Sunday, June 14, 2009

Today's Flowers - June 14

"Lusty Leland" - 2009

My daylilys have been blooming almost faster than I can keep up with them. I learned that "dead-heading" them every day is a good practice, and I perform this routine both morning and evening. One morning this past week, I removed 87 spent blossoms; that same evening, I removed another 64, for a total of 151 blossoms that had flowered and died within 24 hours.

Even with that many gone, it made no appreciable difference in the appearance of the lily beds, and the blooming plants are still loaded with huge buds, ready to burst into full bloom over the next few days/weeks. Some varieties are just now sending up their flower spikes. I've forgotten what some of them look like and am as excited as a kid in a candy store!

I had a couple of pleasant surprises at the beginning of this past week. First, I discovered a new lily growing in the bed by my back door. I have no recollection of purchasing said lily (the name of which variety I have no idea), but I just love it. It's tiny, as you can see by the photo below in which I hold my 62mm camera lens cap close enough to touch the bloom.

New Kid on the Block

The second surprise is that lilies which I moved from my former home and planted along the back fence line in this garden in 1991, and which haven't bloomed for several years, have flower spikes! I attribute this to the cutting down of a group of trees that had shaded that part of the yard almost continuously. Unfortunately, that row of lilies is beset by and about
to be overtaken by Dewberry vines and some other noxious creeping vine, the seeds for which were, no doubt, either blown in or deposited by birds. My gardening daughter and I are already making plans to isolate the lilies I want to save, dig them up and move them, and then apply a liberal application of Round-Up or another heavy-duty weed killer to get rid of all the creepy vines. It would be a pleasure to have a row of colorful lilies across the back fence, but the vines have to go first.

I reported in an earlier post that my daughter had gifted me with two Oriental Lilies. "Tom Pouce" (photo below) bloomed this past week, and it is elegant! Huge blooms, and very fragrant. To get a good idea of the bloom's size, consider that the bricks shown behind it are 7.5 inches wide and measure 3" between the mortar lines. As the plant is actually leaning against the wall, there is minimal skew on the relative size.

Tom Pouce - Three Blooms (6/12/2009)

The bloom has much more yellow in it than I expected from the plant information tag, but that may be due to the amount of sunlight the plant has received. I planted it somewhat in haste in a flower bed close to my front door, which is on the north side of the house, and while the bed gets some direct afternoon sun, this lily doesn't get as much sun as it needs to generate the pink in its petals. After the blooms are gone, I will move it to a sunnier permanent location. "Stargazer," the other lily she gave me (which also will have to be moved), has six buds on it, one almost ready to open. I'm hoping to have a photo of it to include here before post time. (I'm writing this on Friday.) NOTE: Sorry. . no photo. The flower is open, but I've been without electricity since 5 p.m. Friday, and cannot upload photos from the computer I am currently using. Don't know when I will have power again; the electric company has been "promising" restoration since midnight Friday.

I've learned (again) that one is never too old to learn something new. This past week, I discovered a marvelous (and new to me) day lily site on the Internet, Wright's Daylily Garden, in Hilham, TN, between Nashville and Knoxville. They have over 1,100 varieties of daylilies at their farm, and photos of most of them on their web site. I've been in daylily heaven just looking at the photos! The new thing that I learned from looking at their photos is that the lily I have always thought of as "Butterfly Kisses" is not! I do have "Butterfly Kisses" and it's blooming beautifully, thank you, but it's not the one I thought it was. That's what I get for not placing permanent markers by the fans. (Photo below)


The Real Butterfly Kisses


What the other gorgeous lily is, the one I have mis-named for years, I have no idea, but will search for photos of it. I'd love to know what it should be called.

One last photo -- of a mid-sized lily that is so purple it's almost black! It has bloomed profusely this year and I get great joy just looking at its color. Do I know its variety? No. There is another very small lily in the background; pale pinkish purple. It's also about the size of my lens cap.





Today's Flowers is a weekly Meme created by Luiz Santilli, Jr. and may be found here. Please visit to see others' lovely flower photos. If you have a flower photo of your own to share, please join us.

16 comments:

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Beautiful daylilies, Pat, and lilies...Our lilies are putting on a show now---and the daylilies are just getting started..

I've heard of that daylily farm.. I need to check out the website.

Thanks for sharing!
Hugs,
Betsy

Snap said...

Wow, Pat. Wonderful post on your daylilies and thanks for the link (I think -- I'll just get into trouble!).

NitWit1 said...

You must have large yard. I wish I had decent soil to plant anything.

Plants have a struggle to live in the mostly rocky clay soil.

Beautiful pictures!!!

SquirrelQueen said...

All your lilies are beautiful, but that last one is incredible. I have no idea what it is called but I would love to have that growing in my garden.

Have a wonderful day,
SQ

Carletta said...

These are all lovely but I have to say that the Tom Pouce image is gorgeous against that brick wall!
The depth of color in the purple one is amazing - it's gorgeous.

My post is here: Carletta’s Captures.

Anonymous said...

Pat....Oh my goodness! Those are the most BEAUTIFUL daylilies. I thought the Tom Pouce was the most gorgeous one I'd ever seen...and then I scrolled down and saw "Real Butterfly Kisses".... My lilies pale in comparison. They are soooo pretty! (I need to learn what 'deadheading' lilies means. I can Google it. Thank you for such nice photographs.
Smiles,
Jackie

VALKYRIEN said...

These are really wonderful! And that goes for your photos too! Love them all, but that dark purple is fascinating!

Thank you for posting on Today's Flowers!

Sherry said...

Wow! These are all so pretty! My favorite is the Butterfly Kisses-- love the soft colors in that one. Very nice photos.

Sherry Peyton said...

Lovely pics Pat, but the last is just gorgeous! Wow, I don't know as I've seen that color before that deep anyway. Just beautiful!

Arkansas Patti said...

I have to vote for Tom also though they are all show stopping.
Thanks for the link, I will check them out. You have shown there is more to day lilies than the orange ditch lilies I have.Amazing varieties you have.

Tammie Lee said...

beautiful photos of beautiful lilies!

DeniseinVA said...

Just beautiful Pat, all your photos are gorgeous. I can see I am going to have to plant some daylilies in my front garden. Thank you for sharing, and have a great week.

i beati said...

Beautiful specimens - do you photograph first thing in morning.sandy

Jeannelle said...

Pat, you are so knowledgeable about lilies! And, you must have quite a multitude of them gracing your yard. Your photos are gorgeous! Especially, that final one is breathtaking. Thanks for sharing them with us!

Hilary said...

Pat, your lilies are just amazing. How beautiful it must be to see them each day.

Rose said...

I am so behind on your blog...I just had to read through this one. I just took time to bookmark the Wright's Daylily site. Thanks so much for that. I don't have daylilies, except for a couple I bought this year. But I for sure want to get more. That purple/black one is out of this world. I have never seen one that dark.