You may have noticed a lot of daylily bloom posts on Red Dirt Ramblings this year. For those of you bored by all this hemnut nonsense, I promise we'll be back to regular programing soon. I'm headed to the Garden Bloggers Bling in Portland this week, and I hope to post a lot of photos to take you along with me. Several friends commented they wished daylilies bloomed longer in their gardens, and that when they do bloom, there aren't enough blooms to go around. I sense their frustration, and I aim to please--so I'll share how I get my daylily plants to bloom for a two month stretch. It's all in choosing your plants wisely. I know it's hard, but don't simply fall for a pretty face. H. 'Victorian Lace' is all about bud count. This whole photo is one clump. If you'll notice, there are also buds and blooms behind the rose bush....

Hemerocallis 'Black Arrowhead' (Roberts 2002). Oddly, a lot of dark daylilies have Native American themes with Apache often somewhere in the name. No comment on why I think this is so. Imagine, for a moment, Darth Vader holding a daylily scape in his hand instead of a light saber. He's exhorting Luke Skywalker to come on over to the dark side, but instead of talking about the Force, he's speaking of velvety soft and dark daylily blooms. How could Luke ever resist? My garden will never be without H. 'Laura Harwood' (Harwood 1997) because of its great, big yellow halo and green throat. Okay, maybe you don't like the Darth Vader analogy. I always did have a certain sympathy for him even though he was a baddie in bad mask and a black cape. Hemerocallis 'Midnight Madness' (Peat 2002) was one of the first dark daylilies with a ruffled edge. It is...

Overstuffed back garden so happy from the rain. This year, I am reminded that gardening is so much easier when the sun doesn't overwhelm plants suffering from drought. With a little rain, the garden grows in beauty and grace. The last three years Oklahoma suffered with high temperatures and terrible drought, not as terrible as California, but bad enough. Even though we fought the good fight with soaker hoses and drip irrigation on timers, plants remained smaller with some even drying up and going underground at the height of summer--baptisia, anyone?. Even with a lot of extra plants, the garden look less like a jungle and much more like a desert oasis. I'll take a jungle any day. This year, the garden is full to bursting. There's really no more room for any new plants. Hemerocallis 'Spider Miracle' with 'Softee' rose and H. 'A Cut Above' in the background. Garden visitors came last week and one asked...

Campanula punctata 'Alba', white spotted bellflower. I also grow the pink one, 'Cherry Bells', but it isn't blooming yet. I bought these at Bustani Plant Farm. One the great gifts of Carol Michel's long-running meme, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, is the chronicling of one's own garden throughout the years. I've participated most months since May 15, 2008, when I wrote about my David Austin roses. Since I've done this for so many seasons, I find some things never change. The roses bloom April and May, and the daylilies begin their two-month sprint at the beginning of June. This parade rarely varies. An old newcomer in my garden is Hemerocallis 'Hannah Elise' (Faller 2000) hybridized by my friend, Wanda, for her granddaughter many years ago. It's good to have plants from your friends. As summer moves in with a vengeance, hard-working natives and other perennial plants like Phlox paniculata will take over the show. H. 'Evening...