The 2013 Great Hemerocallis Hunt

We are back home, recovering from our annual Great Hemerocallis (Daylily) Hunt. Thankfully, the temperatures didn't reach 100 this year as in years past...but mid-90's, with humidity readings to match, and no shade sure made it feel like the thermometer hit the century mark. Whew! What a day! We have been busy as these bees. (Heheheheh...I couldn't resist showing you these pictures we took with our iPhone cameras...Thomas took the yellow one, I took the pink one...:-). 

So, why do we go in July...the hottest month of the year, you ask? Well, that's when the day lilies are at peak bloom (June and July), that's when the NC farms tend to be open on the weekends, and that's as close to my birthday as we can get. [You may recall that for several years now, I have celebrated my Big Day with a trip to the Daylily Farm to pick out a new cultivar or two...or nine...:-) ] We missed last year because of our extended stay in KY, which has several Daylily farms, no doubt...but I just wasn't up to it then. No worries...made up for that little oversight today!

We knew we could only "do" one farm today, so we had to choose from the three we knew and had visited in the past, or maybe locate another one to explore. Easier said than done, on that last choice, though...when a search of "Daylily farms in NC" yielded no further selections that were open to the public on a Saturday in July and within a couple of hours' drive of HPNC. OK, so that made it easy:  we chose to return to Lakeview Farms in Garner, NC...which we admit has become our fav in NC. They have a great website here: 

For the past few times we have gone on the annual Daylily Hunt, I have had either a color in mind...or a type...or both. It helps to do a bit of thinking and planning ahead, especially when we get to a farm with a sea of blooming day lilies, and all Mr. T can see are the red ones. He loves bright colors, so if I don't have some kind of suggestion of what to look for, we would spend hours in the hot sun looking at every red cultivar...and never see anything else. Unless it was a bright orange. Or maybe bright yellow. If both of those colors were on tall day lilies that stood out above the red ones.

Me? I'm a sucker for purples...as if you couldn't guess. And I'm currently on a lime green and chartreuse kick. OK, that's bright, I'll admit. Oh, I'm not opposed to bright colors...it's just I think we need to have a few eye-pleasing combinations as well as the eye-popping ones.

So, this year my plan was to look for more "spider" types of day lilies to add to our gardens. Spider daylilies are defined by the ratio of their petal width to their petal length. Think long and skinny petals. We were introduced to these unusual looking blossoms a couple years ago when we purchased the cultivar Red Ribbons from Lakeview. We paired them with Red Volunteers...and it's a match made in hemerocallis heaven!

Additionally, I wanted a bright combo for the very back of the Way Back...need a really bright pair to draw the eye down the path to the rear property line. And I think we found just the right combination in New Jersey Spider (gold one) and Ruby Spider (red and gold). They are tall and bold...and should easily draw eyes in their direction. And Mr. T is more than happy with these bright colors!

My plan for this Hunt included finding a purple and lime green spider for the back yard, to be planted along the walk, in front of the garden shed (you know, the shed with the purple doors...:-). My first choice (Yabba Dabba Doo) wasn't available, as they had sold down to their last clump, but I found one I like better color-wise (if not name-wise...:-) called Wilson Spider. I didn't get a picture of it, but I did get one of the complementary selection called Easy Ned (another spider...with lime and chartreuse coloring).

 

Then, I wanted to add a white one to our collection. We have two white cultivars (Dad's Best White, which we got while in Missouri and transplanted here, and Miss Amelia, which we bought locally at the Farmers Market last year), but I wanted one with a lime green or chartreuse throat. I was excited to find one that fit my plan perfectly and whose name will help commemorate my Big Birthday coming up in 10 days called Just Celebrate.

We got a few others (!), including a bright red one with a bright green throat called Here Comes Santa Claus (OK, now who could resist THAT name?), but I'll have to snap pics of them when we put them in the ground tomorrow. 

Or, should I say IF we put them in the ground tomorrow? We are currently experiencing yet another thunderstorm with more rain...10 or more days in a row, I think. Great for the gardens...but not so good for doing actual gardening. Ground is just too wet to work. 

No matter...we won't mind a day of rest around here. Not one little bit, will we mind that...no siree!