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.

April 25, 2009    NO Pearl Farmer’s Market due to Fiesta

May 2, 2009  Pearl Farmer’s Market 9am – 1 pm and every Saturday thereafter

May 2, 2009  Schulz Nursery in Marion Daylily and iris seminar  2pm

May 9, 2009 SADS Annual Flower Show and Plant Sale, The  San Antonio Garden Center 555 Funston, 1pm – 4pm

May 16, 2009 Grand Opening Pearl Farmer’s Market 9am – 1pm

May 16, 2009 The Garden Party Nursery, Poth  daylily and iris seminar 2pm

May 23, 2009 Festival of Flowers Daylily seminar 10:30 am – SADS will have plants for sale, Alfazar Center, San Antonio

May 30, 2009 Grand Opening of the Riverwalk at the Pearl Brewery 9am – 1pm

May 30, 2009 Schulz Nursery on Broadway, Daylily and Iris seminar

June 6, 2009 JD2 Ranch Spring Garden Day in conjuntion with Floresville area Markets in the Country 10am – 4pm

Daylily Seminar at Antique Rose Emporium

This was a full weekend of seminars and rain (we had 1.7 inches over the two days!! now hopefully we will get some more). The first was on Saturday at Fanick’s Garden Nursery in San Antonio on Holmgreen RD. We had a great group of people who wanted to learn more about daylilies and bearded iris. The second was today at the Antique Rose Emporium talking about daylilies. There were lots of questions from both groups and I will cover a few the basic ones that I heard at both groups this weekend.

Many people have heard that only the evergeen daylilies do well down here because of the heat. I have  not found that to be true. I have about half of my daylilies are dormants (their leaves die back in the late fall/early winter and then re-emerge in the spring). They have performed well down here without any problem, and in fact I have a couple of dormants that perform like semi-evergreens or even evergreens. So don’t hesitate to buy a dormant.

The second question was that people were concerned about wether daylilies were cold tolerant. Yes, they are most definately cold tolerant. The are hardy up through the US and into Canada. They even grow some evergreens in Wisconsin. So if you live north of San Antonio you do not need to do anything to prepare them for the winter cold.

I have an old clump (daylilies or iris), when should I divide it? For daylilies you can divide it in either the spring (March through May and sometimes June) or the fall (September through November). For bearded iris, you should divide in the fall (August through October). Bearded iris can be divided at other times, but you won’t necessarily get a bloom that year if you divide in the spring.

What is the biggest mistake people make with daylilies or iris? For daylilies they would be in this order: 1. over watering and letting them stand in water (they want good drainage) 2. planting too deep (plant at the juntion of the crown and the roots) 3. no morning sun. For bearded iris: 1. planting too deep (you should see the top of the rhizome), 2. over watering/poor drainage (bearded iris like water, but they do not like to sit in it), 3. no morning sun, 4. not dividing (when a clump gets old it will stop blooming in the center – a sign to lift and divide).

What and when do I fertilize? For daylilies a long term, slow release fertilizer in the fall and again in the spring, then water soluble fertilizers in the spring.  For bearded iris bone meal in the fall, early spring (Febrauary), and again after they have bloomed. Compost 2 – 4 times per year for all your plants.

In future blogs I will go into more depth on these questions and others. If you have a specific question about either daylilies or iris, please send a comment in and ask me or you can e-mail me directly at jonelle@jd2ranch.com. I will post the answers in the blog, because if one person has a question – others do too.

daylily Dance on a Moonbeam

I hope everyone had a great Easter. We had a very nice day over at some friends for a big barbeque and egg hunt. Yes ate too much – but the food was too good to pass up. We did get a short lived shower that gave us 1/10th of an inch of rain yesterday morning. After the showers had passed, I walked outside and saw several new blooms had opened up. Dance on Moonbeam is a very pretty light yellow daylily. The second one was Coronal Light. A very pretty dark pink with a slight white edge. You can see the water drops still on the blooms, and the Coronal Light bloom looks a little blotchey because of the water.

daylily Coronal Light

This week are hosting the Poth Kindergarten classes, and then selling at the Pearl Brewery Farmer’s Market (9 am til 1 pm) on Saturday. Saturday afternoon (1 pm) I will be giving a daylily and iris seminar at Fanick’s Nursery in San Antonio. Fanick’s will also have a gardening show broadcasting from their location with Bill Rhody, Jerry Rodriquez, and Dr. Larry Stein. It is their 70th anniversary party that day. On Sunday I will be at the Antique Rose Emporium at 1 pm. They will also be having a rose symposium going on that day as well. Aside from a busy weekend, I have more seeds to plant, more weeding (never ends), watering, digging and planting. We are also continuing to pick up our oak leaves and spread them around our gardens and beds.

Early this week, I will be writing a blog on how to hybridize your daylilies. It really is pretty simple and very rewarding. And if speading pollen around isn’t your cup of tea, I’ll tell you what to do when the bees help you and you find some seed pods.

JD2 Ranch Booth at Pearl Brewery Farmer's Market

Well, the day has finally arrived, and we had our first Pearl Brewery Farmer’s Market Soft Opening. It went off without a hitch – even the occassional raindrops didn’t hinder us (now the rain can come pouring down). I made Marty come with me and help me with the canopy and unloading the plants. He then took the kids out for the morning.

We had lots of people come through for just starting out and a number of the vendors sold out of their products. There were lots of vendors. There are vegetable farmers, an herb farmer, fresh tilapia, a lavender booth, fresh beef, fresh goat meat, and fresh bison too. There was a shrimp vendor, nut vendors, and a coffee vendor (peaches and blackberries will come in May). We had lots of sales not only of daylilies and iris, but of our other plants as well. We sold out of the bare root daylilies that I had brought and a couple of other types of plants. Since this is a new

Different vendors just before the opening bell of the Farmer's Market.

adventure for us, I wasn’t quite sure how much plant material and what combinations of plants to bring. People had lots of questions about daylilies, bearded iris, and other plants. Everyone seemed very positive about the experience and they loved seeing the photos and the cut flowers (daylilies Way Out There, Fiery Temper, and Choral Fantasy).

Many of the customers were happy to hear that they can go online and pre-order from us with delivery at the Pearl Brewery for the next week. We will have dug their bare root daylilies and have them washed, trimmed and ready to go for them the next Saturday. Many were also excited to hear about our Spring Garden Day at the Ranch on June 6th as well.

The grand opening of the Pearl Brewery Farmer’s Market will be on May 16th, and the grand opening of the Riverwalk expansion (to the Pearl Brewery) is currently scheduled for May 30th. These should both be very exciting and fun filled days.

I want to Thank all of our friends who stopped by to see us and enjoyed the morning at the Pearl Brewery, and I’d like to thank all the new friends we made today (and more in the future) for stopping by and seeing all the great plants you can grow in the San Antonio area. Good job to Tatum and the rest of the gang at the Pearl Brewery for working out all the kinks and having things run so smoothly.

Barbara's English Garden, bearded iris, violas,french hollyhocks, geraniums

Poth Texas

Yesterday was a busy day for me. I did daylily and iris seminars in both Poth and Gonzales Texas. On the way to Green Acres Nursery in Gonzales, there were two houses just down from the main Courthouse square that I stopped at to take some pictures of. One was a really nice restored craftsman bungalow style (I think that is the style) that had a great architechture. The one next door was more of a English cottage style – and the garden was more English cottage as well! There was no grass in the front yard – all garden. So of course I had to take some pictures. I then went and did my seminar.

On the way back through town, I decided that if the owner was out front I would stop just to them what a nice job they have done, sure enough they were working out front. So I stopped and gave them a couple of beared iris and daylilies that I had left over from the seminar. It was apparent they would appreciate them.

Anyway, the owner Barbara and I got to talking and she ended up giving me some of her bearded iris that she brought with her from Ft. Worth, some seeds from her french hollyhock plants, and some plumbago. She showed me her garden and we talked about a lot of different plants – including azelas blooming and how she accomplished that. We spent about a half hour together, but what a half hour. It truely made my day special. For me there is nothing like getting together with other gardeners and swapping information, love of plants, and just enjoying a spring day. She told me how when she bought the property nine years ago, there was anything except for a couple of old pecan trees and grass. Now her front and back yards are filled with beautiful blooms. She also told me that her criteria for plants is that they must be evergreens and that they must bloom (preferably more than once). Well all I can say, is that she has done a wonderful job. It spurs me on to keep plugging away with my gardens and in nine years I hope that mine look as good as hers did. Thank you Barbara.

Today, I am giving an iris seminar at the Antique Rose Emporium in San Antonio at 2 pm. Yes, I will be keeping my eye for more gardens to stop at. If you know of great gardens in and around San Antonio, please let me know. On my various travels through the city I would love to drive by, take some photos and perhaps even make some new gardening friends.

On Sunday, I will be at the Antique Rose Emporium in San Antonio from 1 pm until 4pm. I will be speaking on iris (next month I will be there on 4/19 speaking on daylilies). If you have never been to the Antique Rose Emporium, you have a treat in store for yourself. Aside from a fantastic selection of roses (hence the name), they have a wide variety of plants, and great landscaping vingettes to give you ideas for your own landscape. After my seminar, Antique Rose Emporium will also be hosting a seminar on veggie gardening – a great bonus these days!

I hope that I’ll see some of you at these seminars (check our website www.jd2ranch.com for a complete list of upcoming seminars). You don’t need to rsvp for these and you are more than welcome to bring friends or family members with you. At the seminars I have done in the past, it is amazing how many kids are really quite interested in gardening in general, so don’t be shy and bring them along. Perhaps it is a hobby you can both share.

Daylily: For Your Eyes Only

    Yesterday I gave a seminar on daylilies to the New Braunfels Garden Club. What a neat group of ladies, and by the way a great cookbook – Thank you! There were lots of good questions and one of them was when can you transplant and/or divide your daylilies? Starting this month (March) you can start to dig up and transplant your plants. In Texas you can easily continue this through May, and then again in September, October, and November. To divide your plants, dig them up with either a garden fork or a shovel. Hose off the roots (this makes dividing the fans easier), and then start pulling the fans apart. For a landscaped garden I would usually leave 3 – 4 fans together. Many people after they have dug the plant, divide them by simply taking their shovel or a garden knife and cutting through the clump. You can do this, but you may lose a few fans.

  To replant your daylilies (or new ones), dig a hole wider than your roots. Place some granular slow release fertilizer in the bottom of the hole. Make a small volcano in the middle of the hole and place the daylily on top of the hole. Cover the daylilies roots with soil, making sure the daylily has good contact with the soil (press around the daylily). Water well. For the first two weeks your daylily needs watering every two to four days depending on how hot it is, after that water once a week.

H. Blue Voodoo

    Yesterday we went to the Garden Center Plant Sale in San Antonio next to the Botanical Gardens. The kids each got a new daylily to plant – in fact one of them is “helping” me write this.  We will plant them up this afternoon, along with some plumerias that I got. The plant sale is a great place to see some different and unusual plants and buy them at good prices. Today is the last day of the sale. In April the San Antonio Botanical Garden will be having their sale. Our local San Antonio Daylily Club (SADS) sells daylilies at both of these events. If you don’t live in the San Antonio area, check out your local garden societies and botanical garden for sales that they may host.  

    On the rain front we got just over a half an inch. Great news for us and all of our plants. We have been thinking about a couple of water related projects because of the drought. The first is putting in a stock tank from our big irrigation well, and then pumping that water around our gardens for irrigation. That is still a little ways off. The second is rain water harvesting. At Green Acres Nursery (Gonzales, Texas) on March 28th, Patrick Hodges is having a big spring garden day and he will be having someone speak on how to set up rainwater harvesting at your own house. I will be giving a daylily seminar there, but I am planning on listening to the rainwater harvesting program too!