Whenever I go to garage sales I am always on the lookout for this multi-use tool. Its official name is Vintage Metal/Wood English 3-Tine Hand Garden Fork, but I just refer to it as "the claw." It's one of my favorite garden tools. You can't have too many of them! They go for about $15-$30 on eBay, but mine are the garage sale version for $1 or $2. This claw is awesome! When transplanting daylilies the dirt from the root ball can be removed so easily. It makes what could be a hard job, easy. It's also great for uprooting shallow-rooted weeds.

We painted our two  claws bright red and accessorized them with fluorescent tape so they don't get lost in the garden. Last week one accidentally got thrown into the field along with a bucket of weeds. Uh-oh, instant panic mode!  Luckily, I quickly spotted and retrieved the claw in the pile of weeds thanks to the bright red paint and fluorescent tape. Happy me, because I'd be lost without it!

Over the last few years I have added more red daylilies to my collection because I had very little of that color in my garden. One of my favorites is 'All American Chief.'  What a perfect northern daylily! You simply plant it (anywhere) and it takes off and grows like a champ. And those blooms! They are all 9" in diameter. The foliage is attractive and contrasts nicely with the red flowers. All American Chief makes quite a statement when it is in full bloom. My husband doesn't remember many of the daylily names in our yard, but he definitely knows this one!

Hybridized by Van Sellers and registered in 1994, All American Chief is a dormant tetraploid that grows 32" tall. This cultivar appears regularly on popularity polls and won the Stout Medal in 2008, which is the highest award a daylily can win (plus three other awards). The takeaway? This daylily is a sure thing! If you don't grow it, you really should.

Now that May has arrived, spring is finally back on track after the brutal April that we had. It was one for the record books in western Wisconsin. We had a total of 19" of snow, which was 17.3" more than normal! We also had a 69 degree temperature spread, winding up with an 84 degree day on April 30th. Go figure.

Quite a few of my daylilies did not fare well over the winter. Many of them died or had rotted crowns. I think much of the damage happened during the three-day rain/ice/snow storm we had in mid-April. The poor plants were covered with thick sheets of ice.

I get so disappointed when I have a huge, beautiful daylily clump that dies back to only one wimpy scape after a bad winter. Then I end up coddling the plant along for three more years, only to have it happen again. For the daylilies pictured, this wasn't the first time they had a near-death experience. So I made a difficult decision....as beautiful as these flowers are, it was time to say goodbye. These daylilies had never thrived like my other plants did. For this reason I discarded them in the field. Wisconsin was clearly not their happy place.

The good news? This ultimately makes my downsizing effort easier and I have space for a new daylily or two.

Pictured: Four of my recently discarded daylilies: 'Mountains Bow Down' (lavender-mauve), 'Fashion Police' (yellow with mahogany-red eye) and 'Off Beat' (cream with purple eye), and 'Before Night Falls' (Cream-lavender with a black-red eyezone)

The great thing about growing daylilies is that no matter what your income level is, you can find one to fit your budget. There are so many exceptional daylilies available that you can purchase for $10 and under. And on the other end of the spectrum, there are trend-setting daylilies you can buy for up to $300. After a daylily has been out on the open market for a while, the purchase price gradually decreases over time as new cultivars are introduced each year.

When I was first bitten by the daylily bug my kiddos were in elementary school. At that time I remember feeling guilty that I spent more money than I should have on a daylily. Should I have bought school clothes instead? I ultimately decided that the new daylily made me a happier Mom. How's that for rationalization?

Although I'm still not in a place to afford triple-digit daylily prices, that doesn't dampen my enthusiasm by any means. I just have to wait a little longer to get what's on my wish list. As it stands right now, I am perfectly happy getting the seven and eight-year-old daylilies. As each year passes, hybridizers come up with more and more innovative, cutting-edge daylilies. Consequently, there is always yet another daylily that I must have -- it's a never-ending cycle.

Pictured: Daylily 'Signs and Wonders.'  At the time I bought this pretty, it was my biggest splurge to date. Sorry? Not really.

I have fond memories of paging through Jung garden catalogs when they were mailed to our home. I always kept the catalogs because they had good plant information and attractive photos to refer to until the next catalog arrived. Even though all the information is online now, I still sometimes miss having the actual catalog in my hands.

Recently Ange and I had some business to take care of in Stevens Point, WI. On the way to our destination we almost drove right past the Jung Gardening Center -- bigger than life! WHOA, stop the car! We (or more correctly I) had to take a closer look. This was my first garden center experience of 2018 and it certainly amped up  my excitement for warmer weather.

It was fun walking around, taking my time to check out all the gardening items. Jung's have an amazing display of hundreds of different seed varieties, in addition to just about anything and everything 'garden' you can possibly think of. The staff at Jung's are well on the way to having the shelves fully stocked for the spring rush of customers. I can only imagine how the Center will look once all the annuals and perennials arrive.  It will be total sensory overload in a most incredible way! Is this the best time of year, or what?

Here is what my backyard in western Wisconsin looked like on April 3rd. Our official total was seven inches of snow. This is precisely why I restrain myself from cleaning up dead garden foliage too early in the spring. Final frost dates in Zone 4a can be anywhere between April 30th to May 15th, depending on the trending weather. I typically delay my garden cleanup until late April. I like to wait until the shriveled up foliage can be easily lifted off the plants without any resistance at all; then the spring rainfall doesn't leave the dead leaves in a big soggy blob on top of the new growth.

This morning, at 13 degrees, it feels as though the nice weather will never come. Snow is in the forecast for this afternoon, tonight and tomorrow. As pretty as snow can be, enough already!

Over the past year or two, most of my daylily purchases have been big, tall plants with large blooms. Not only do the blooms catch your eye from a distance, but deadheading is also considerably easier when I don't have to crouch over a teeny plant to remove 20-30 spent blooms each day. For these reasons I've gradually been phasing out many of my smaller plants, although I do keep a few of my favorites up close to the house. Some of my tiny daylilies have been hard to say goodbye to, but I rest assured knowing that their new owners will love them just as much as I once did. The silver lining? I keep an extensive wish list with numerous  daylilies on it that are just calling out my name. Does this sound familiar fellow daylily addicts?

So 'Black Falcon Ritual' is one of those big, tall, showy plants that I really like. With a height of 38", deadheading this guy is a breeze. The large, consistent blooms are 8" in size and have a waxy, thick texture. After a rainstorm the blooms still looks great. For dark flowers that are the color of grape jelly, they retain their color quite well in full sun. Also notice the delicate watermark. The photos don't do this plant justice -- it is so much more beautiful in real life!

Black Falcon Ritual is categorized as a UFO (Unidentified FOrm) Cascade. UFOs are a classification of daylilies based exclusively on the shapes of the petals or sepals. The American Hemerocallis Society (AHS) defines a 'Cascade' as having narrow floral segments with pronounced curling or cascading, which revolve upon themselves in the manner of a wood shaving.

Introduced in 2005 by Curt Hanson, this semi-evergreen tetraploid won an Honorable Mention Award in 2009 which indicates good performance that goes beyond the regional level. BFR is an early-midseason bloomer in my Wisconsin (4a) garden that started on July 7th last year.

Note: Black Falcon Ritual has the famous 'Jerry Hyatt' in its lineage.

Here is our year-round garden helper (when it was new). We couldn't be without our 4-wheel drive John Deere. While working around the yard, this lawn tractor allows us to work smarter rather than harder. It has both a plow and a bucket attachment. Not only can it mow grass and plow snow, but it can effortlessly move huge rocks and large amounts of black dirt. When we dig up mature daylilies for dividing, the gigantic root balls are simply rolled into the bucket and driven to the dividing area. We have even pulled out trees and shrubs with the John Deere. What a terrific back-saver!

 We love this cute little garden helper, too! She feels strongly that there's a fashion statement to be made no matter what the activity.

It's one thing to have a flower garden, and quite another to keep it weed-free. Simplifying my garden over the last two years has saved me so much time and effort. Since I don't like clutter, I'm not sentimental about what I keep and what I don't keep. I made the decision to focus on my daylilies, because they are what I truly love. I only have a finite amount of time available to keep things looking nice so I made some changes. Here's what I did:

Removed the 40 foot long split-rail fence. Fences are weed magnets. What a back-breaker crawling under and around a fence trying to remove weeds. This never bothered me 20 years ago, but that was then and this is now. Ange helped me pull the fence posts out, fill up the holes with dirt, and haul the fence posts and rails away with our John Deere lawn tractor. Best decision ever! In addition, there is much more air flow for my daylilies which they have really responded to.

Goodbye Garden Phlox. Garden phlox are fragrant and pretty from a distance, but up close they were -- I'll just say 'not pretty.' Every year they got powdery mold and mildew. I was not willing to put in the time to get rid of the mold and mildew year-after-year. As they grew and spread they would get entangled with Creeping Charlie and crabgrass; then the ticks moved in.

Ditto to Bee Balm. I know hummingbirds and butterflies love them, but unfortunately I don't. They have tender shallow little roots that constantly got tangled up with weeds. I got tired of re-planting them each time I weeded and accidentally pulled them out. They got powdery mold and mildew too , even in full sun.

The flowers in the above two photos are long gone. Last summer was the first time that weeding was easily doable. And I thought my garden was still beautiful, even without the fence, the phlox and the bee balm.

Here is one of my favorite doubles, 'Black Lace Conspiracy.' The first photo was taken in the morning when BLC looks grape-purple, and the second photo was taken in the afternoon when it mellows into a rich burgundy. I love both versions! Plus, if you look closely it has a really neat white edging which is more pronounced as the day goes on.

'Black Lace Conspiracy' came from my friend Becky who bought it at a daylily nursery on one of her adventures in northern Wisconsin. What a find! This dormant tetraploid was introduced in 2008 by Wisconsin hybridizer Nate Bremer. It grows about 28" tall and has 5" blooms, with a bud count of 21-25. It also doubles very consistently. This gem looks great in all types of weather and is a hardy, reliable performer in my backyard. Keeper!

Persistence is a trait that those of us who garden are very well-versed in. There's not much about a garden that doesn't involve hard core persistence. You may love flowers. You may imagine having flowers. You may have motivation. But in the end, it's persistence that does all the hard work.

Since I learned to garden by the trial and error method, I've had countless failures along the way. My thumb doesn't always glow green. Far from it! But I do find that with continued effort I can eventually achieve the end product I imagined, or pretty darn close to it.

     “Success is not the absence of failure; it's the persistence through failure.”   ~ Aisha Tyler

Persistence will be rewarded. My flowers thank me every year. And it is beyond exciting when the blooms arrive!

Pictured: Daylily 'Andy Candy'

Here's a daylily that will make anyone say "Ooooooh and Aaaaaahhh." Boundless Beauty's blooms are at least seven and one-half inches of ruffled confection. This plant has a bud count of 31-35 and in peak bloom it is quite an eyeful! Hybridized by Patrick Stamile in 2005, this semi-evergreen pastel white blend is a multiple award winner that grows about 28" tall. Although registered as a mid-season bloomer, in 2017 Boundless Beauty bloomed from July 15 through September 4 in my yard.

Boundless Beauty has a couple of negatives, but let me quickly follow that up by saying I can work with both of them, because I LOVE this daylily!

First, it didn't tolerate 100% sun the best. By afternoon on very hot, humid days the flowers were a bit wilted. So I solved that problem by giving this stunner one of my rare part-shade spots. With morning sun and afternoon shade, it was so much happier. Boundless Beauty is a hardy grower in Wisconsin and didn't miss a beat when I transplanted it.

Second, the flowers have so many super large ruffles (or 'chicken-fat' as it's sometimes referred to) that occasionally a bloom can 'hang up.' In daylily talk that means as the flower tries to open in the morning, it gets tangled up in itself and may only partially bloom; or it can tear as it tries to open. But even if there happens to be one bloom that hangs up, you can rest assured there will be several others that look absolutely perfect. Despite these two hiccups, Boundless Beauty is still a keeper - that's how spectacular it is!

Here are some arborvitaes in our yard that we refer to as 'Poodle Trees.' Note that all the lower branches are missing. The deer stand up on their hind legs and eat the branches as as high as they can reach. Over the years, we have come to embrace this look. Deer topiaries? There are deer-resistant arborvitaes available, but we didn't know that at the time these were planted.

I tried to get a photo of the deer eating the arborvitaes, with no luck. So instead, I added a photo Ange took many years ago of an apple tree that used to be in our yard. It's of very poor quality because he took it through a window from inside the house. During apple season, the deer would visit the tree every day. Some days there could be up to three or four deer at one time dancing around the tree -- so comical to watch!

With limited space in my gardens, I only keep plants that I am totally in love with. I've had numerous  daylilies over the years that arrived and eventually departed my Zone 4a Wisconsin garden.  Some of them were even multiple award winners. They just didn't work out for me for one reason or another. Maybe they would do well in someone else's yard, another growing zone, different soil, a shadier location -- who knows? So these opinions are all mine and relate only to my situation. I do keep all of my daylilies for at least three years to give them a chance to show me their stuff before they go anywhere.

As disappointing as it is buying plants and realizing they won't work in my circumstances, it's just a part of gardening that I accept. It makes me all the more appreciative when I hit upon a daylily that is absolute perfection. The fun is always in the journey.

Here are a few of the plants I parted company with and the reasons why:

• A little Fire, Scarecrow - An award winner that just didn't suit me and sometimes needed staking.
• Always Afternoon - The blooms on this Stout Medal winner melted in the sun. I didn't have enough shade to keep the plant happy.
• Baby Blues - I know this will sound completely crazy, but Baby Blues bloomed too much! It rivaled 'Stella de Oro' in bloom power. This departure was all about me, not the plant -- my back was very unhappy deadheading 30+ blooms a day on such a diminutive plant. For those of you who love miniatures, it's a wonderful, robust, super bloomer!
• Caribbean Whipped Cream - Some blooms were breathtaking; some were not. This doesn't bother some gardeners. I'm not in that group.
• Court Magician - A pretty color combination, but the petals regularly 'canoed' (curled over).
• Etched Eyes - Beautiful and unusual, but it never thrived for me. I found it a new home and it seems to be doing better in a friend's garden.
• Highland Lord - A double that doubled about half the time. It was either gorgeous or just plain red. Which is no doubt perfectly fine for someone else who is not picky-me.
• Lady Neva - Droopy scapes. The large 9" blooms were too heavy for the scapes. I disliked deadheading blooms that were usually on or near the ground, especially after it rained.
• Moussaka - Another plant with melting blooms. By 1:00 pm it was done for; not a good fit for my sunny yard.
  
• Night Beacon - A striking bloom with a great color combination, but some scapes grew really tall and others never made it past the foliage. The clump always looked odd with scapes and flowers poking out all over the place. I hung onto this plant for about six years hoping the growth habits would improve. They didn't.
• Nowhere to Hide - This is one of the most unique daylilies I have ever grown, but it had inconsistent blooms and ratty foliage. I wish it would have been happier, but I don't think it liked Wisconsin.
• Tholian Web - These blooms melted in the sun. I liked the plant so well that I moved it from full sun to a coveted eastern location with afternoon sun and high hopes. It melted anyway. Frown face.

Pictured above: 'Nowhere to Hide"
Pictured below L-R: 'A Little Fire, Scarecrow;' 'Always Afternoon'

Go ahead and laugh but notice, if you will, that there are no deer tracks in my precious flower bed. All my daylilies are protected not only by the snow cover, but by this crazy maze of wire. This seems to do the trick until spring when I can resume regularly spraying deer deterrent. Come spring, all the tomato cages will be collected and stored in the rafters of our garage. Aesthetically not so great, but check in with me next summer; beautiful is guaranteed!

Whenever I look at 'South Seas,' in photos or in real life, this daylily reminds me of the tropics. And if there's ever a time to think of the tropics, it's at the end of January in Wisconsin. The tangerine coral color screams tropical plants, warm sandy beaches, and the sound of ocean waves lapping on the shore.

South Seas grows about 30" tall with 5.5" blooms that are reliable, consistent, and hold up well in full sun. Last summer it bloomed from July 9 to August 10. Hybridized by Steve Moldovan and registered in 1993, South Seas won an Honorable Mention award in 1998, which recognizes good daylily performance that goes beyond the regional level.

In my garden I like to grow a combination of old-school daylilies with newer ones. South Seas is one of my older keepers. It arrived in my yard almost twenty years ago via proliferation from my friend Roger's garden. This exceptional dormant tetraploid performs like a champ and deserves a spot in any northern garden.

This awesome antique weather vane ended up at our yard in a most unusual way. One Saturday afternoon Ange walked next door to visit our neighbor just as he happened to be loading a bunch of items into the trash. The above weather vane was broken up and heaped in a pile ready to be tossed. Ange asked, "Really? You're throwing this out?" Our neighbor said that his wife had been mowing and got the weather vane grounding wire tangled up in the mower. (The weather vane had been on the roof.) She accidentally dragged the wire and the weather vane around the yard behind the mower. She didn't realize it was dragging behind the mower because she was wearing headphones. Oops!

So Ange brought the weather vane home, knowing that I would totally love it! After some needed repair, this amazing weather vane is perched upon a metal pole placed in my garden by the garage. As you can see, it looks especially striking in the winter.

As the 17th century proverb goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

'God Save the Queen' grows in my friend Mary's daylily garden. It was love at first sight when she set eyes on this stunner. Plus the name made her smile, so that was the icing on the cake. What's not to like? The colors are so vivid! This daylily is a multiple award-winner and has been used extensively for hybridizing. There are eighty-six kiddos on record to be exact! In 2017 God Save the Queen won the coveted Lenington All American Award, which recognizes a cultivar that performs the best over a wide geographic area. Only one daylily gets this award each year. It's a great list to refer to if you are looking for a 'sure thing.' I have grown about a dozen cultivars that have won this award and they have all been hardy growers in my Wisconsin garden. Here's the list: Lenington All American Award Winners

God Save the Queen is an evergreen tetraploid, hybridized by Mort Morss and introduced in 2005. It's an early season bloomer that grows about 30" tall and has large 7" flowers. As shown in this photo, sometimes the petals can exhibit teeth. This daylily grows well for Mary and it's quite a standout in her landscape.

If you are a northern gardener and don't grow 'Heavenly Angel Ice,' you really should. This plant is outstanding in so many ways. The blooms are thick and waxy, and they look perfect whether the temperature is 55 or 105 degrees. Heavenly Angel Ice is categorized as a UFO (Unusual FOrm) Crispate, which means that each bloom presents a little differently -- the flowers curl, twist, and twirl. The bud count is a remarkable 26-30. You can see from the photos how many  buds are on my plant and I've only had it two years! Being a dormant diploid, it does very well in Wisconsin. In my yard, this daylily grows about 40" tall and the scapes never droop, even after a heavy rainstorm. It's a midseason-late bloomer that in 2017 bloomed from July 10 through August 14.

Hybridized in Ohio, and introduced in 2004 by Jamie Gossard, Heavenly Angel Ice is a multiple award winner. Awards include the Stout Medal in 2013 (which is the highest award a daylily can get), Award of Merit in 2010, Lambert/Webster Award in 2009, and an Honorable Mention in 2007. There are already 50 registered child plants on the record, so it's quite popular as a parent. Love. This. Daylily.