Sunday, July 14, 2013
65.5° here on the mountain, windless, quiet save for an occasional call from loons on the reservoir. One has 2 chicks I hear. Gail is packing the car with lunch and supplies for the flower farm and I have to shift gears here soon. Time flies and often it's easy to forget what day it is. Today is my son Adam's birthday. He's 39. He lives in Seattle with wife Leah and my grandsons Max, Cooper and Griffin. The kids are like daylilies in the garden, little buds today, beautiful offerings in short order. Yes, time flies!
Whenever I am in a used book store I look around for gardening books from times past. Newer books for example, make it difficult to find historical daylilies that started being registered in 1883. I pick up what I can and always ferret out some interesting info. This is an idea worth considering.
The book pictured up top here is titled The Suburban Garden Guide. It was published in 1911. It covers vegetables first, then garden flowers, but it avoids any mention of daylilies. As an example of perception over time, here's what it says about broccoli, a favorite vegetable of mine.
"BROCCOLI: This is really nothing but a longer-seasoned and later-maturing cauliflower, but better adapted than it for the far North. Early White, Mammoth White and Purple Cape, are good varieties."
Daylilies are in full swing at the flower farm. Some of the fields are still quite wet but we have thousands in pots ready to go and have two fields full of flowers that we will dig from. The other day Gail got a boot stuck while digging a large daylily and I guess I just need to ask that you give us a couple minutes to do the digging for you. We have some giant clumps of Ruby Spider for $40 and have a number of 20 and 30 gallon pots of popular daylilies for $38. These might be of interest if you do the math on value versus single pots. We grow them because of the current need for instant gratification.
I hear a neighbor mowing her lawn so I guess I better get with it. We are open every day 9-5, some days a little later, so stop by and visit us. The hostas are looking very good with all the rain and the daylilies are coloring up the fields and slowing traffic along Route 2. We think it's worth a visit but of course ...we're biased! Come stop and walk the fields with us.
George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
On Facebook as George Africa and also as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens
On Twitter as vtflower farm
Always here to help you grow your green thumb!
1 comment:
Hi George, I looked at your daylilies and they are so healthy and robust looking. This year mine have brown streaks in the foliage. I don't know what to do for them. Have you ever had that problem, and what did you do for yours? thank you, B. in Kentucky.
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