email change!

Yes--I got hacked. No I am not stranded in the Super 8 motel in Wales. I have become a victim of cyber mugging, but I was not mugged in the UK. I am not writing this with tears in my eyes, although the person who hacked me would probably be crying if I ever found them. So my new email is franeychris@aol.com.

BANG for the BUCK

This is one of my favorite rants. I constantly preach this at the nursery, so now I will inflict my point of view on cyberspace.
My mom is a tightwad. Bless her heart, she is constantly aware of how much things cost and often buys the cheapest version of whatever she can find. Sometimes this is a good idea, sometimes it wastes more money than it saves. As a form of rebellion from this constant compulsion to "go cheap" I have spent most of my life NOT really considering price when I make a purchase. Time and experience have melded the two approaches in my head and I now find that QUALITY is the overarching concern for me. If the item is 5 times better than the cheapo version in some way, then I spend the extra money to get the quality. If I can't really see much difference, then I opt for the cheap version.
Which brings me to plants--daylilies in particular. I have been selling plants for years and the nature of my business (small and very personal) has shown me what people want, and as a small business I have done my best to give it to them. Basically its this--a plant that grows easily and blooms well for as long as possible without much care. And with a moderate amount of care--which most serious gardeners actually ENJOY giving to their plants--the reward will be an exceptionally lovely plant and bloom cycle which elevates the garden from the simply pretty to the sublime. Daylilies pretty much have the "low demand" part of this equation locked down. Give them 6 hours of sun or more with regular moisture (one inch a week during bloom) and they will manage on autopilot for a great many years. The difference comes in when you consider HABIT. How the plant does what it does. Are you spending your money on a QUALITY plant or just throwing some money down a rathole? A fifty dollar plant can either be the closest thing to Nirvana or some bad dream that God had. Same goes for a five dollar plant. The price doesn't mean a thing. Its the HABIT that determines whether its wise to spend the money or not.
I willingly confess--I am a habit Nazi. Bang for the Buck is what its all about. I don't care how beautiful an individual flower is. A plant that can't deliver that beauty day in and day out doesn't pay its rent. None of us has unlimited time, space or energy. There isn't any point in wasting those resources on something that is less than optimal.
So with over 50,000 daylilies available for sale, how do you figure this all out?
First of all, realize that plant development and sale is a BUSINESS. People do it because they want to MAKE MONEY. This means that they have to understand how to get people to give them money in exchange for their plants, and in fairly high volume.
People are visual creatures. Many homeowners are not really gardeners--they just want a yard that looks pretty. The operative work here when you talk about daylilies is PRETTY. And to most people (not me BTW) the pretty part of daylilies is the flower. If the plant is blooming it needs to have a flower that is PRETTY. If its not blooming there needs to be a picture on the pot that is PRETTY, so you extrapolate this pretty into the garden of your imagination.
This leads me into a discussion of daylily breeding. I remember when Wayside Gardens introduced the "Siloam" daylilies. Full of glossy pictures of stunningly pretty flowers, their launching of this line put schoolteacher Pauline Henry of Mississippi who had bred them, forever on the map and in the hearts of gardeners everywhere. Contrary to the idea of some PhD in genetics slouching around in some greenhouse, Pauline Henry was a lady who bred her flowers in her backyard, simply crossing one pretty face with another as it suited her. No high falutin' seed storage facility for her--she threw all the seeds in a coffee can and planted them whenever people in Mississippi can stand to go outside. Grew them on and kept the pretty ones and chucked the rest. This is true of a great many daylily breeders. They are just folks who are addicted to the idea of DIY genetics and want to see newborn baby flowers throw their young faces to the morning sun. Some are more sophisticated than others, keeping meticulous records and striving to improve the genus Hemerocallis as a whole. Some want to make money by developing crazy new forms or traits that they can sell to wild eyed daylily collectors who have more money than brains. A few breeders work to address what they percieve as a shortfall in the daylilies that are available--this is particularly true of the small fraternity of us that focuses on late season bloomers (like me). There are some breeders who want to sell the rights to their flowers to the big time growers like Terra Nova or Monrovia, who will patent the flower, propagate it and take gorgeous pictures of it to stick on the pot label so Lowes can seduce you into buying it. Then there are people who just want to make a pretty flower and name it for someone or something they love. Bred for a myriad of reasons, many of these plants are terrific, and some are just a waste of money. How do you tell the difference?
First of all--be aware that daylilies are NOT all equally good performers across the country. Southern bred plants can react to cold winters by refusing to flower well, putting up ratty looking growth, dying off completely, not opening properly on cool mornings, or becoming highly attractive to pests or disease because their constitution is weakened by the climate.
Northern bred plants can also react badly to southern gardens. A lot of dormant daylilies NEED a period of freezing weather so they can rest. If they don't get it they slowly dwindle away and die. They may also bloom with too much exuberance early on and weaken themselves as time goes by, just because the weather is so optimal for flowering. Daylily rust does not really occur in the North, so plants that are bred and tested in the North may have never been evaluated for rust tolerance or resistance. Some daylilies are very susceptible to this highly disfiguring condition, but it will not be known until the plant is happily growing away in Florida or South Carolina and suddenly gets infected. Since plants don't speak with a southern drawl or a northern twang, its often impossible to tell if you are looking at a southern or northern bred plant. However, in a VERY ROUGH way, the rule of thumb is this--the fancier the flower (edges, ruffles, teeth, patterned eyes, sculpting, attached cell phones, moving parts or liquid crystal displays--oops--forgive the levity) the greater the chance it is Southern bred. This does NOT necessarily mean the plant will not grow well in a northern garden. It should just alert you to the possibility that it may not, so you can watch the performance in your garden and act accordingly--for example moving the plant from a more exposed spot to a warmer or more sheltered one. As for the rest, you can look around on Google if you have a mind to, and try to determine the variety's home, or pay attention to what your friends, neighbors, local display gardens and the like have that performs with great success.
Now that your brain is full of TOO MUCH INFORMATION--let me help decode all this.
Keep in mind I grow in the north, (zone 5) and my experience is limited to this zone. You will need to extrapolate these ideas into your own zone and garden, but the principles are the same anywhere.
Since what we want is a flower that looks good most of the time and rewards our hard work with lovely flowers, we need to examine the business end of the plant.
Daylily flowers are borne on stalks that are called "scapes". Now you can impress your friends with this new vocabulary word. Just put on a big floppy hat and strap a Japanese garden knife to your belt and walk around your nearest garden center. Someone will think you work there and ask for advice--whereupon you can look wise and say something about "scapes" and "light levels". It also helps to get an airbrushed farmer tan before you go. A peeling nose will complete the illusion.
Anyway--scapes should be tall enough for the flowers to bloom above the leaves. How far above the leaves is a personal choice. You may like tall willowy scapes that sway gently in the breeze and tower above the leaves (since there are daylilies that get to be almost 6 ft. tall, this is entirely possible) or you may prefer scapes that let the flowers just skim the tops of the leaves, floating across the green surface like a blossom in a bowl of water. But nobody wants flowers that have to be viewed by crouching down and extricating them from a jungle of foilage.
Now that the height is established--the scape should have the flower buds attached in such a way as to let the flowers open correctly. Some daylilies have a great many buds that are so crowded together the blooms slop all over each other and the overall impression is not a pretty one. I have one that is simply beautiful--absolutely PACKED with buds, but if it is not deadheaded every single day the old flowers and new get hopelessly entangled and you have what becomes the visual equivalent of a bowl of congealed oatmeal. Its a fabulous plant if you deadhead it each day--so if deadheading is part of your garden day, then its a good choice. If you just want to admire the flowers each day, then--not so much.
Some daylilies are "top branched" which means the buds are held at the top of the scape--kind of like spokes of an umbrella. This is very common with spiders, and is an attractive kind of presentation for these long, twirly flowers. The branching should be fairly wide apart, and the scape needs to be be sturdy enough to hold itself upright under the weight of what can be a fairly topheavy floral load.
Other daylilies have scapes that are "branched". This means there are side branches off the main scape that may carry a small set of buds in addition to the main cluster of buds that occurs at the top of the scape. A branched scape can have any number of side branches--as few as three or as many as seven. At it's most attractive, this type of growth is called "candelabra branching". If you want to examine beautiful branching, some of the lovliest both in terms of proportion and presentation are the species--most notably Hemerocallis citrina. Older cultivars that you may find in commerce that share this trait include PURITY, CHALLENGER, AUTUMN MINARET, AUTUMN DAFFODIL, OPHIR, NUTMEG ELF. These are only a very few--but if you have a chance to see any of these cultivars, look at the scapes and examine their visual beauty. It can become the standard by which you measure other varieties.
Now that we have dispensed with the scaffold that holds the blooms, what about the blooms themselves? Blooms start out as buds, and you probably want a lot of them. Daylilies vary widely in how many buds an individual will put up. Excellent culture will maximize this number, but the genetics of the individual will always be the ultimate determining factor. In my seedling rows there are babies that (when they achieve what I consider a mature flowering cycle) have 6 buds, and there are some that have almost 40 buds. This is one criterion I look at when deciding if a baby will continue on in my breeding program or take an all expense paid trip to the composter. A lot also depends on how many scapes an individual puts up. If a plant has a good ratio of scapes to leaves, then a lower budcount is more acceptable because there are many scapes with flowers, so the display will be good. The fewer scapes there are means the more critical the number of buds on the scape becomes. Generally--if you see lots of scapes then 8 or more buds on each scape is good. If you see fewer scapes then look for a bud count closer to 15 or more. This is kind of an instinctive thing that you just learn through observation. For the moment just start paying attention. You will most likely be surprised to find that some plants that were your favorites aren't any more, and some you just walked by in the past will suddenly take precedence.
After examining all this flowering stuff--take a moment to look at the leaves. As a general rule, daylily leaves with a bluish cast are the best looking over the long haul. It is believed (and my limited experience seems to confirm this) that blue leaves are less susceptible to rust and just healthier overall. This becomes a question of what you will tolerate. I have many daylilies that were bred by Brother Charles Reckamp. A lot of these plants have leaves that really get ratty after they bloom. I am willing to accept this because I want to have these particular flowers. But if ratty leaves really bother you, pay attention to leaf color as a guide to what will maintain its beauty throughout the hot summer.
It should go without saying that the very best way to evaluate a plant is to see a MATURE one growing in the ground. So if you can visit a daylily grower (or any other type plant that interests you for that matter) and see their plants that is always much more instructive that looking at a pot tag in a box store. But if you pay attention and know what to look for you can make some more informed decisions and have a garden filled with great performers rather than disappointing wastes of money.

ROOT RANT

As the time nears when we will begin our fun filled journeys to favorite nurseries and garden centers, permit me to launch into my blah-de-blah about roots and why what you can't see is more important that what you can see.

Garden centers are businesses, and they like to make a profit. Some of them are better at this than others. Some places raise their own plants, and some buy their plants from brokers of various sizes, who grow and ship plants that arrive in bloom or very close to bloom, or potted up in swanky looking labeled pots with gorgeous full color lables filled with the promise of drop dead gorgeousness that you MUST. HAVE. NOW.

Normally we enter the garden center, go into a trance and begin filling our arms/baskets/wagons/ truck beds with the beautiful blooming specimens that fill our senses with joy.

But do we really know what we are buying for the future? Will the plant return to us next year bigger, fuller and more beautiful than it is at this moment. Can the romance continue or will it only be a dim memory next year, inserted into our consciousness by the discovery of a cracked and faded plant label sticking out of the dirt.

Of course your planting practices have a lot to do with this, but the condition of the plant at the time you buy it is another factor that heavily influences the longevity of your new baby.

I'm talking about the roots.

Now it seems kind of dumb to talk about roots--of course the plants at the garden center have them. But do they have GOOD roots? Not to be a snob about it--but there are roots and then there are ROOTS. The way your baby spent its childhood before it made the journey to your basket can make a big difference in how well it survives at your house.

There is a wonderful greenhouse where I used to shop a lot. One year I was talking to a friend about this place and he told me he had quit buying plants from them. His reason was that the plants routinely failed to winter over for him, and he had realized that the root systems on the plants were consistently weak. Got me to thinkin' and whaddya know--same thing had been happening to me too! I began to examine what I had purchased over the years and what was still alive here and the answer was--not much.

Now this is a lovely place to buy plants--lots of variety, beautiful displays, gorgeous plants in full flower, carefully groomed by a conscientous staff.

But in their haste to make a profit, they "push" the plants too hard. Too much water, too much fertilizer. Life is easy, and the plants don't have to work very hard to live. So they don't. Trouble is, when they get taken off life support, they don't have any reserves to fall back on. They aren't tough, so they can't handle life on their own. Often they have been tricked into blooming long before they are old enough to even go on a date, much less reproduce, so their energy reserves are already being depleted. It all makes for a weakened new addition to the flower bed, and the future holds an empty space and a cracked label marking the demise. A tiny vinyl tombstone to join the legion of garden failures that plague us in the spring.

Plant growers know the adage that every time you handle a plant it costs you money. The sooner a grower can get a plant to fill a 6" pot (or whatever size it is) and come into glorious bloom, the faster the plant can leave the greenhouse and make some money.

Pushing plants like this is common practice. So is treating them with growth regulators that keep them a certain size but allow them to bloom. Essentially they are stunted. This happens more with annuals than perennials, but plants (esp. at big box stores) are carefully managed to fit properly on the displays--not too tall, not too short--everything must conform to a design constraint to maximize the dollar value of the square footage. So where does that leave us? All we want is pretty flowers that will keep looking as pretty as they do at the store, and in the case of perennials, look that good or better next year. We have know way of knowing how plants are grown where we buy them unless we ask someone in charge--but I am not sure how useful the answer to a question like that would be. We have to use our eyes and our own judgement. That means learning to feel what a honkin big root mass feels like in the pot. Contrary to what you might think, it won't necessarily be heavy. Wet soil is much heavier than roots--even well watered roots. And a pot that is mostly wet soil isn't a recipe for success. Oftentimes you can feel the roots when you pick up the pot, or you can tell by looking that the pot is full of them. Does this mean you can race home, dig a hole and plop the baby in, sit back and watch the show? NOOOOOO. Tightly bound roots are like tight underpants. You wouldn't want to grow and stretch if you went around with a permanent wedgie and neither do your plants. The roots need to be uncircled and loosened from their tightly bound mass. Your hands or a garden fork can do this. If you cut some roots its usually okay. Just open the rootball up and plant it in a hole that is as deep as the long roots and plenty wide to accept the now expanded root ball. Roots that have filled a pot will have a lot of air trapped around them--and they need to contact THE SOIL to survive. So keep a watchful eye out for quality roots when you spend your money on plants. Bang for the buck--its what we are all about!

Is it spring yet??????

Yes--she is waiting, and so are all the rest of us. Waiting and praying for sunshine and warm days when we can go outside with no jacket on and feel the sun on our heads. A slow steady warmup with no surprise snowstorms or ice events. Lots of gentle rains to soak the ground nicely, but not torrents. Its the prayers we send out each year in the vain hope that this time Mother Nature will listen to us. Usually she has more lessons in humility in store for us instead. No matter--the warm days will come and the green toddlers will poke their heads up and soon throw their laughing faces at the sky. And it will happen before we know it. I always try to pay such close attention at this time of year so I see the MOMENT when spring bursts forth--but I always miss it. One day all will be bare, and the next day the trees are cloaked in green and I am driving along in my car thinking "CRAP!!! Missed it again!"

So you found my nursery's blog--thanks so much for coming by. Visibility is a problem for me and this route seemed like a worthwhile experiment. In case you don't know, I run a little specialty nursery in Walkerton IN. I tend to be quirky by nature and don't often follow the crowd, and my business doesn't either. In the age of the mega store that sells sanitized, standardized plants designed to flower and grow to maximize profits, I have taken another path. I don't try to compete with those outfits--I can't. I can't sell you a gallon pot for a dollar and a half and I don't WANT to sell you yet another pot of STELLA D'ORO. Frankly, I don't like to be bored, and while plants at a lot of places certainly serve a useful purpose a lot of them are BORRRRING and you can find them anywhere. So what to do when you don't want to follow in the footsteps of a zillion other people? In my case I am trying to use certain aspects of my business to my advantage to give me an edge over the great unwashed masses of discount paradises. I live where I work, so I can be open when I feel like it, at any time of the season I want. I grow everything I sell here--plants actually live from one winter to the next planted in the ground. I propagate a lot of what I sell myself, so I know a lot about the plants I grow. I don't like to fuss and I think I know what most people who garden as a low level hobby (as opposed to something like I do which borders on obsession) want in a garden plant. I love to talk (okay--BLAB) and I am a good listener. I have learned a lot from the people who buy plants here year after year, which that leads me to where I am now. I sell a limited number of genera (types) of plants--all of which I have experience with and know to be easy to grow and rewarding in the garden. Gardens can become harsh mistresses, and most of us don't have the mental energy to deal with the devasating failures a Garden can dish out when things go bad. One way to avoid disaster is to use plants that are very forgiving and tolerant and will have to be pushed pretty far before they revolt.

Another way is proper foundation work in the beginning--that's a subject for another post.

ANYWAY--The plants you will find here meet this criterion--I call them "bulletproof". If you have some basic conditions in your gardens that we can talk about when you come here, they will establish and grow well for you and give you a lot of joy in return for a basic workload each year.

The other positive I have--living here and being able to conduct business when I choose means that a very valuable and underused niche is more available to me than many other nurseries. The late season garden can be a spectacular thing, filled with color and motion, but many places don't carry the plants that flower during this beautiful period. Either they are closed, or their traffic flow is down so its not worthwhile to bring in the inventory. Sometimes they will carry certain things--but only a smattering of genera that look really good in flower and will cajole some money out of peoples' pockets. There are a great many plants that are rarely seen in commerce that are surprisingly easy to grow and bring to bloom at this time. But to buy them you need to be able to see them and learn about what is appropriate for your yard. That's where I come in. You can come see how these plants look in a display garden, and learn their culture without the pitfalls that I go through on a regular basis. The only way to find out if you can successfully grow a plant is to try it in your own garden. Sometimes it works--lots of times it doesn't. By killing numerous experimental plants, I have a good idea of what works for me, and can help you decide if it will work for you.

So come and see me this year--we are expanding our inventory to encompass a lot of new things--including as always--a great many new daylilies--most of which flower in the late to very late season. A number of them have been bred and evaluated right here so I know them intimately, from the time they were seeds onward. You will find only a smattering of these late blooming varieties in other places, and my own babies can be purchased nowhere else. Demand for some of these late and very late babies can be high, especially during their bloom cycle, so we often sell out quickly.

But now we will have other things to complement these beauties, including Aster oblongifolia, Boltonia, Rudbeckia, Callirhoe digitata, Chrysanthemums "Clara Curtis, Mary Stoker, and Pink Bomb", Helianthus, Solidaster, and Helenium.

And if you want something nice for earlier times in the garden, we have a few bulletproof selections you can't go wrong with--About 10 varieties of Siberian Iris (okay--I didn't count them but that sounds about right) some epimediums if you have shade, and a few hardy geraniums, some for sun and some for shade. And two varieties of Coreopsis; "Full Moon "(my absolute FAVORITE new plant from last year) and "Red Shift". Also the spectactular Persicaria polymorpha, Kalimeris incisa "Blue Star", Allium angluosum "Summer Beauty", Echinaceas tennesseensis and "Ruby Star" and Monarda bradburiana "Paririe Gypsy". We also have a very few dwarf viburnums, but they may or may not be for sale--depending on whether I can bear to part with them or not (its my house--so--NYAA!) I have a few other things up my sleeve that I may propagate this spring--we'll see how the timetable sorts itself out.

Come see us, won't you? The G scale Garden train always runs on Saturday and it will also run when we have Open Garden days through the Michiana Horticultural Alliance. We give free plants with every purchase and love to have you visit and hang out in the gardens. We have a lot of new garden construction and reconstruction on our "to-do" list this year, so come on out and see what's going on! Have a great spring--we will see you in the summer!