Prairie Blue Eyes

The sunny weekend (ah, I remember it fondly) spurred the first of my daylilies to bloom, and I finally feel like I have a flower garden again.

A couple of years ago, I was determined to figure out the names of all my tagless daylilies, so I wandered the Internet and the farm where I bought most of them.

It didn’t take long to realize that what one person swears is daylily ‘Angelic Frilly Dreams’ looks an awful lot like what another person swears is ‘Angel’s Ruffly Dreams.’ Thus, I concluded that nearly all of the daylilies on the planet are probably misidentified and I’d just enjoy mine mostly nameless.

This was about the same time that I also concluded that the only truly accurate name for a purple Japanese iris is “purple Japanese iris.”

Prairie Blue Eyes & Cherry Crush Hybrid?

These are three of my favorite pinkish-orange daylilies. I’m fairly certain that the top and bottom photos really are Prairie Blue Eyes and Cherry Crush, but the center daylily is nameless, and it’s my absolute favorite. I even marked its tag with an asterisk so if we ever move I remember to take it with me. And trust me, not many of the plants in The Sorry Garden have an asterisk.

Cherry Crush

It wasn’t until I bundled these three photos together for this post that it occurred to me that maybe my lovely mystery daylily is a cross between Prairie Blue Eyes and Cherry Crush. Think I’m on to something?

P.S. If I emailed you that I can’t leave comments on your blog, the problem appears to be on my end after a software update.

It annoys me when gardeners refer to one of my favorite of all daylilies as “ditch lilies,” as if to knock them a notch below the also apparently despised Stella D’Oros. So for the purpose of this post, let’s call them “common orange daylilies.”

I proudly consider my “common orange daylilies” to be the sentries of my garden and have posted a couple of times about how they let me know when the garden is ready to roll and when it’s winding down. One of the reasons I like them is because they simply do their thing and don’t require much from me.

But this year, many of the buds were hard and gnarled and then blackened and fell off without blooming. Like the rest of my garden, they were about six weeks later than usual, but I didn’t expect them to be damaged by the extraordinarily cold and gloomy Seattle spring (and now summer) because the plants are otherwise healthy and have always been happy in that spot and were just divided a couple of years ago.

I have been trying to ignore the entirely sucky lack of summer here, but you know it’s a bad year for gardening when even the “common orange daylilies” fail to deliver.

That’s what the UPS man just asked me as he peered down at the bed where I divided all of my daylilies last fall. I laughed. But he has a point. Someday they will be large, pretty clumps again. Someday.

And, no, I did not plant corn in my veggie beds either. I couldn’t find PVC tall enough to build a biosphere.

As you know, I measure the year by the orange daylilies, and they say it’s time for me to crawl out of the comfy chair and get back at it. The garden is waking up.

I love that the plain old orange daylilies always lead the way in my garden. They make life seem so simple. They grow, they bloom, they rest. Life in a lily clump.

Let’s roll.

Gerald Darby Siberian Iris

Gerald Darby Siberian Iris—It started innocently with that deep purple foliage and before I knew it, Gerald had ingrained himself into my life. In the first post about Gerald, I didn’t know his name. By the second post, we were bosom buddies. That post accidentally touched the life of Judy Darby, who stopped by because her son who’d passed away was named Gerald Darby. After a lovely exchange in comments and e-mail, she has a start of my Gerald in her garden, and I know the sweetness of community through blogging and gardening. Happy New Year, Judy.

Sweet Heidi Cranesbill

Sweet Heidi Cranesbill—This was the first year I noticed how long cranesbill blooms and how little it needs from me—qualities that quickly make a plant near and dear to my heart. Sweet Heidi gave the Jolly Bee a run for its money but with smaller, pink petals. This fall I bought several other varieties so, if they survive the freeze in their nursery pots, hopefully 2010 will also be the year of cranesbill.

Broadway Lights Daisy

Broadway Lights Daisy—This Proven Winner demands nothing from me and danced all summer long with new blooms that open light yellow and become white. I divided my one plant into many, so hopefully I’ll have a nice drift of these next year.

Crocosmia & Blackberry Lily

Crocosmia & Blackberry Lily—I love the cheerful, elegant flowers of crocosmia and blackberry lily and stocked up on several varieties this year. Despite many painful hours on my knees with the camera, I never did get a properly exposed photo of that red devil Lucifer.

Sungold Tomatoes

Sungold Tomatoes—Yum. This was my first year to grow sungolds and little did I know what I’d been missing. I wish I could pluck that one and eat it, just to feel the sweetness of summer again.

Dark Orange Daylily

Dark Orange Daylily—Of all of my beautiful daylilies, the dark orange ones most warmed my heart this year, especially with the late afternoon sun shining through them.

Oranges & Lemons Gaillardia

Oranges & Lemons Gaillardia—I love the delicate form of this gaillardia. It was poorly sited with fierce sun and hardly any water and still it bloomed and bloomed. Unfortunately, it met a sorry death when it fell out of my transplant bucket this fall and lay in the sun for a week shriveling up like a prune. But I’ll get another one.

Pat Austin English Rose & Sedum

Pat Austin English Rose—I don’t buy roses anymore due to upkeep and deer, but this is one I will always have in my garden. Its thorns are as big as my thumb, so the deer (mostly) don’t eat it. And the complex apricot blooms tug at my heart. Unfortunately, I’ve had this one for three years, which is about as long as roses live for me, so I may be in the market for a new one.

Coppertina Ninebark & Bergenia

Coppertina Ninebark—If forced to pick my absolute favorite plant of 2009, it would be my Coppertina Ninebark. Every time I walked past it, it just made me happy, from one season to the next. Coppertina has an underlying wamth that my Diablo and Summerwine ninebarks lack. New foliage is golden in the sun and fall foliage turns from copper to fiery red. Of course, it’s going to be too big in that spot next year. But I’ll deal with that in the spring.

Of all my daylilies, the plain old orange ones are my favorite. They’re not the most striking or frilly, but they’re the ones that watch over the garden with me, the ones I measure the year by.

They first sprout through the snow in late winter to assure me that the rest of the garden stirs below.

Undaunted by weather, they grow boldly in the bare spring beds and beckon the other plants to be as brave.

By May, their graceful leaves arch over the border, and they pause for a moment while the rest of the garden bursts forth.

Their slender stems nod with fat buds, and when the first orange blossom opens to the sun, summer is begun.

They bloom and bloom, day after day, each flower giving its all, as if only there were enough of them, they could make summer last forever.

And when the days are spent and but a few blooms remain—today there are merely six—I know summer is winding down, even though I can’t feel it in the air yet.

Soon the green will recede from the stalks back into the earth, the sun will sink lower in the sky, and the garden will begin to fade.

The leaves will yellow and lack the will to stand, and summer will become fall and time for divisions and planting bulbs.

Eventually, the leaves will turn to paper and pull away in clumps in my hand as the days darken and the rains return, and then it will be time to put the garden to rest—until the orange daylilies greet me through the snow and we begin another year together.