Trash Dump, Duct Tape, Daylilies, and Dirt

It is said that South Carolina is too small to be a republic and too large to be an insane asylum...

I've spent the past few days in the Palmetto state, moving furniture. My grandparents recently moved out of their house, and the task of dealing with decades worth of stuff has fallen largely to my parents, with some small assistance from my brother and me. My grandparents have never thrown anything away, so you can imagine the enormity of the task. Suffice it to say that we are all on a first name basis with the guy who presides over the town dump and the ladies who run the thrift store...

There were some things worth saving:
More daylilies for my growing collection! There was a whole long border of mixed daylilies, so I rummaged around in the shed and found a shovel with a cracked handle held together with duct tape (see, I told you they never throw anything out!) and started digging. When I got home, the boss was speechless as I unloaded six garbage bags full of daylilies from my car. "You know you're going to have to divide those next year, right?" she asked.

"Yep. And a good thing too, because this isn't nearly enough for what I want to do." She shook her head and went back inside. I reminded her that it could be worse; at least I'm not pulling transmissions out on the front lawn.

I've lived here in NC for so long, I've forgotten what dirt is like. Not clay--dirt. As in black South Carolina dirt. Dirt so rich and soft that you can just chuck a plant out the screen door and it'll take root. Check out the difference between the clay that I work with in Greensboro and the Lake City dirt!








So this morning, while the temperature was still in double digits, I hacked through that red clay, baked to a brick-like consistency by this awful drought, and found homes for all the daylilies. I'll wait for cooler weather to divide them.

I checked on the baby bluebird when I got home. This is Day 11, and his feathers are clearly visible. He seemed really lethargic today; I don't know if it's the heat, or if something's wrong with him. At any rate, tomorrow is the last day I can check on him because after about two weeks, baby bluebirds shouldn't be disturbed lest they leave the nest before they are mature enough. (Unlike children, once they're out, they're out.) I'll check tomorrow and post one more photo.

Daylilies

Until recently, I haven't been all that enthusiastic about daylilies. Not that I held any enmity toward them, like the Renegade Gardener, but to me, they were just ok. Lately, however, I'm starting to really like them. Really like them. There are so many different colors; it's like being five years old and opening one of those huge boxes of Crayola crayons for the first time and finding out that there are way more colors than the six or seven shown on that poster beside the chalkboard, and that they all have names. Aquamarine, magenta, periwinkle...and I'm sure they've come up with more since 1974...

Daylilies were like the basic colors for me. They were nice--red, orange, yellow--ho-hum, but last year my neighbor gave me some of her divisions. All different colors. And then I looked at them close up through the camera lens, which is a good way to gain a new appreciation of anything. So when these red-and-gold daylilies bloomed this week, I was a lot more interested in them than I was last year. These are the ones that were here when we bought the house, one lone clump scrunched up against the fence beside one lone rose bush, holding off an advancing army of grass. I had no other plants at the time, and even less money, so I dug up that clump and scattered daylilies everywhere I had an open patch of ground. That was the summer of '05. Last summer, they didn't bloom so well, which may account for my initial lack of enthusiasm, but this summer, they are fabulous! And they bloom later than all my others, so the splashes of red give the borders a whole new look for June, after a profusion of pastels in May. Is this how an addiction begins?

For some great daylily photos (with names) check out Gotta Garden out of Virginia.

Daylilies--Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

I often take my daylilies for granted. They are so easy to grow, and so reliable, that I sometimes look directly at them without really taking in their amazing colors. As is often the case, it takes the camera's eye to reveal the beauty that I pass by every day.
This serene, soft peach dayliliy may be my favorite.


The colors of this one remind me of a seashell.

This is just unusual enough to be interesting. All of my daylilies are passalong plants, and weren't blooming when I set them out, so each clump has been a surprise as to its color.

If you happen to know the names of any of these daylilies, please let me know.

"Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day," by the way, is something Carol started over at May Dreams Gardens. You post whatever's blooming in your garden on the 15th (or thereabouts--she's not picky). It's a fun way to see what other gardeners have blooming month by month.