Friday, July 6, 2018

Sewer Lilies


As a child growing up in rural upstate New York, it was common to see sewage in the roadside ditches.  Two of the houses that I walked by on the way to school still had outhouses in use.  At that time seeing orange flowers roadside near the damp places was common.  Since I have always been a smart mouthed kid, the name sewer lily was given to these flowers.  That early association kept me from acquiring Daylilies for many years.  This plant has been growing along side of the road for as long as we have been here.


An acquaintance of Becky living in Afton gave us three different plants when we visited her many years ago.  This is one of her gifts to us.  Notice the ruffled petal edges and the raised center rib.  I would guess that these all were early hybrids.


This double or triple flower was among her gift to us.  The third in the set has yet to open.


Destined To See is our first purchased Daylily.  Notice the ruffled edge.  It will appear on many of our plants.  This flower carries a scent.  We also seek out flowers that emit an aroma.


This plant was purchased from a local grower.  It was sold to us as a beautiful violet colored variety but that is clearly not the case.  We believe that the variety Elegant Candy is the actual name for this plant.  The colored ruffled edges make this error a winner here.


Channel Island is the name of this early yellow flower.  Once again the pie crust edge is part of the package.


Chicago Arnie's Choice is the name of this variety.  The center of the flower seems to glow as a source of light.  All of these plants are kept behind wire fences to keep the deer from eating the buds.  That fence kept me from checking for scent but odds are strongly in favor of the existence of scent in all of these varieties.


Yellow Chiffon was a free gift included in one of our plant orders.  The flowers are impressively large but this beauty came with a nasty surprise.  A vicious sedge was firmly rooted in the underground mass of this plant.  We have been determined in our efforts to remove this weed but so far we have been unsuccessful.

We have been captivated by the many different varieties on the market today.  It is likely that pictures of more than three dozen plants will be featured here as they come into bloom.  We would really like to have a complete list of our madness in the order that they bloom.  If you see an error in name, please share your finding with us.

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