Working in the Yard Again, & More Daylilies - Post 30

The Good Lord woke me this morning at least three hours before my usual getting-up time, and I actually got up instead of rolling over and catching a few more 'zzzzs.' It was not quite daylight, so I had a couple of cups of coffee and read email and blogs while I waited for good sunlight. It was cool this morning for a change. A front must have moved through last night. When I hit the back door, it was just over 70 degrees, with a nice breeze from the east; most pleasant! I didn't mind starting up the lawnmower and finishing the job I started yesterday morning (yes, I know; most folks can mow their yards in one episode, but remember that I'm an old lady, and it takes me two days!) Besides, I had to stop and smell the daylilies! I've had most of these lilies for over 15 years, and while I remember the names of a few, others I have completely forgotten.

At some point after I started acquiring daylilies, I had thought about engraving permanent markers for the clumps, but that idea got sidetracked somewhere and it just didn't happen. I remember "Dearest Love" and "Butterfly Kisses," and they are represented in the first two photos here.

When I was still active in my Personnel consulting business, I often traveled to El Dorado, an Arkansas city just north of the Louisiana state line. On one such visit, during the late Spring, I passed by a beautiful garden just smack dab full of gorgeous daylilies! I slowed almost to a standstill on the highway to ogle them, but had an appointment to keep and couldn't stop. As fate would have it, I had to return to that city the next week. Propped up against the front fence of the home with the daylily garden was a sign "Day Lilies for Sale." I made sure I left my client in time to stop by the garden to check it out before I headed back home.

Presiding over the sale was an older man, who was at that time about as old as I am now. He was most gracious in showing me all the lilies (which were clearly marked with their names) and told me that many of them had been hybridized by his wife, who had died some months before. He was in the process of selling the day lilies (almost 5 acres of them) and had put their home on the market, as well. Since the fans (as individual clumps of lilies are called) were not inexpensive (actually, they were pretty pricy for 15 years ago) I think I bought only two or three varieties at that visit, probably spending all the cash I had on my person. "Dearest Love" was a lily of his wife's creation, he told me, and I was very pleased to buy it.

I learned through the Internet today that "Butterfly Kisses" is a well-known variety, and one can find it for sale through various Daylily sites. Actually, I can't recall if I bought "Butterfly Kisses" in El Dorado or at another nearby daylily grower (not a hybridizer.)

I really thought I would have remembered the El Dorado hybridizer's name (I visited with her widower several more times during the course of that year), but for the life of me, I can't come up with it. I spent over an hour on the Internet this morning after taking the photos, looking at Arkansas Daylily hybridizer sites, but no names jumped out at me. I truly regret that I can't remember her name; her lilies are beautiful!

Perhaps her name will yet come back to me, or I'll find someone in the daylily world in Arkansas who remembers her; if so, I'll be sure to give her credit for the enjoyment I have received from looking at "Dearest Love" all these years. Its blooms are huge, and they grow on quite tall stems which lift the blooms above others in the same bed. It's difficult to tell from photographs without some reference point, but the bloom in the first photo is about 8" or 9" across. Other lilies pictured are somewhat smaller; "Butterfly Kisses" in my garden grow to about 6" across.

Last week, I had another photo of "Butterfly Kisses" along with a bright yellow "spider daylily," whose legal name has been lost to me. I call it "Aztec Warrior," because it just seems to suit it. It's *real* name is probably "Montezuma," or something similar, and the word association just stuck with me.

Whilst I was taking photos of my beauties, it became evident to me that I must-must-must! divide the lilies after they bloom. That means, of course, preparing new beds for them, and in the less-than-good soil I have, that's somewhat a problem. I shall probably move some of them to my front yard if I can find a sunny enough spot (I have trees, and not very much front yard to start with,) and give some to my green-thumb daughter.

I'll show some photos of my other currently blooming daylilies in another post, and I'm still waiting for my bright orange double-day-lilies to bloom. I saw some buds this morning, so it won't be too long.

Ta! I'm going back outside to run the Weed-Eater.