up in another place without me seeing it expand.

We are going to try some white plastic mulch this summer on a couple of new beds we are planning. We have stayed away from the black plastic mulch, because we thought it would be too hot for our plants, since we have them in full sun. I also will need to put my flower beds in with transplants/plugs instead of seeds. I will also have to lay our drip tape under the plastic mulch. But if it helps me not have to weed – I’m for it at this point.

Yes I could use various herbicides to help get rid of the weeds, but I really prefer not to use that many chemicals. Ah well, weeding is good dirt therapy for getting frustrations out. On the good side, my daylilies are starting to really bloom and I even have a few straggler iris blooming!

At the Festival of Flowers, I gave the 10:30 am seminar on daylilies. It was a great crowd with lots of eager gardeners. The San Antonio Daylily Society was selling bare root daylilies at the Festival and they essentially sold out of their daylilies – hooray, since it is our club’s main fundraiser. For the seminar, I created and gave a power point presentation (a little different for me), but it allowed me to show a lot more flowers and garden settings using daylilies. I think that I will expand it a little more to include a couple of other items and then I will continue to use it in some of my club and nursery seminars that I give.  At the Festival I didn’t take any daylilies to sell (since SADS was selling them), but I did take bearded iris and dwarf sunflowers (see last week’s blog). They went over great and it was a very successful day.

Next week at the Pearl Brewery Farmer’s Market, the Grand Opening of the Riverwalk Extension is occurring. So it will be another busy and eventful day at the market. Look for our plant listings on Thrusday night/Friday morning on the blog. I will also be giving a daylily and iris seminar at Schultz Nursery on Broadway at 2 pm. It is always great going to Schulz, since they continue to have a great array of choice plants.

In two weeks, June 6th, is our Annual Spring Garden Day here at the ranch, and Markets in the Country with Rhew Orchards (peaches), Green Country Farm (blackberries), and Cooper’s Garden Place. We are expecting a great crowd with lots of things going on. Some of the surrounding garden clubs will be having tables set up with information, and we will also some BBQ (hamburgers and sausage) plates available. We are already planning on what daylilies to have pre-dug for customers, and we will have some potted bearded iris, and other plants in 4″ pots, and 1 gal containers. See our listing of plants the week before the Garden Day. We hope to see a lot of you here even if you just want cruise through the gardens looking at ideas. Kids are more than welcome and we have lots of room for them to run around.

Sunbright Kid Sunflower

This Saturday will be an especially busy weekend. First Marty will be holding down the fort at the Pearl Farmer’s Market Saturday morning. Please be kind and gentle with him – he is NOT a gardener. He will have some bare root daylilies, some bulbine (see yesterday’s blog), some neat little sunflowers, some sedums, and a few other things. All in all it will be pretty simple for him. The sunflowers that he will have are shorties. The first one Sunbright Kids – only gets to be about 8″ tall, and the second one Sundance Kids gets between 15 – 17″ tall. Both are great for containers and for the front of the garden.

The reason Marty is taking over for me at the Pearl Farmer’s Market is because at 10:30 I will be giving the daylily seminar (featured plant this year) at the 2009 Festival of Flowers. I will then be at

Sundance Kid Sunflower

the Festival of Flowers until 5 pm, answering questions and selling plants. I will be taking mainly bearded iris to the Festival of Flowers. Since the Festival of Flwoers is one of the main fundraisers for our San Antonio Daylily Society, I will not bring any competing daylilies in. So I hope to see you at one or both of the events this Saturday.

Pearl Farmer's Market Opening

Yesterday was the Grand Opening of the Pearl Farmer’s Market with all the booth’s cutting their red ribbons and it was a fantastic day. Lots and lots and lots of people. We did end up closing a little early because of the rain – yippee for the rain! (We ended up getting  just under 2 inches here at the ranch.) I sold out of the 4″ Peacock Orchids/Absyyinian Glads and out of my bare root daylilies, Hyperion and Mixed. I will plan to bring extra bare root daylilies next week. Many of the vendors sold out of product early. It was great to see lots of families with small and large kids going through the market, and several of the kids were already gardeners buying different small plants. 

Next week, Marty will be manning the booth at the Pearl Farmer’s Market, since I will be giving the daylily seminar at the Festival of Flowers (10:30 am at the Alzafar Auditorium on 1604). Please be kind to Marty, he is just getting into the knowledge base of gardening. He will have orders ready for pickup for people who have ordered through our website for ”Pearl Brewery” shipping/pick up. If you have a special request of a daylily or bearded iris for us to bring to the market, just send me an e-mail at jonelle@jd2ranch.com and we will see that we bring it with us that next Saturday.