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.

Polka Dot plants are a great addition to your shade garden. They can also be brought indoors as a houseplant. Inside they need bright light, and remeber to give them some diluted fertilizer.

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.

Bulbine

Bulbine (my husband likes to call it bovine) isn’t the showiest of plants but it is one of those workhorses in the garden for me. It is almost indestructible. It takes drought conditions like a champ, and it takes very wet conditions. I have it in full sun, and in partial shade. It forms a clump and after several years you can divide it and put it in more places. All those things are nice – but what I really like about it, is that when you look at a group or a row of bulbine (I am starting to use it like a small hedge – instead of boxwood) - you can have flowers on it for about 10 or even 11 months out of the year. The flowers emerge and bloom at the top of the stem, and they continue to bloom, and continue to bloom, and continue  to bloom with the stems getting longer and longer – eventually they fall over or you can cut them off with a pair of garden shears. But then, new flowers will have started, so you always have plenty of color. The flowers by themselves aren’t much to speak of, but when you mass them together you have a whispy type of flower that blows with the wind (similar to a gaura). When everything else is gone – the bulbine are still blooming and giving you some color.

The only drawbacks I have found is that bulbine may get a little frost damage (but not much and then you just trim it back). Bees really like it and are continually buzzing around. It only comes in 2 colors – an orange/yellow combo and a solid yellow (my preference). Snakes also tend to like to slither in it – there was a BIG rat snake in one this afternoon that we were moving.  Even with those minor things, I keep dividing it and using it in my gardens. I am now edging one of my gardens all the way around it with bulbine. It is one of those plants that you don’t have to do much to – but it will work hard for you!