Mill Brook House Daylilies

Miracle [Daylily] Babies

Autumn has been so warm and frost delayed so long that most of the late daylilies finished flowering completely, but Late Summer Rose and Back to School still had buds when frost finally threatened.  I cut the stems and brought the buds inside.  Some were quite large and flowered quickly, but others were small.  I expected them to dry up and fall off, but, to my surprise, they grew bigger!  Fed only by tap water they more than doubled and in size, and finally they bloomed.  

  Of course, they only lasted one day.  Good night, miracle babies...until next year!

 

 

 

Late Daylily Twins

As winter closes in, the late daylilies are closing shop.  Two sets of twins from the late garden:

                                       Vermont River Promenade

                                                  Back to School

Colors are dimmer and blossoms smaller, but they persevere!

 

 

A Surpise Rebloomer

El Glorioso is my goofy clown daylily: its gigantic, floppy blooms sit on top of a rather short, stubby body of leaves and scapes.  Five years old, it has never bloomed for more than one month, if that.  This year it stopped blooming after one month, then a few weeks later, sent up new scapes, started blooming again, and continues to bloom as of this writing.  Who knew?

 

 

And the winner is...

           Three-year-old Teahouse Rainbow is the first out this year!  (June 24, 2024)

           It kept blooming until August 20, nearly two months! 

                              Teahouse Rainbow, August 20, the last blossom.

 

 

Close relatives

 

 

Close relatives all blooming at the same time: Cordovan Skies, Pink Charm, and the ubiquitous tiger lily.  Cordovan Skies and Pink Charm were both bred directly from the tiger lily.  Pink Charm (center, partially hidden by a Cordovan Skies blossom) was the first pink daylily ever bred.  The three cousins begin blooming at different times: tiger lilies first, Cordovan Skies next, then Pink Charm, so catching them all blooming at the same time is a phenom that lasts a week or two at most.

 

 

Newbies from Alabama

A friend introduced me to a daylily farm in Alabama, and my choices turned out to have huge, dramatic blossoms, well beyond my expectations!

                                                    Isabel's Spider

                                                Off to See the Wizard

These beauties are not for sale yet, but I've had multiple inquiries.

 

 

Daylilies and Climate Change

We had an awful lot of rain this summer, but according to Arjen Vriend of the Pioneer Gardens in Deerfield, "Our garden was soaked with well over 20 inches of rain this summer, and the daylilies loved it."  (Greenfield Recorder, 10/10/23)  Indeed!

                                Daylilies at Mill Brook House in September, 2023

About Late Daylilies

Daylilies that begin in mid-August and last into September can be considered "late" and serve to brighten the garden when other flowers have quit for the season.  Some will last through October if there is no sustained freeze, but their behavior changes.  With cold nights and shorter days, their blooms are often smaller and less colorful.  Even more interesting, they can take two days instead of one to bloom and fade just as slowly.
Late Summer Rose is still blooming in October--very late summer indeed!  But she's blooming over two days here, Oct. 8 (left) and Oct. 9 (right)--same individual flowers!

Here are October versions of other late daylilies compared with their August/September selves (on the right):

 

Vt. River Promenade in Oct.

 

Watermelon Summer in Oct.

Dragon's Eye in Oct.

Back to School in Oct.

Though diminished, these October versions are petite and sweet, as they bravely hold off winter. 

 

 

When a freeze is predicted, one can cut scapes with good-sized buds on these late bloomers and bring them in to flower indoors.

Rose Water's Farewell

   

Rose Water, one of my not-so-late late daylilies went out with a splash!  All the rain has sometimes meant extra big blossoms.

 

 

A Monarch Life Cycle

For years, I've rescued milkweed from being mowed down or strangled by vines, but this is the first year I've actually seen monarch larvae eating the milkweed.  One caterpillar formed its chrysalis not on the milkweed but among the gladiolas.  The chrysalis hung by a thread but survived storm after storm, finally "hatched," and out came the butterfly, who disappeared for a time, but later feasted on the flowers of our butterfly bush.

                                              Monarch caterpillar on milkweed.

                                                     The chrysalis

                       A brand new butterfly feeds in the well-named butterfly bush.