Welcome to my blog!

Michigan is a perfect garden spot. The springs and falls are glorious, the summers get hot (but not extreme) with plenty of rain, the winters are cold (again, not extreme) with plenty of beautiful snow and lots of down time to plan next year's gardens. The soil here is sandy and a tiny bit alkaline. If I had a wish it would be for more loamy soil and shorter winters but oh well!

I had long grown daylilies but discovered the incredible advancements in variety of form, color, and accents about 7 years ago and started buying more. I have about 350 varieties at the moment. I hybridize my own seedlings and have a large seedling bed. My garden here is relatively new (moved in 2008) but getting established.


It's tempting to plant beds with only my favorite flower but it's the combinations with other plants that make a garden beautiful so I'm careful to keep the entire composition in mind so that my garden is beautiful spring through frost.



Gardening is a lot of work - but how nice to come home after a busy day and forget my cares for a while by immersing my mind in maintaining beauty.




Sunday, February 18, 2007

Planting Plans for 2007

I got just under the wire with Bluestone Perennial's early bird discount this week. I ordered a few new things and others which I have grown in the past which have petered out, probably though neglect or being planted in the wrong places, which I know better but stubbornly refused to accept - for example the delphiniums looked wonderful where they were but didn't get enough water because they were on the slope. If there's any sign of life to them I'll move them in the spring.

Here are some old favorites I'm trying again: Anchusa Dropmore didn't have the best form but what a great color. I have a lot of blue that time of year and will have to remember to buy other colors blooming then. Digitalis Mertonensis - I loved this and gave away bunches, only to lose what I had left. My Malva Alcea Fastigata never got tall for me here so I am pulling out the old bunch and putting in new after amending the spot.

These are new to me: Aster laevis 'Bluebird', Eupatorium coelestinum 'Wayside', Geranium 'Nimbus', Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant' (was highly recommended), Calamintha nepetoides (also highly recommended) and Artemisia pycnocephala 'Davids Choice'.

I also (of course) have new daylilies coming in the spring, including my first-ever expensive new intro directly from the hybridizer - Frank Smith's incredible hemerocallis 'Princess Diana' which I saw at his place last May with an incredible number of buds. I tried to limit my purchases to plants I would be actively using in my breeding program - White Noise for its throwing of wide white edges in its kids (one of my goals), Spacecoast Surprise Purple for the white edge, Poets Reverie, Annette's Magic and Spiny Sea Urchin for their incredible edges, Cerise Masterpiece for its awesome scape - the best scape I saw in Florida. I won Harborwalk from my club's Dig and Divide program, and bought American Freedom for that program. Coming are club wins: Senegal and Destined to See. Also bought the following for breeding: Enchanting Esmerelda, Alexa Kathryn. And I fell in love with some older varieties because of people posting pictures: Antique Rose, Violet Explosion, Broadway Ruby Slippers, Skinwalker. I keep saying I'm finished.

Got a catalog from Arrowhead Alpines and plan to head out there in the late spring to round up the garden acquisitions!

Come on spring! I have to dig a new bed for these new plants!
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