Space Problems

In the dead of winter I find it hard to believe that my gardens were ever as lush, colorful and beautiful as they look in my pictures. Truth be told, I remember taking some of these pictures, and at the time I felt annoyed that things looked too messy and unkempt, or this certain plant looked ratty, or that certain plant was being overtaken by another. You know how it is. But looking at the pictures now I'm stunned by the garden's color and beauty.

I like to showcase my daylilies.  In my opinion a field of daylilies is beautiful, but often the uniqueness of each plant, each flower, gets lost when daylilies are placed in line-out after line-out. For example, here is a picture of an old cultivar introduced by Carpenter in 1985 called Harbor Gate.

It's a lovely pink and has such a nice pale, green throat. Its edges are the tiniest bit ruffled.  It's northern hardy and has attractive foliage for the whole season. Its one flaw is that it doesn't bloom longer than two weeks in my garden. I digress. In the picture you will see that Harbor Gate is surrounded by pale lavender impatiens, a somewhat sad looking pale pink petunia, and in the foreground a bit of brunnera. The pale lavender of the impatiens and the bright green of the brunnera show off the delicate pale pink of the flower, and I think it's for this reason I get many comments on it. Oh! That's a pretty one! What's that? And, of course, it's nothing very special! I think I obtained this pretty one" from Wild & Co a few years back for $2.50!

Here are a few other examples:

This is "Dixie Sunrise" (Stamile, 2008) with purple petunia and lupine.

"Strutter's Ball" (Moldovan, 1984) with a sprig of cornflower.

My point is only that as we collect more and more daylilies, we fail to showcase each one in a way that highlights its unique beauty. Harbor Gate, when in a row of dayliles or in a line-out, simply doesn't attract attention. It's just another pink daylily. Of course, I'm not selling my plants right now, and although I'm a daylily enthusiast and hybridizer, I'm not a professional, just a hobbyist, so I have the luxury of framing my daylilies with other plants--with caring more about situating a daylily than with maximum production or with a complex organizational scheme that helps my business and hybridizing program. I design my gardens with beauty and color in mind, and not practicality in terms of space and organization.

All that said, as my daylily collection and hybridizing program grow, I am finding it harder and harder to find perfect homes for each plant. I have whole sections of the garden that are just daylilies and nothing else. Further, my basement set-up teems with daylily seedlings and there is no room to grow from seed the annuals that I have in the past; the annuals that actual frame my daylilies!