This week I visited two gardens that have collections of two perennials that I’m interested in. Daylily is one of them and for them I visited the Kit Walter.
His fascination with daylilies began over twenty-five years ago when he received a dozen of them in a box from another gardener. According to Kit, it was less love at first sight than it was the fact that they did well in his garden. Now with 650 different varieties in his beds, it appears there is a little love there.
Hemerocallis is the scientific name for daylilies, and is derived from the Greek words meaning “beauty for a day,” referring to the flower only being open for a day. Almost every color but blue is available, and they combine readily with other plants. According to Kit, daffodils work well among daylilies. They provide color in the early spring and the growing daylily foliage helps to hide that of the slowly receding daffodil.
Sun and water are important for daylilies to reach their full potential, but many do just fine under light shady conditions. They really require minimal care as seen by their ability to grow along the road in a variety of conditions.
While not advocating to treat your daylilies like this, Kit says he has seen clumps buried in just compost and even some just left on top of the ground through the winter, grow just fine when planted again.
Kit also is trying his hand at breeding daylilies and hopes to add some unique forms to the already long list of over 70,000 registered daylilies. He is an active member of the Ohio Daylily Society which meets at Kingwood Center and is affiliated with the American Hemerocallis Society (AHS). The AHS website has a wealth of information for people interested in learning more, including the most popular daylilies in our area (Region 2).
The second garden was much different than Kit’s but no less amazing. It is a whimsical garden that is as delightful as its creator Faye Metzger.
Though I came to see her collection of Echinacea, I first had to take the “Gourd Walk.” Each winter Faye fashions the myriad of gourds she grows into various animals and characters, and then puts them out in the garden. Eventually, we made our way to the bulk of her Echinacea collection which was planted in a large island bed Faye calls “Coney Island.”
Twenty years ago, such a collection would not have been possible. Purple coneflowers were just that. They were Echinacea purpurea and the only cultivar readily available was one called ‘Magnus.’ It has large purple flowers whose outer petals are more flattened out than the species.
Since then , the number of cultivars have exploded as breeders crossed the many different species of coneflowers to come up with double flowered pom-pom forms and flowers of many different colors.
When I asked Faye why she chose to collect coneflowers, she replied that she was intrigued by the idea when she heard of someone else doing it, and she soon realized that the act of collecting combined her two favorite pastimes: gardening and shopping.
It was hard to pin her down on her favorites but she mentioned Echinacea ‘Pow Wow Berry,’ ‘Butterfly Kisses,’ ‘Tomato Soup,’ and ‘Cranberry Cupcake.’ She is particularly enamored with the reds and the pompom forms.
They are not always the strongest growers, but for Faye it’s more about the colors, and she’s very excited by a new acquisition called Echinacea ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ whose blooms supposedly offer a myriad of colors from now until fall.
The key to successfully growing these new coneflowers is to get them through their first winter, and it is interesting to note that the National Gardening Bureau’s description of Echinacea ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ includes the phrase “excellent overwinter performance.’
Like Heuchera, all these new selections on the market come from a variety of species whose cultural requirements don’t always match our gardening conditions. Two things that you can do to help them along is to not plant them in a wet spot, and fertilize sparingly. Also make sure they get at least six hours of good sun a day.
Faye’s and Kit’s passion for plants is evident, but most inspiring is their lack of fear. If something doesn’t work out, it just makes room to try something else. And there is always something else. Neither have formal training in gardening yet their knowledge of it is vast. They have learned the best way–by doing it.
