High Summer in my Garden

 

A Bit of Light in the Shadows

There is nothing like a nice clear pale yellow to light up a shady spot in the garden or add a little contrast to a sea of green. In semi-shady areas there is nothing like a lily to brighten the space. In hosta beds, variegated leaves and pale yellow leaves serve this purpose.

Both these hosta pictures were taken during the Waupaca County Master
Gardeners Garden Walk and Art Stroll in the New London area.

 

 

A golden barberry adds a shot of adrenaline to my Long Border.

 

This is one of two well-grown clumps of daylily 'Mary Todd' waiting to dispel the darkness along the alley's shrub border. To give it a tad competition between the forces of darkness and light, I added 'Burgess Blackamoor' between the two clumps. In coming years, I anticipate quite a bit of drama, there!

Creamy and golden yellows can go a long way. They can mellow the drama of bright colors.

Daylily 'Happy Days Are Here Again', rose 'Pink Knockout, self-seeded lavender, and purplr winecup.

The pale yellow here is daylily 'Happy Days Are Here Again'. It soften the statement made by the magenta winecup, or poppy mallow, a plant deserving to be more widely planted.

This from Plant for a Future:

"Callirhoe Involucrata is a perennial growing to 0.2 m (0ft 8in) by 0.5 m (1ft 8in) at a medium rate. It is hardy to zone (UK) 5 and is not frost tender. It is in flower from July to August, and the seeds ripen from August to September. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs). Suitable for light (sandy) soils, prefers well-drained soil and can grow in nutritionally poor soil. Suitable pH: acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It cannot grow in the shade. It prefers dry or moist soil and can tolerate drought."

When I first got this plant I was not sure it would be hardy, but thought anything that prefers sandy poor soils and tolerates drought should work for me.

So Which Daylilies Did I Select?

My photo of a photo taken by Dr. Darrel Apps of 'North Wind Dancer' (Schaben, 2001).  All the pictures of daylilies in this post are pictures of a picture taken by Dr. Apps, unless otherwise noted.

There were quite a few "Goings-on" in my neck of the Central Wisconsin "New North" this weekend.  For area gardeners, we have had a couple pretty cold "cover up your coleus and clip your basil" sort of cold nights; not the "Run, run-- collect all the cukes and tomatoes" sort.  We also had the opportunity to select from some truly superior sorts of modern daylilies from the hybridizer, Dr. Darrel Apps, who as a member of the local Kiwanis, donated daylilies to their fund raiser held in conjunction with the Classic Car Show Pancake Breakfast.

With 70 different selections, the choice was difficult.  That pale yellow spider on the far right was not among my selections, but would have been a nice addition to my long border. (My photo.)

Dr. Darrel Apps, daylily hybridizer and Kiwanis member.  (My photo.)

So what did I select?

Looking for Something to Do This Weekend? Come to Wild Rose, WI!

Calling all gardeners, weekend road-trippers, and classic car buffs!  This weekend it is time to combine all three!

As I primarily blog about gardening, I'll start there.  Dr. Darrel Apps, the famed daylily hybridizer, my neighbor, and local Kiwanis member is donated 70 different selections of daylilies to a Kiwanis fundraiser held on Saturday (9/21/13) morning 7:30 to 10:30 at the Lions' Building just south of Wild Rose on State Highway 22.  These daylilies are "modern" daylilies (he uses this phrase here locally, because when the locals think daylilies, they almost invariably think "ditch lilies", (a name Dr. Apps abhors).

The one thing a daylily breeder never has enough of is space.  He is cleaning out his plot of everything of which the results was similar to an already patented  cultivar, dividing out cultivars he uses for breeding and grow like gangbusters and are eating up his breeding plot's real estate, or plants he just doesn't need at this point in his breeding program.  These are the same sorts of flower sold in the White Flower Farms breeders collections of daylilies.  And, actually, a lot of those sold in the White Flower Farms catalog when Dr. Apps was at Bridgeton, NJ were his.  Now, he is here in Wild Rose.  They will be sold mostly as two fan divisions, starting at $3, going up to $10 for things like divisions of breeders' plants which would normally sell for hundreds of dollars.

I've got my eye on a few fans of this dark one!

The fans will all be labeled with color, height, and other growing information, and a name if it has one.  If you buy an unnamed one you can name it in your garden yourself!

Next, there is the Classic Car Show and Cruise.  I have lots of details on the home page of the village's website.  It's on Friday Night, and starts at the Wild Rose Elementary School, winds up on Main Street, where it is followed by a free street dance and live music.  Our Main Street is lined with over 50 scarecrow exhibits this year.  These are incredible and nearly worth the drive in themselves.

This is followed by a Saturday full of  fun: the free car show, pancake breakfast, activities for the kids... Lots to do.  If pancakes didn't fill you up, have lunch at one of our restaurants on Main Street and walk it off chatting with the scarecrows.  (We'll never tell!)

And, if you need a quiet moment to contemplate nature, take a stroll around our Mill Pond on our Boardwalk, or hop in the car and take the six mile trip over to Covered Bridge Road and the Springwater Volunteer Covered Bridge.

It's definitely worth a road trip!  Everyone here hopes to see you around!

Having a Bruno Mars Moment...

My son's best result from playing with daylily hybridizing when he was 12.  I call it "Austin's Beauty".

 I don't feel like doing anything, I probably will do lots of things, not just the things I should!

So enjoy some more daylilies!

Rejection #1 from the breeding program of Dr. Apps.

Rejection #2 from the breeding program of Dr. Apps.  (I quite like this one, and it has a nice bud count.)

Rejection #3 from the bredding program of Dr. Apps.  Nice, but not as nice a bud count as #2, not as growth-y neither.

Unnamed daylily grown from seed from Jung's.

Daylily 'South Seas'

My stand by daylily filling my hell strip.  I think a chance cross found in my Elgin garden grown by previous owner in the 1970s.