In the beginning ...

There are casual daylily fans who have a few Stellas or ditch lilies here and there in their yards; there are daylily obsessives, who grow many hundreds or thousands in meticulous showcase landscapes, know the names of every single cultivar they own and many they don’t (yet), and spend upwards of a hundred dollars for a single newly hybridized cultivar.

And then there’s everyone in between (probably the majority of us). I suppose most of us start out with having our eye caught by a particular blossom or two; for me, it was driving past a little daylily nursery farm on a narrow winding road on the north side of Cape Cod, years ago. I stopped to look, and that’s all it took.

Such colors! Such variety! Such lushness of foliage, abundance of blooms … I would go there once a week during the season, after getting my paycheck, and buy one or two. It would take me forever to select them; around and around the beds I went, wanting many more than I could possibly afford, trying to narrow it down.

The grower was a very large man named John, smoking and sweating and heaving himself around the beds as he dug up my choices, making me fear that he could have a heart attack at any moment … but his love for the flowers was infectious, his self-deprecating cheerfulness endearing.

I remember his excitement over one daylily in particular named Cookie Monster. He convinced me to buy it before any of the blooms had opened yet, trusting in his description of the multiple shades found in a polychrome. And he was right. It’s still one of my favorites, all these years later.

If you’re a daylily lover, or a collector of another type of plant, how did you get started? I’d love to hear your stories too.

Spring showers?

Yep, that's snow ... it's a late-April surprise, especially with the early spring we've been enjoying this year. Mother Nature's way of reminding us not to get too far ahead of ourselves, perhaps. It's coming down thickly as I write this, but it's really just a blip, predicted to turn to rain shortly. It doesn't even feel cold enough to snow out there, and the bird chorus is as cheerful as ever.

Here in Zone 5, our last average frost date is May 22. If my gardens had a southern exposure, or were somewhat protected, or in town in the valley where it's usually about ten degrees warmer than here, I might be willing to set out tender seedlings as early as some do; but this snow reminds me that here in the hills, things are much more variable. The spinach and kale will be fine, but we'll go up the hill to the field later to check on the lettuce seedlings -- with fingers crossed.

Dividing hostas step-by-step

So many of us who grow daylilies have hostas as well. They don't automatically go together, if you think about it -- daylilies do best in sun, and hostas are generally shade plants -- but there you are.

Spring is the best time of year to divide our too-big perennials, and hostas can present a real challenge once they get large: the roots are thick and tough.

A few years back, my friend Deb clued me in to using a drywall saw to slice through hosta roots, and this works beautifully. A drywall saw can be found in any hardware store and is usually less than $10; and if you don't leave it outside to rust (I plead guilty), it will last a long time.

Here's a series of photos to give you visual step-by-step instructions:

1. The aforementioned handy-dandy drywall saw

2. With the drywall saw, slice into the roots to make as large a division as you want. Some of my garden beds have lots of little stones (I live in the Granite State, you know ;-), and that can present a challenge in itself, but I have yet to break a sawblade.

3 & 4. Then with a spade (a transplanting shovel works really well), dig that division out.

5. The piece taken out, ready to be planted elsewhere.

If you like, that division can be divided again into smaller chunks; as long as you have a few healthy shoots with good roots, it will grow.

Fill in the hole, of course; plant your division(s) and water in well.
You're done!

with a little help from my friends ...

My friend Emily has her hands full. Beautiful new baby, full-time work, big old house built a few centuries ago, lots of gardens. Being much more practical than I, she decided to convert one of her large perennial beds to vegetables this year, and asked if I'd like to be the lucky recipient of about a dozen clumps of unlabeled daylilies of various colors and origins.

Yes, indeed!

So now there is a new perennial bed in front of the house (in addition to about a dozen others -- part of my secret plan to incrementally eradicate the lawn -- ssshh, don't let my husband in on this!). These new daylilies will be unknowns in terms of colors/names/growing habits, and until they blossom I won't know if I've placed the tall ones in front of the shorter ones. But they'll be a lovely sight, nonetheless.

Early Spring Garden Grazing

After a winter of store-bought greens, and sprouting seeds to add to salads, it's a delight to start harvesting fresh edibles again from the garden. Sorrel is always yummy, albeit a tad bitter -- if only all salad greens were perennials that kept doubling in size! -- and the onion and garlic chives come up early and thick. Kale and spinach seedlings have been planted, lettuce is waiting a bit longer to go into the ground (there was a dusting of snow last night), dandelions and rhubarb are well along already.

And violas are in abundance at this time of year, adding color and beauty to a salad. The flowers and leaves are edible, rich in vitamins A and C and an antioxidant called an anthocyanin. There are lots of other uses for these flowers -- candied violets and medicinal preparations, among other -- but we're just looking for fresh eatin' right now.