Six years ago we moved from a 5 acre farm to a new house on an acre. We thought, how exciting, we can start from scratch and build any kind of gardens we wanted! So we moved over 500 plants from the old house to the new and put them in two holding beds. The first bed I had to build was my hosta bed, fortunately the property had a huge oak that I could quickly build the bed and get the hostas in the ground before they died. Moving in July is not the best time to move plants, but most of them survived. Then the daylily landscaping began, first we tackled the area around the house, after removing all the brick pieces and trash that the builder left, we hauled in loads and loads of landscape mix and shaped all the beds around the house. Right in the front by our fountain I have a bed that is my “memorial” to my parents Jim and Claire. So I have Claire Isabel which Emily Olsen named for my mom after staying with me one weekend. I also have Jim’s Pick, Jim’s Song and Clairvoyant Lady. Along with Forty Second Street (they grew up in NY) and Leprechan’s Eyes and Leprechan’s Wealth, we are Irish! On the other side of the walkway is my “flight bed” with Heavenly Flight, Getting Airborne, Notify Ground Crew, I Can Fly and many others. I also have an assortment of Siloam’s, Candy Girl, Jim Cooper, David Kirchoff, Royal Prince and more. Along the right side of the house I have an assortment of white and red daylilies, Peggy Jeffcoat, Red Reward, Snowy Evening and Sledge Hammer.
Mixed in with the daylilies are spirea, mums, lilac, iris, holly, crepe myrtle, peony and euonuymus.
The next bed built was my Wisteria bed. I had a great wrought iron arbor that I put in the middle of the bed and planted a 3 year old wisteria, I was excited when it bloomed the following spring. Now it has hundreds of blooms each spring. I also planted a yellow butterfly bush and two burning bush. All of these are surrounded by daylilies. I’m slowly planting tulips and daffodils for early color in the beds. Daylilies included in Wisteria Lane are Mapping Kentucky, Mokan Butterfly, Jason’s Flower (my grandson helped me pick it out) Lucky Draw, Outrageous, Peacock Maiden and many more oldies but goodies.
The next two beds that I built I’ve tried to use as a natural fence on the side yard, so they are lined with Jane Magnolias to create a privacy block. Our neighbors are wonderful, but a little privacy is nice. In these beds are hydrangea, roses, iris and gladiolus. These beds also host my “Christian” daylilies like Ezekial, Open my Eyes, DeColores, Wings of Faith and Morning Prayer. I am currently building a new bed to host these daylilies and will be my prayer garden. A heart with a cross in the middle lined with white stone.
We’ve built three other beds and the one in front of the barn is my “ food bed” and contains a wonderful collection of daylilies with a food name. Milk Chocolate is one of my favorites. There are also two amazing peonies that look like roses that flank the bed.
At some point we will have to buy one, sell one as we will run out of space, but the garden now has over 700 varieties and I still have a little room to add a few more!
Please feel free to call for an appointment to come see our gardens. We love talking with other daylily enthusiasts and garden lovers.