Visitors to the Garden

They didn't realize this daylily is the result of a cross made by my Handsome Son between seed I now know Dr. Darrel Apps may have sold to Jung's and 'Stella di Oro'. Handsome Son wanted to try his hand at daylily hybridizing after I had explained to him what our then new neighbor did/does for a living.


Yesterday, I had visitors to my garden. I don't know who they were. I didn't invite them, nor did I talk to them. They were observed by me, but I was lurking, watching them from inside my home.

My street is one block long and runs from the library to the Presbyterian church. I have the sidewalk on my side as the village is on a one-sidewalk-to a street diet, and only in the older part of town.

The woman was in a wheel chair being pushed by her grandchildren (or maybe great-grandchildren). When they came to my house she asked them to slow down. She liked the daylilies the best, but she obviously wanted to take it all in. It's the whole storybook pink cottage thing surrounded by flowers and vines, like an illustrator might have a go at. My house is what you think of when you say, "county cottage" (versus the lake cottage).

They didn't get to see any of the scenes I posted the other day, hidden as they are behind my gate. Not did they get to see the slightly weedy potager, or taste the first strawberries or blackberries, as guests may have been invited to do.

They didn't see this bergenia leave catching water up close.

Unnamed daylilies, for the most part, ('Mildred Mitchell' is lurking in the mix, too) in my front daylily bed.

Nor do they realize that like the daylilies, which are unique to my yard, many of these hosta were also grown from seed by me.

They didn't get the running commentary about how I hate the threadleaf buckthorn, how I will be yanking it out and replacing it with a Korean lilac. That I have very little garden art in my front yard, a pink crackle glazed pot on a pedestal and a smaller armillary.


They won't learn this hydrangea is 'Quickfire', and if grown in the sun would have red stems. It blooms will fade to pink.

They won't hear about the correct way to prune a privet hedge.

They will not learn what the umbrella-like tree is in my front yard.

But...they will see enough, and if they are not avid gardeners, their eyes will not glaze over before they have escaped my clutches.