Gardening Southern-Style 5: Planting the Daylillies

 

As you can see the back of the Odyssey is full of gardening stuff I picked up at Rural King the Day before. This beautiful pink and yellow ruffled daylily captured Molly's interest. 

Saturday was a glorious day. Molly spent Friday night with me and Saturday we got up eager for our visit to the Daylily Farm in Ozark (http://www.intheneighborhooddaylilies.com) to pick up the daylillies I had ordered online. Betty Peters went with us. She is starting a new garden and wanted to add some fragrant daylillies.

In order to explain hybridization to Molly, Sharon Pilcher (owner) took the only daylily still blooming to show her how it works. It just so happens that daylily was Molly's favorite colors pink and yellow with a ruffled edge. It also just so happens that this third grader is studying hybridization and flowers at Providence this year. Molly is my garden buddy. 

We got back home and I realized Sharon had given us the direction to plant those daylilies immediately! I was not quite prepared for that. They need 6 to 8 hours of sun and good drainage. Daylilies do not like wet feet. It just so happens the best place for daylilies in my yard is right where the new pergola and deck in front of the She Shack happens to be. Molly and I decided to plan a daylily bed in front of the steps through the daylily garden. Now, planting 17 daylilies is a daunting task even for a young gardener but for one with bad knees and severe arthritis it can be even more daunting. But my daylilies needed proper care.

 

My bed had not been prepared, so I had to be creative. Guilty!  So, I used a posthole digger and dug the hole, mounded dirt in the middle, planted the daylily with roots surrounding the mound, Molly added a bit Organic Biotone and we covered the roots. If it had not been for Molly preparing our refreshments for our rest and rehabilitation time, I do not think I could have made it. Ice water and a banana are quite rejunetive. We gathered straw from behind the She Shack and covered our daylilies.  

Gigi took refuge from the sun in the She Shack. 

Lola finds shade beneath the twin baby buggy I use to tote heavy things and supplies around. 

After a day of recuperation, I could not sleep last night thinking of the admonition in one of my gardening books about covering the daylillies too close making mildew kill the daylily. So, first thing I came out and pulled pine straw away that was directly touching my precious daylillies. 

Before we knew it three hours had passed. We set up the iron arbor trellis (now held together with wire after going from my yard at 800 North Cherokee to our guest house in Panama City) to plant the anticipated Constant Gardener David Austen roses when they arrive in January and sat back to enjoy our efforts. I have ordered 13 David Austen Roses, but those beds should be prepared by then. 

Being old and not so agile any more, everything takes more time. I have bought a tractor scooter that makes it easier to get closer to what I need to do closer to the ground. And I bought a special tool to move big heavy pots around.

You may wonder, why do you do this? It keeps me active and interested. Dreaming and planning my garden activates those little cells as Hercule Poirot calls them. Just as my new little ShiPoo does. Home is a wonderful refuge where I can alter the environment to help my handicaps. Going up and down stairs is a challenge just as getting up from a chair does. I want to hold off more surgery as long as I can. 

Photographs and Videography by Molly