FOTD – June 24 – DAYLILIES IN THE BACK

It had to be about 18 or 19 years ago when Owen and a friend came by on Mother’s Day and informed me they were going to build a garden for me.

And they did. The ground near the house is much less full of roots and rocks than the rest of our property, probably because after they dug the hole for the house, they had to add earth. Anything had to be better than what was there before. They planted hollyhocks, zinnias, daisies, and lots of daylilies. Most were “standard” from the woods” and along the road as well as some fancier Chinese daylilies.

The annuals were glorious that summer, but didn’t seed and thus didn’t come back the next year. Nonetheless, for nearly a decade, we had a wild and wonderful collection of hollyhocks and daylilies. It was a glorious combination.

One daylily

Then, one year, the hollyhocks grew, but a few days later, withered and died. They never came back. I’m pretty sure some kind of disease attacked them. All the Chinese daylilies eventually faded away, so now what remains are a lot of standard “by the road and in the woods” daylilies. Which although they are one of our most common wildflowers, they originated in Tibet and were brought here from England — where they weren’t native either.

More daylilies

We can thank England for our beautiful white mute swans and the daylilies. We also grow a lot of ferns. I never remember which ones are which, but in the fall, they turn golden and because they are shade-loving, the whole ground in the woods turns golden. I’ll try to get some pictures this year. I might finally have a lens that will shoot in the dark of the woods.

Categories: #Flowers, #Photography, Cee's Photo Challenge, Flower of the day, Gardens

Tags: #Photography, Cee's Flowers of the day, Daylilies, Gardens, Marilyn Armstrong