Up Close Daylilies

 

At Last!

I planted these daylilies four years ago. Their first year, they didn't bloom but that was expected. The second year, they were inadvertently whacked down by a weedeater. The third year, they came back from the roots -- no bloom. But this year, at long last, we have blooms!

I truly didn't know what to expect. I remembered they had been rather pricey specimens whose pictures in a daylily catalogue had compelled me to add them to my collection. I've been watching the buds swell, eager to see what it was I'd chosen.

The purple centered lovely with the ruffled edges is pretty spectacular. But this deep rose double bloom is, I think, my favorite of the two. 

I'd love to get more and more and more daylilies, but the truth is, I should thin the ones I have. Not an easy task.

These days, I force myself to throw the daylily catalogues into the recycling without a glance.

 

June Means Daylilies

 

                                                                                    

A Sudden Whim

It began with the bad kittehs knocking over the blue bottle with roses in it. I heard a noise in the living room and hurried to investigate.  

Water was flooding the leather desktop of my secretary and dripping onto the little Chinese rug in the floor. A  few feet away lay two bad kittehs, watching with what I can only describe as detached interest.

So, realizing that flowers on the desk were out of the question for the foreseeable future, I put the bottle in the kitchen and went outside to do a little weeding.

Then I noticed the pot containing the skeleton of a calamondin tree that had died a slow death back in the spring. I hadn't tossed it, hoping that perhaps the roots weren't dead and it would make a comeback. I'm a botanical optimist but now, on close examination, I had to admit that the tree seemed to be, in the local idiom, dead as a hammer.

Something clicked.

I've always wanted a bottle tree and now I had the makings for one.

Bottle trees used to be common in the rural South as yard decoration and as protection against evil. There's a fascinating web site HERE with lots of interesting information as well as some great pictures of all sorts of bottle trees and yard glass -- Chilhuly glass even!

 

My little tree is maxed out -- no more branches to stick bottles on. Maybe this is a good thing...

Or maybe this is just the beginning -- I saw a great planter the other day, made out of an old tire and painted bright, shiny yellow . . .

 

HDR-ish Day Lilies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lilies of the Field

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

And yet I say unto you,

That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 

(Matthew 6:26)

In June wild day lilies line the road and creek sides -- free for all to enjoy.

I'm pretty sure that this floral exuberance is one of the reasons I fell in love with the North Carolina mountains back in 1973.

June is Day Lilies . . .

 

June --  the roadsides  and stream banks in our area are ablaze with wild orange day lilies. Hardy, rapid growers, they do well wherever there's a bit of sun and moisture. Each plant produces multiple blooms and each bloom lasts only a day -- hence the name.

But they aren't wild and they aren't lilies. Hemerocallis fulva is an import from China and Japan that naturalized long ago. The unopened buds are good in stir fries and the flowers can be dipped in tempura batter and fried to produce a lacy, mildly oniony tasting treat.

There are only 20 species of Hemerocallis world wide but breeders have come up with some 20,000 hybrids, a few of which are blooming in our yard just now.

And there's always room for more.

Wild Day Lilies and Tame High Geraniums

Orange day lilies grow wild along the branches in our part of Carolina -- their massed presence makes up for what they lack in subtlety. I have day lilies in an array of colors and forms that I find much prettier, but these wildings are just so obliging. You can't kill em with a stick and they multiply freely. Plus, what a nice complement to Maggie's red-orange fur.

This beauty is a tame hydrangea (there are wild white ones too.) The local name for these flowering shrubs is 'high geranium,' which has a certain charm to it, don't you think?

(Over at Radine Trees Nehring's blog, there's a post about using dialect in writing -- is this a big no-no . . . or not? You probably know which side I come down on.)

This old building above, once a barn and now a garage/toolshed down at our lower place, was briefly used as a school when the nearby schoolhouse burned -- way back in the early years of the last century. There's no sign left of the scholars -- except for this disused door. But I like to think that on recess, they waded in the branch where the daylilies still grow.

Nearly Wordless

A hard morning rain . . .

Much appreciated by day lilies . . .

Clematis and roses . . .

And more day day lilies . . .

Hens line the perch, keeping their feet clean . . .
























But by the little waterfall, the Japanese iris delight in mud . . .























The iris are so beautiful that I am consumed with a desire for more . . . a trip to town and I find one -- a slightly different shade of purple. . .
























It rides in the backseat . . . a haughty beauty . . . and I return home to clearing evening skies.