My favorite garden whimsy is the kind that stays outdoors all year-long. In our gardens we have a variety of antiques made of hard-core cast iron that don't mind the extreme temperature fluctuations in Wisconsin. There's no need to shuttle them back and forth from the gardens to the garage or basement each season. This eliminates one more garden task to make our lives easier, and you can't argue with that!

Here are just a few examples of the whimsy in our yard. Believe it or not, we purchased most of these items at garage sales.

Does water collection interest you? Pictured is the system we used for many years. We have a well, so we felt good about saving the well water for our personal use. While our collection system was in place we rarely needed to use any well water for our flower gardens. My husband put this system together after watching all the YouTube videos he could possibly find on building water collection systems. He created this hybrid from the ideas he liked best. He did a great job, because these barrels certainly retained water!

We used eight-60 gallon water barrels. They were hidden from the eyes of any visitors. One set of five sat behind our garage and the other set of three were disguised underneath our sun porch and covered with lattice. Hoses were available to attach to the system, as well as the ability to simply place a watering can under the spigot. We had easy access to water wherever we needed it.

Our recycled barrels (of lemon-flavoring) were from a local brewery. It's important that the barrels come from a food-based source, since any chemical source would obviously be bad for the plants. Also remember that as rain water flows over a roof surface it can pick up pollutants such as bacteria from birds and other animals, and chemicals from roof materials. Consider these factors when using rain barrel water on edible plantings as opposed to flower gardens.  For more information go to: https://www.epa.gov/soakuptherain/soak-rain-rain-barrels

Note: After we remodeled our garage to make it larger we lost the space needed for the rain barrels to sit. I posted this information in case anyone was considering water collection.

I first saw a huge clump of 'Bill Norris' growing in my friend's garden about 25 years ago. At that moment I knew I had to have it! Bill is considered a classic daylily with its round, full form and delicate ruffles. It is an exceptional plant, verified by all the awards it has garnered, and the 101 child plants on the record.

Bill Norris, a semi-evergreen tetraploid, was hybridized by David Kirchhoff and registered in 1993. This brilliant gold beauty has perfect, consistent, waxy 5" blooms. The blooms are early morning openers (EMOs), plus they have extended bloom into the evening and are fragrant to boot! Bill also exhibits rebloom, even in Wisconsin's northern climate. Last summer in my yard, Bill Norris grew 28" tall and bloomed from July 3-September 13, at which time a rebloom scape full of blooms was ready-to-go when the deer ate it.

American Daylily Society Awards:

• Stout Silver Medal: 2002 (the highest award; only one daylily can win this award each year)
  
• Award of Merit: 2000
• Honorable Mention: 1997
• Junior Citation: 1993
• President's Cup: 1997

2020 marks the first year that I did not purchase any daylilies since about 1990! My lifestyle has changed over the past two years, and to that end I have done more downsizing. It was hard to make these decisions, but on the positive side, it warms my heart to know that each and every one of these plants went to a really good home and will be taken care even better than what I could have!

Downsized plants include: (Pictured alphabetically from top-to-bottom )

• Frances Joiner
• Hold On My Friend
• Magnificent Rainbow
• Paha Sapa Thundercloud
• Roswitha
• Something Angelic
• Spacecoast Cherries and Cream
• Strawberry Candy
• Sweet Summer Heat
• The Band Played On
• Timeless Majesty
• Wilson Spider

'Grey Witch' is one of those unique daylilies that you can look at and never mistake it for another. It has an unusual grayish-lavender coloration that can even look chalky some days. The color was definitely inherited from its famous parent, 'Trahlyta.'

This 36" tall spider was hybridized in 1999 by Margo Reed at Woodhendge Gardens in North Garden, Virginia. (It grows taller than its 30" registered height in my garden.) Grey Witch is a very hardy dormant diploid that grows wonderfully in Wisconsin. It's a robust plant that increased rapidly for me. I had a good-sized clump in just a few years. Blooms are 6" in size and bloom time last summer was from July 9 through August 9.

American Daylily Society Awards:
Award of Merit: 2009
Honorable Mention: 2005

Note: Over the past four or five years I have been a daylily foster mom for Grey Witch. At the end of the 2020 season, Grey Witch moved back home. Due to aggressive downsizing this year, I made the difficult decision not to keep two fans. It is, after all, a fantastic plant! No worries...I can visit Grey Witch any time I want :)

Every entity has its own set of terms and acronyms, and daylilies are no different. Daylily details can be very helpful when purchasing plants because it helps you narrow down exactly what characteristics you want, to avoid disappointment later. (Perhaps you want only a late-season blooming daylily, for example.) Many of these terms are listed on a daylily's name tag, or if you purchase online some or all of the registration information is typically included.

This list is in no way comprehensive, but it does cover the most commonly used terms and acronyms that I've come across.

So here's the 411...

Hybridizer:  The person who bred the hybrid daylily by hand pollination, and in most cases introduced or registered it with the American Daylily Society

Ploidy:  The number of sets of chromosomes of the daylily

• DIP: A diploid daylily has two complete sets of chromosomes in each cell, 22 chromosomes
• TET: A tetraploid daylily has four complete sets of chromosomes in each cell, 44 chromosomes

Tetraploids are typically more sturdy with heavier petal substance, while diploids are more delicate and graceful in appearance. When hybridizing, a diploid cannot be crossed with a tetraploid and vice-versa.

Foliage:  This refers to whether the foliage stays green instead of dying back through the fall and winter

• DOR: This daylily foliage becomes dormant in the winter
• SEV: This daylily has semi-evergreen foliage
• EV: This daylily has evergreen foliage

Fan - A complete division of the plant which consists of leaves, crown and roots
SF/DF = Single Fan/Double Fan
Scape - The flower stalk above the crown
Scape Height - The mature average scape height

Bloom Season: Approximate time of flowering (determined by the hybridizer at their location; this may vary slightly if you live in a different location)

• EE - Extra Early
• E - Early
• EM - Early-Midseason
• M - Midseason
• ML - Mid-to-Late season
• L - Late season
• VL - Very Late

Bloom Terms:

• CMO - Cold Morning Opener - Some daylilies are reluctant to open if it's cold. CMOs are great for those of us in northern growing zones
• DBL/Double  - A daylily which has additional petals and or sepals. Single daylilies have only three petals and three sepals. Doubles are layered or have the extra petals/sepals sticking up into the air
• EMO - Early Morning Opener
• EXT - Extended Bloom - Flowers which stay open over an extended period of time
• FFO -First Flower Open - Usually the first flower of the season for a particular plant
• FR - Fragrant - Most daylilies don't have much fragrance but a small percentage do
• Miniature  - Daylilies with flowers less than three inches
• NOC - Nocturnal - This is a daylily that opens or begins to open late afternoon or in the night
• POLY - Polymerous (outdated term was Polytepal) - A daylily which has four or more petals and four or more sepals in a flat whorl
• RE - Rebloomer - A daylily that will rebloom and send up new scapes later in the season. This happens more often for early bloomers, or for plants that have a longer growing season
• Spider  - A flower that has petals at least four times longer than the width of the petals
• UF/UFO -  This is a daylily that has unusual characteristics on three sepals or petals

Daylilies pictured: 'Webster's Pink Wonder' and 'Lounge Lizard'

'Bass Gibson' has been growing in my garden since August 2017 when I started off with two small fans purchased from The Lily Auction. This year, Bass finally decided it was truly happy in its new home and really took off.  Wow, what a showstopper! (Note: This is why it is so important to allow a daylily to grow in your garden for *at least* three years before deciding to keep it or part with it.)

Hybridized in Kentucky by John Rice (2006), Bass Gibson grows 32" tall. The 5.5" blooms are sunfast, prolific and consistent (bud count: 21-25).  The large fringed/toothy yellow edges are over-the-top striking. This dormant tetraploid bloomed in my Wisconsin garden from July 12 through August 12.

Bass Gibson has 86 child plants on the record, which indicates how popular this daylily is and that its genetics are much sought after by hybridizers for their future introductions.

American Daylily Society Awards:
Award of Merit: 2012
Honorable Mention: 2009

October has arrived and we are under pressure to do last-minute transplanting and prep our gardens for winter before the impending first frost. Every weed we can remove now is one less weed waiting for us in the spring. Which brings me to the topic of crabgrass...could there be a weed that's more persistent?

My son helped me with some daylily transplanting last weekend. Firestorm (pictured) is one of the daylilies he dug up. We found the dang crabgrass not only tangled up *within* Firestorm's rhizomes, but also growing directly *through* Firestorm's rhizomes! (See photos below) And those rhizomes are dense and hard! That's how tenacious crabgrass is.

Crabgrass is an annual weed that invades flower beds and lawns.  A single crabgrass plant can produce 150,000 seeds during the growing season, and that's why controlling it is so difficult.

Organic mulches can help manage crabgrass in garden beds. Covering the soil with a mulch blocks light from the seeds and prevents them from sprouting. Spread a two- to three-inch layer of fine mulch or a three- to six-inch layer of coarse mulch, avoiding plant stems. Fine mulches include leaf mold, garden compost and well-rotted manure. Wood chips, shredded bark and straw are some examples of coarse mulches. Be sure to replace the mulch layer as it thins out. Mulches are not entirely foolproof, but they sure do help!

For more crabgrass information:
https://homeguides.sfgate.com/garden-care-tips-kill-crabgrass-killing-plants-104109.html
https://naturalawn.com/lawn-care-tips/crabgrass-what-it-is-what-it-looks-how-remove-it

Ahhhh...September....the month we Northern gardeners try to remedy our planting fails from the previous spring by juggling daylilies around the yard. My friend Sally and I like to refer to this as the 'Domino Effect' because in order to move *one* daylily to a new spot, it seems like an entire chain reaction of plant-moving needs to take place before that *one* daylily can be put in its place.

The Domino Effect reminds me of these three Murphy's Laws:

• #5. Nothing is as easy as it looks
• #6. Everything takes longer than you think, and
• #11. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something

Why move daylilies around? A daylily's registration information can vary greatly as to how that plant grows in your garden, due to differences in sun, soil, temperature, and location. Planting is definitely a trial-and-error endeavor until you get to know how a particular plant behaves in your unique situation.

Here are just a few examples of why you'd want to move a plant:

• A daylily may need  more sun because it has a low bloom count
• A plant could be crying out for more shade because the color fades in the sun
• It grew taller than expected and obscured the plants behind it
• It grew shorter than expected and disappeared within the flower bed
• Bloom times were off -- one section of the garden somehow ended up with all early bloomers and by the beginning of August there were no blooms at all
• You may want to change-up color combinations to make your garden more aesthetically pleasing
• Finally, every season plants arrive and plants depart from the garden; when replacing daylilies, the size or bloom time of the new plant rarely matches that of the previous one

I have yet to encounter a year without experiencing the Domino Effect. And as a gardener, I suspect you haven't either!

Daylily pictured: 'Techny Spider' with a companion ant

'Greywoods Disco Dana' is so cheerful and unrestrained when it blooms. Each one of these large, unique flowers looks like it is disco dancing! The petals and sepals fling themselves around in a wild, uncontrolled manor. Each bloom is headed in a different direction. This makes Greywoods Disco Dana quite an impressive sight in a large clump!

Disco Dana is categorized as an Unusual Form (UFO) Crispate daylily. Hybridized in 2003 in Massachusetts by Darlyn Wilkinson, this dormant tetraploid daylily grows 28" tall with 8" blooms (Bud Count: 21-25).  In the morning this wild and crazy gold-yellow blend has a vivid green throat, and as the day progresses the bloom mellows and the edges fade to a cream color.

Disco Dana is a hardy grower that quickly clumped-up for me without any special attention. In 2020 this lovely plant bloomed in my garden from July 15 through August 16, at which point the opportunistic deer finished off the remaining blooms. Our bad; we slipped up by not re-spraying deer deterrent after a short burst of rain.

I bought 'The Bodacious Ms Billadeau' on a whim (it was a 'pretty picture' purchase) at the Wisconsin Daylily Society sale in Madison three years ago, and what a WOW this plant turned out to be! It has large, beautifully textured, 6.75 to 7 " blooms that are vibrantly colored, and I love the added bonus of the white-ish buds for visual interest. The blooms are consistent and look great in any weather situation. In 2020, this prolific daylily bloomed in my garden from July 9 through August 26! You can't really ask for more than that. Call me happy ;)

Bodacious was hybridized in North Carolina by Paul Owen in 2012. This 27" dormant, tetraploid daylily thrives in our crazy Wisconsin climate, as do all my other Owen daylilies.

Note: 'My Friend Charlie,' also an Owen daylily, grows behind Bodacious. They look great together!

Guilty! Luckily, each daylily I bought just for the name turned out to be an amazing plant! Here are six of my 'I love the name' daylilies (pictured in alphabetical order):

• 'House of Misrepresentatives' - Enough said
• 'Legislating Life' - Because we have an attorney in our family
• 'Lounge Lizard' - Who could resist that name? And I have to wonder if one evening this daylily will escape and make a beeline for the bars.
  
• 'She's Got Legs' - Gotta luv ZZ Top!
• 'Three Bad Pigs' - This cute name always makes me smile. What mischief will it get into?
• 'Waxed Legs' - I love waxy-textured daylilies, so I took a chance on this one and was immensely pleased. The name couldn't be more perfect.

What about you? Have you bought any daylilies based solely on their name?

'Marchioness' is a daylily you probably haven't heard much hoopla about, but she's always been one of my keepers. Many years ago a friend gave me a division of Marchioness and said, "You'll love this daylily for some August color." He was spot on! I have grown this beauty in my garden for almost 20 years now. Marchioness is a consistent, reliable, late-season bloomer that more than earns her garden space. Last week my husband was helping me deadhead daylily blooms and he commented on how pretty this plant is! (He doesn't often make these comments.)

Hybridized in 1996 by Steve Moldovan (Ohio), this dormant tetraploid has six-inch blooms and grows 28" tall in my garden. I love the dainty gold edges on the soft pink blooms! In 2019 Marchioness bloomed from July 24 through September 14. In 2020 she started blooming on July 27 and is still in bloom today.

I grow two other Moldovan daylilies in my garden, 'South Seas' and 'Strutter's Ball,' which I love every bit as much as Marchioness.

Watch out for this plant! While it may look dainty and smell deviously fragrant, it has aggressive, unmanageable behavior. When I was a gardening newbie, a 'friend' gave me a tiny kiddie-shovel full of Lily of the Valley for my shade garden. What an epic mistake! Lily of the Valley has these invasive underground runners that spread out of control and get tangled up in the roots of the well-behaved perennials. After twenty-five years of digging Lily of the Valley roots out of my flowers, I am still trying to eradicate it. Every year when I think I have completely removed it, a survivor shows up.  It has even popped up in the grass outside of the flower bed. Aargh!

This plant may be good for erosion control, far away from flower gardens, but to this day I still shudder when I see Lily of the Valley for sale at garden centers. I mean really...should you spend money for this kind of aggravation?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay

I couldn't resist posting these adorable photos. Like clockwork, at the end of July and throughout August, these tiny American Green Tree Frogs appear in and on my daylilies. It's fun searching for them and finding their hiding places while (carefully) dead-heading the old blooms each day. Ange took these photos; the tiny frogs are one of his favorite subjects. To read more about American Green Tree Frogs visit my September 7, 2014 blog.

Daylily pictured: Border Blessed

In May 2016 I purchased 'Paha Sapa Thundercloud' at the Daylily Society of Minnesota plant sale in Minneapolis. Paha Sapa means "Black Hills" in the Lakota Sioux language. The Lakota Sioux consider the Black Hills the center of their universe, where their culture began. The Black Hills were at the center of the Great Sioux Reservation, and considered home by the seven Lakota Sioux tribes.

What a great choice Paha Sapa Thundercloud turned out to be! Hybridized in 2003 by Gary Schaben in Minnesota, this dormant tetraploid has been a very hardy grower for me. In fact, it is so vigorous that it grows 37" tall --  a whopping 10" taller than its registered height! Paha Sapa gets no special attention or fertilizer, either.

Blooms are 5" in size (21-25 bud count). The bitone blooms are beautiful, rich in color, consistent, and have a heavy, waxy substance. They always look perfect whether it's a hot sunny day, if there's high winds, or torrential rain. This plant is tough! Also note the neat pink-ish purple anthers in the bloom. In my 2019 garden, Paha Sapa Thundercloud bloomed from July 22 through September 14. In 2020 bloom started on July 17.

American Daylily Society Award: Honorable Mention: 2007

I noticed a beautiful pair of Cardinals frequenting our clematis trellis, perching on top and going inside the clematis foliage. The female always had twigs or leaves in her beak. Sure enough, there's a nest! It's a great location choice. The nest so protected, you'd never realize it is hidden inside the abundant clematis foliage. The photos were taken every few days until one day, the nest was empty!

Cardinals mate with the same partner each breeding season. They will breed two or three times during the summer. The female builds a nest in dense shrubs or thick bushes. She will lay three to four eggs and incubate them; remaining in the nest for 11 to 13 days. During this period the male cardinal will feed the female. Both male and female cardinals care for and feed their young. In the first few weeks the chicks are fed only insects. Young cardinals begin learning to fly around ten days after hatching. The parents continue to help feed their chicks for several weeks after they have left the nest. The chicks  will usually flock with other juveniles until they are mature enough to establish their own territory. Cardinals have a lifespan of 15 years in the wild.

Info from Northern Cardinal Facts: https://forum.americanexpedition.us/northern-cardinal-facts

Here are a few daylily hacks that have helped me grow healthy daylilies over the years:

• When bare root daylily divisions are purchased, I always soak them in a 10 to 1 bleach solution (10 cups of water to one cup of bleach) for an hour or two to sanitize them.
  
• After bleaching, I wash the plants thoroughly with a clean water spray.
• I typically hydrate newly purchased divisions overnight in a bucket in preparation for planting the following morning. If they have been shipped, it may have been 6-8 days without water for the plants.
• Cut the division foliage to about 4-6" above the roots. The daylily can focus on root growth instead of foliage growth.
• To accelerate root growth of new divisions, I plant them in a dark black plastic pot and place the pot on my warm patio brick. In about one month the pot is usually filled with new roots. At that time I plant the daylily in its permanent spot.
• This one's easy. I keep a huge black garbage bag full of dried up manure stored in a big garbage can that's hidden behind the garage. I routinely sprinkle dried manure around my daylilies - they love it!
• Be sure to deadhead the old daylily blooms. It's discouraging to find a pink bloom in a clump of yellow blooms. A seed from a dried up pod can fall into a clump and grow a completely new plant in the middle of your old one. Worst of all you may not discover it for two or three years until the new plant ultimately blooms. By that time, it's well established and you will have to dig the entire plant out and do surgery to remove the interloper. Not fun, in case you're wondering.
• I plant temperamental/finicky  daylilies by the house for protection or in a terraced area surrounded by rocks for extra warmth over the winter.
• When you initially plant new daylilies, be sure to give them at least 2-3 feet of space between each other. I know a double fan division looks tiny and you may be tempted to put two plants in that one space -- resist doing that at all costs! I guarantee it will save you extra digging in a year or two.
  
  

Pictured: Daylilies 'Wayne Felgar' with 'Heavenly Starbrite' in the background

Check out 'Eyes on the Prize,' hybridized in 2002 by Karol Emmerich in Minnesota. I bought this daylily nine years ago as a birthday gift for my friend. And I liked it so much that I bought one for myself, as well. Good decision! After all, when is buying an additional daylily *ever* a bad decision?

This semi-evergreen tetraploid grows 18-22" tall and has 5.5" blooms, which is a perfect size for a front-of-the-border plant. In 2019 Eyes on the Prize bloomed from July 9 through August 7. This year's bloom started on July 1. You can't go wrong with this eye candy!

American Daylily Society Award: Honorable Mention 2008