I grow both iris and daylilies at my daughter's house in Utah. I have a few daylilies here in Florida too, but the rust problem is huge here, so I only grow the ones that don't get rusty.

@DaisyDo I'm surprised your deer eat the daylily buds but not the iris? Have you tried a motion-detector sprinkler to shoo off the deer? Available off amazon, doesn't hurt them, just scares them off. I use it to keep raccoons from eating my mangoes. Works even at night which is when the raccoons usually raid my tree.

Men are from Mars


Cosmic Celebration

Sky and Sun


Moonglint

Elaine, the deer often eat just the tips of emerging iris foliage in the early spring when they are near starvation, but once other things get growing they switch away from them. Iris are toxic, and apparently pretty nasty tasting. The groundhogs don't like them either. It got so that between those two species they were eating my garden like a smorgasboard, and the irises were among the few things spared. The iris don't seem to mind having their early tips eaten off, and bounce back fine. So I stopped planting anything but new irises. That's why I am now here at this forum. But I do love irises, so that's a good thing.

I have tried the motion-activated sprinklers. They eventually went awry, flooding my garden, which killed my helleborus, my hardy cyclsmen, and most of my surprise lilies. That wasn't a good experience.

DaisyDo said: I have tried the motion-activated sprinklers. They eventually went awry, flooding my garden, which killed my helleborus, my hardy cyclsmen, and most of my surprise lilies. That wasn't a good experience.

I'm sure it was not! I have grown tired of spraying daylilies and have created a very large new garden for them inside the dog yard. So far, the deer stay outside the fenced area. I have some daylilies yet to move, have replaced them with iris and other things the deer won't eat. In another part of the gardens outside the fence I have a lot of Stella De Oro daylilies (here when we bought the house) and am moving more of them into that area from elsewhere so I can spray just one area. Liquid Fence works fairly well though has to be reapplied regularly, especially after a couple of rainfalls. The deer absolutely mow the Stellas, especially this time of year when they are just emerging. They'll eat all the flowers later as well. I can't keep up with spraying multiple gardens, hence trying to consolidate. Some Stellas may just get chucked into the compost heap.

My pleasure Evelyn! How are you doing?


Terry Pratchett!



Today is Step into the Spotlight Day!

Louisiana Iris (Iris 'Full Eclipse')

Elaine, speaking of "Full Eclipse," my son saw it today in Dayton, Ohio. He was so excited!

We had only about 90% of totality here, but it was fun. I took a collander and a whote sheet of paper outside and was able to use the holes in 5he collander to project a myriad of little crescents onto the paper.

Today is Cherish an Antique Day:

Collected about 1500.

Introduced in 1910.

Introduced in 1916

Introduced in 1917.

Also introduced in 1917.

Indeed!

Today is International Day of Pink, so lots and lots to choose from!







...and 3 spectacular pinks from Ghio:





...and one of my favourite pinks:

April is National Afternoon Tea month:









My favourite:

Why is it my favourite, you ask? Because I made one yesterday and I'm having some now, it has a veeeery nice mascarpone vanilla cream in it... fresh mint leaves for decoration ...and strawberries...lots and lots of strawberries...

IrisLilli said:
Why is it my favourite, you ask? Because I made one yesterday and I'm having some now, it has a veeeery nice mascarpone vanilla cream in it... fresh mint leaves for decoration ...and strawberries...lots and lots of strawberries...

Yum! You must be a very good baker, Lilli!

Not really, I just craved some cake after looking through all those irises with yummy names!


Today is Look Up at the Sky Day:

That Cloudscape sure is a beauty!


Today is World Art Day:

Cloudscape is pretty, but it didn't thrive here. Sadly, that happens sometimes.

So far all of the iris I planted last Fall have returned. Going to expand the iris bed, for certain!!

Here is my artistic level....