Wonderful Daylilies

Surely I have bored most of you to tears, dear readers, with my loving praise of the daylily. Here is yet another blog post that extols my admiration for these summer flowers as pictured in this vase of blooms that are illuminated by the morning sun.

Some years ago, six or eight, I'm not sure, Ed and I drove over to Stone Cottage Gardens near Gladwin, Michigan to see their daylily fields. We made the trip in mid August, toward the time of our wedding anniversary, and gifted ourselves with a trunkful of daylily clumps.

That trunk of flowers has turned into loads of lilies which start blooming at the end of June and bloom almost until Labor Day, thanks to the descriptive plant lists that Stone Cottage Gardens keeps on their daylily offerings.

We were able to identify early, mid, and late bloomers, as well as plants that die back completely, versus plants that stay semi evergreen. Some of our lilies are spider types with slender, reaching petals. Some are tough and tall tetraploid lilies. There are two clumps that are a pale cream tint. And then there are the big Ruby Throat lilies that tower over the children who visit our gardens.

I probably should blame all of this daylily nonsense on Matt Esch of Esch Landscaping. During the fall of 2005 when we were choosing plants for the beds around our Cedar Bluff lake house, I asked for traditional plants. "None of this new fancy-schmancy stuff," I told Matt as I passed over hydrangeas and butterfly bushes in favor of roses and daylilies.

So Matt's crews planted the big clumps of orange lilies on the south side of the garage that fall and the rest is history.

Truly wonderful, the daylilies are something I enjoy day after day, all summer long.