2020 was uncharted territory for me in more ways than I could have ever imagined.

I've learned:

• I am blessed with some over-the-top, amazing people in my life who mean the world to me.
• guarantees are for appliances.
• not to stray too far from the 'here and now.'
• that potato chips, brownies and soda in one sitting is not a good idea (even though my 'here and now' self would disagree).
• you can deal with difficulty whether or not you have courage.
• gratitude is necessary.
• it's all about perspective.
  
• the fortune-teller was wrong.
• material items live low on the totem pole.
• finally, and of utmost importance, it ain't so bad that it can't get worse.

Pictured: A quaint storefront I passed by in Bath, England.

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'

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?

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

As much as I love my daylilies, Picky-Patty-Me harbors a few pet peeves. Here are my top ten:

• Daylilies that multiply too fast. Sounds crazy, right? Truth is, I get tired of dividing the same plant every year or so, and then trying to re-home the discards. (Why can't I just throw them in the ditch?) At one point in time, I'm pretty sure every friend I've ever had received a division of 'Mary Todd.'
• Blooms that have poor substance and slick-off in the sun (wet, slimy blooms).  In my 100% sun yard that calls for instant removal.
• Scapes that droop and/or fall over. I refuse to prop up any plant in my garden. Away you go!
• Daylily bloom petals that canoe (when the flower petals turn inwards) Ick!
• A cultivar that puts out exceptionally beautiful blooms alongside of inconsistent blooms. Why put up with that? There are thousands and thousands of daylilies available that always have consistent, beautiful blooms; those are the ones I keep.
• Some daylilies have roots that are so densely woven together and tangled up that I have had to resort to a small saw to get divisions!  It must be genetics, because most daylily roots are not saw-worthy.
• Daylilies that periodically send out traveling roots to new fans that are far away from the mother plant. Then Picky-Me has to dig out the traveling fan to keep the plant contained in its allotted garden space.
• Plants that bloom inside of their foliage instead of above the foliage.
  
• Ratty foliage. Enough said.
• Daylilies that exhibit scape blasting. I've had some cultivars that routinely did this every year. I've said goodbye to all of them but one, and that daylily (Virginia B. Hanson) is so perfect in all other aspects that she gets a pass.

Here are some of my experiences that make up the ever-present irony of daily life. Do any sound familiar?

1. Good news....free samples of pizza at the grocery store
   Bad news...it's 'breakfast' pizza - no wonder they give it away
   
2. Good news...the grocery store offers an insanely cheap price on an item
   Bad news...you have to buy 10 of them to get the cheap price
3. Good news...you are given a *free* car wash token
   Bad news...while going through the car wash,  your rear windshield wiper gets ripped off, never to be seen again
   
4. Good news...while shopping you finally locate a public restroom
   Bad news...there's not a shred of toilet paper to be found anywhere
   
5. Good news...it's Saturday
   Bad news...your alarm clock woke you up at 5 am because you, while on auto-pilot, activated it the night before
6. Good news...you are having friends over for dinner
   Bad news...you forgot to press start on the dishwasher full of dirty dishes
7. Good news...a dog-walker dutifully carries their plastic bag
   Bad news...when his dog did the deed, the dog-walker did a 360 to see if anyone noticed; he assumed no one did and continued on his way. The plastic bag must have been a fashion accessory.
   
8. Good news...you spent $150 at the grocery and replenished every item you wanted
   Bad news...except for the one item you desperately needed to make your evening meal
9. Good news...you bought ten beautiful perennials you couldn't resist
   Bad news...not one empty space was available in your garden
10. Good news...gasoline prices are at an all-time low
    Bad news...you're 'sheltering at home' and your travels are limited

I'm often glad I live out in the country, because I'd be the first to admit that I can get very distracted while outside gardening. I sometimes find myself just sitting still with my eyes closed so I can hear the birds, feel the wind in my hair, or enjoy the warm sun on my face. If I had close neighbors they'd probably wonder what I was doing.

Weeding, after all, is not the most rewarding garden activity. I can easily be distracted from weeding -- fill that bunny hole, stomp down that mole tunnel, remove the Japanese beetles from my plants, or run to get my camera or phone to capture that perfect photo I can visualize. Some days (or should I say most days) weeding can take way longer than expected.

But I don't think that's a bad thing; it's all part of what we enjoy about the garden experience. And on a positive note...it's great for your well-being.

Pictured: Daylily 'Grey Witch'

If you talk, sing, or play music to your plants, will they respond? Does it help them grow?

I read an interesting article "The Intelligent Plant" written by Michael Pollan and published in The New Yorker. According to the article, plants have the ability to sense and react to the world. For instance, when plants were played a recording of a caterpillar chewing on a leaf, they reacted by secreting a defensive chemical, just as though they were threatened. Pollan also states that plants can sense gravity, the presence of water, and can adjust/shift the direction of growing roots when it senses there is an obstruction (a rock, perhaps).

The Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters explored the possibility that plants respond to sound and/or speech. They set up seven greenhouses, four of which were equipped with stereos playing looped recordings. Two were of negative speech, while two were of positive speech. The fifth greenhouse had classical music playing, while the sixth had heavy death metal. A seventh greenhouse, set up as the control, had no music. The team found that the plants in the four greenhouses with recordings grew faster than the control plants with no music, but the plants in the greenhouses with music grew even faster than the negative and positive speech. Surprisingly, the plants in the greenhouse exposed to heavy death metal music grew the best of all!

Bottom line: Talk and sing to your plants; complain, yell, and scream...just don't give them the silent treatment.

New Yorker article "The Intelligent Plant"
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent-plant
Discovery Mythbusters (Episode #23 aired November 15,  2004)

Pictured: Daylily 'Black Falcon Ritual'

Recently I passed by a home that had a ginormous resin cow in the front yard. The homeowner had tied a chain around the cow and wrapped the chain around a tree trunk with a padlock. Cows are big here in Wisconsin! This is yard art at its best!

You've all seen yard whimsy gone wild, yes? It's that yard that has one too many flamingos and somehow crosses the invisible line between tasteful and tacky. It stops you in your tracks to gape at in disbelief. Thoughts I ponder when I see yard whimsy gone wild:

• How do the homeowners cut the grass? Clearly, in many cases, a lawnmower isn't an option. Do they just go around the entire yard with a weed-whipper?  I once saw a man on his hands and knees trimming his yard with a hand clipper so as not to disturb his yard art.
  
• Can there be too much of a good thing?
• Does the inside of the home resemble the whimsy-fest that's happening on the outside?
• Rock on yard whimsy! Keep the smiles coming :) Wouldn't life be boring if we all liked and did the same thing?
  

Garden slip-ups are, without a doubt, one of the easiest topics for me to write about since I have single-handedly made just about every blunder that a gardener possibly could. As I've mentioned in earlier blogs, I did not grow up in a gardening family; my love of perennials came unexpectedly out of left field. Without a mentor I learned to garden by the trial-and-error method. Some of my gardening ideas worked (luck), but many others were an epic fail. It was then that I borrowed books from the library. The gardening books helped me achieve a much better outcome. And why is it that we never read instructions until we screw up or can't figure something out? Human nature, I guess.

Here are a few of the things I've learned (the hard way):

1. Pay attention to the actual width and height of a mature plant listed on the plant tag. Failure to do this causes extra work. The plant is no longer cute when it's massive and crowding out all the other adjacent plants.
2. Pay attention to the hardiness zone on the perennial plant tag. I live in Zone 4B and often see Zone 5 perennials for sale in our area. When buying plants, don't be swayed by a pretty face. Yes, they may survive during a mild winter or perhaps they will do okay if planted in a protected place, but don't expect them to stick around for the long haul. If you do buy out-of-zone, consider the plant an annual from the get-go so you're not heartbroken when it dies.
3. Pay attention to the sun exposure on the perennial plant tag. Here's specifically what these terms mean in terms of actual numbers -- very important!
   *  Full sun - More than 6 hours of direct sunlight.
   *  Part sun - 4-6 hours of direct sunlight. Afternoon sun is usually better (hotter).
   *  Part shade - 4-6 hours of direct sunlight. Morning sun is usually better (less hot)
   *  Shade - Less than 4 hours of direct sunlight.
4. Resist impulse buying. Before I buy anything, my rule is that I must have a place to put it. Cramming a plant anywhere doesn't do it justice, or the plants that already live in the flower bed you are cramming it into.
5. Planning ahead is best practice and really does save extra work down the road. If you don't want to do it twice, plan ahead.
6. Steer clear of walnut trees - There are several walnut trees surrounding our property. Their roots produce a substance called juglone that can be toxic to many plants. Luckily, my daylilies aren't bothered, but many of my other plants have a major problem with juglone. Also, be careful not to let walnut leaves sneak into your compost.
   
7. Never get lazy about spraying deer deterrent. You can't ever be too tired...it only takes one evening for a few deer to take out an entire flower bed full of blooms you've waited all year to see.
   

Daylily pictured: Grey Witch

Grateful living is happy living. Every year at this time I like to take time to reflect on things that made me smile or feel grateful over the past year. Here's my list:

• Buying an item at a garage sale and a week later finding a gift card tucked inside. After checking the balance online, it was never used! Regretfully, after going to 20+ garage sales seven days prior, I was clueless  as to which house it came from. So all I can say is "Much obliged indeed!"
• Being able to have some great laughs! And a laugh is so much better when I can get it at my husband Ange's expense. I must preface this story by saying that our four-year-old grandson is obsessed with bodily functions, especially burps and farts. Since Ange is just a grown-up version of a four-year-old, he downloaded a 'fart app' on his iPhone which our grandson L-O-V-E-S. Here's the funny part; after Ange and I spent an afternoon with our grandson, on the way home we stopped at an evening garage sale. You're familiar with pocket-dialing? Well, while Ange was looking at garage sale items (in a small garage filled with people), the iPhone fart app activated in his pants pocket, and the volume was not low. You should have seen the people scatter!
• Receiving an unexpected gift of an entire pound of high-end chocolates from a specialty shop in Oshkosh. Definitely my guilty pleasure! I ate nothing but chocolates that evening for dinner. Best.meal.ever.
• My eight-year-old granddaughter asked me if I was aware of the fact that by the time she's a teenager, I would probably be dead. You gotta love this girl :)
• Getting the gift of a perfect September day that coincided with a day off from work. The local weather had forecast thunderstorms and rain all day, when in fact it turned into a beautiful day with temperatures in the low 70s. Gardening heaven!
• Finding a division of a daylily I had admired in my friend's garden potted up and sitting by my car at the end of a work day.
• Our brother-in-law is a rock star. After two brain surgeries, lung cancer, chemo, radiation, and heart bypass surgery (all in the course of a few years) his sense of humor and resilience is nothing short of amazing. He also makes me think twice before complaining about anything.
• I know this will be hard to believe, but before 2018 I had never seen the sitcom 'Friends.' So over a six-month period I watched the entire ten seasons on Netflix. The best part was that every single episode made me laugh! And who doesn't need a happy place to go to at the end of the day?
• Ange and I have had the same card-playing group for over 20 years. Cards have become quite comical as of late. We are spending more and more of our time figuring out who dealt last, who laid down the last card, and who the heck snuck Canadian money into the pot. Thankfully, none of this interferes with having a guaranteed good time with lots of laughter.
• Finally, I'm so grateful that Ange always takes time to help me out in the garden. He says he hates flowers, but just between us, I kind of think he's playing me.

Pictured above: Minneapolis sophisti-cat 'Sophie,' a shelter rescue who now lives the life of a princess

The human eye can distinguish between millions of different colors. Regardless of whether you are familiar with color theory or color wheels, most gardeners just know or feel when certain color combinations work together and other combinations don't. And much of that 'know-or-feel' has to do with personal preference. Some gardeners love the monochromatic look (all white flowers, for instance), while others may just plant pastels, or perhaps vibrant oranges, yellows and reds. Any of these looks can be very appealing. Your garden visitors may think it was pure luck that the colors, sizes and shapes all go together and look great. I'll admit there are moments of serendipity when perfectness just happens, but most of us gardeners work very hard to have our plants play nicely together.

Every summer I run around the garden picking blooms and comparing them with other blooms, trying to determine which color combos go together best. This is why I juggle plants around every fall; I keep trying to make what I think looks good, better. For this reason I keep detailed information about every plant that I grow, including each plant's size, bloom time (start-to-finish), bloom size, and color. So in addition to my personal preferences, I use data to help me make decisions. And herein lies the challenge...even when you have all of this information at your disposal, Mother Nature provides variances. You can make an educated guess about what you think should happen, but ultimately she holds the reins! That being said, Mother Nature never stops me from continually trying to get it right.

Pictured: Daylily 'Spacecoast Cherries and Cream' with its companion 'Echinacea Double Delight'