My first "I" is the internet. The internet lets us get together here at ATP , meet people from all over the world and with the never ending number of awesome websites, forums, utubes etc. feeds our addiction. A few favorite sites....

Charlotte's Hybridizers Corner
http://daylilydiary.com/garden...

Charlotte's Daylily Diary where you can find a listing for nearly everything and anything daylily. Check out the dark blue Garden of the Week tab at the top, in the upper right for a look at some beautiful gardens! Each week Nov. thru Mar. a new garden is featured.
http://daylilydiary.com/index....

and where would we all be without the Lily Auction
http://www.daylily.com/cgi-bin...

Second "I" is indoors.
I start my seedlings indoors during the winter in a spare bedroom. They are then planted outside during May. A small percentage will bloom late that first summer with the majority of them blooming the next bloom season.

My "I" word will be "Inspection", that is about all I can do at this time of year, inspection for pests,
disease, growth rate, varmint damage etc. I noticed yesterday, that the Aphids have made a return in my absence, and some critter is digging around the roots of my daylilies, the cold had burned the leaves of the evergreens again, tags have been tossed about (need to get the map out again).
Later in the year the inspection will turn to more enjoyable things such as actually looking at the booms, deadheading, checking the ground moisture, etc. Inspection of the plants on a regular basis is a chore and a pleasure !

To answer "where would we be without the Lily Auction", I would have to say - a lot richer (at least in terms of money)...

I will make my contribution later - right now I have to walk the dog, and then do some other things. But good Is thus far - internet, indoors, and inspection!

Larry reminded me of another one, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), of which inspection is a large part.

Okay, here are my I terms:

Interveinal Chlorosis. From the AHS Dictionary:

Interveinal chlorosis is a yellowing of the leaves between the veins with the veins remaining green. In plants with strap-like leaves such as the daylily this results in a striped effect. While there are several possible causes, this symptom frequently indicates a nutritional imbalance.

This picture was taken this afternoon from my garden. It shows a volunteer seedling (still in place, near the pod parent plant) of 'Sacrament of Healing'. (I have two other volunteers from that plant. One was dug last year, the other one is on the other side of the mother plant. What can I say... I often leave the pods on long enough that they crack open, and some seeds go flying when I try to harvest. And obviously I have been lax on fertilizing... )



So much for the official terms... now for the fun stuff...

Iberis

A garden full of nothing but daylilies would be a very boring place out of season (and for that matter, in my opinion, somewhat boring even in season...YMMV). Since I also have a small Moon Garden, I am fond of white flowered and silver foliaged things. On the outskirts of said garden (but not (yet) inside it) I grow a lot of Stachys and Iberis. I love the white flowers in the mid-late winter. (Winter for me, that is.)

Two pictures from the garden this afternoon follow. Excuse the mess... I don't have enough garden time, so spring cleanup has barely gotten started... The sundial area has been very difficult to keep the iberis growing in, but I am determined, and so it is going to be reworked this spring.

Iberis and sundial



Iberis and Euphorbia myrsinities (and weeds...)


Euphorbia myrsinities is a great structural plant, and its flowers will add some color to the garden in another month or so. It does tend to spread itself around a little, but not as badly as Euphorbia characias wulfenii, which I have in a shady part of the garden (and which I think of as "the Wolf Guy" ).

Most of the Iberis in the garden is a motely collection of cheap 4" and 5" pots from the nursery (cultivars (if any) unknown), and iirc a few named cultivars (whose names were lost ). On my nursery runs this week, I picked up 6 x 1 gal pots of 'Alexander's White'. http://portlandnursery.com/pla... I am thinking of ripping out all of the small iberis plants around the sundial, amending the (horrid acidic clay) soil, and then replanting with the newly purchased 'Alexander's White'. (The nameless iberis can always be recycled elsewhere. This garden sucks up plants like there is no tomorrow.)

Irises

Irises are a harbinger of the daylily season. When the irises are in bloom, the early daylilies are not far behind. Here is a picture of part of my Moon Garden from May of 2012, after a recent renovation. (Things are a bit different now: some daylilies were exchanged, some licorice plants died and were replaced (with different ones, grrr ), my favorite Shasta Daisy, 'Ice Star', died , some plants are now overgrown.) All of the daylilies shown are near-white daylilies. The Iris in the foreground (lower right) is 'Arctic Express'.



Iris 'Arctic Express' (a better picture - of the iris, that is)



Finally, let's talk Imagination... and maybe, sometimes, Inspiration. I think that at least the first of these attributes drives those of us who are hybridizers or pollen dabbers; we imagine a more glorious flower, on a plant with outstanding attributes, and strive towards that goal. We may also be given inspiration... either by the example of those hybridizers who have gone before us, or perhaps as a blessing, in the form of insight (there's another I!) into an inspired choice of parents for our imagined seedling.

Of course, these qualities are not limited to the hybridizers... Does it not require imagination to come up with a pleasing garden design? And who can say that the truly great and memorable gardens are not also inspired?

Infertile

Some beautiful daylilies refuse to set a pod. Others have sterile pollen.

How about Irresistable! This is why we are all hooked!

Imagination and inspiration....said perfectly.

I don't think I've ever seen a moon garden before...beautiful! What makes a moon garden, because it is all white or because it is all white it glows with the light of the moon? Clematis tangutica covers two large trellises in my display garden. In the fall when they are covered with white seed heads the moonlight makes them glow.

The iris are always a sign the daylilies are not far behind here, too. A little dark purple dwarf edges many of the beds, white and blue flags and the huge blooms of a few different Iris ensata brighten the garden after the daffodils fade.

Inspection for me also includes checking the "bait" plants every day early in the spring. The deer here like to nibble on the hosta, hibiscus, phlox, aster, asiatic and oriental lillies in the late spring before they go for the daylilies. When I see those plants have been nibbled then I know to get out my deer supplies... motion sensors and a big antique wooden noisemaker....sounds a little weird I'm sure. The motion sensors go off during the night when the deer enter the garden, I go out and start cranking the noisemaker...After one or two nights this generally takes care of the problem. They have plenty of other options for feeding than the garden of a cranky gardener.

Char, to answer your question on Moon Gardens, two summers ago I started a thread on them over in the perennials forum. The thread also includes a modest discussion on daylilies in a Moon Garden, so you might find it of interest. The thread "Moon Gardens" in Perennials forum .

I hadn't really considered inspection, although you and Larry are correct in the need for constant surveillance. Right now I am inspecting the daylilies for rust , during the wetter part of the year there is need to survey for slugs and snails, and right around early May the deer will start raiding the daylilies... first those in the Back 40 (my version of sentinels, as it were), and then the Near 40 (the area between the house and the creek).

(Our property is difficult to fence against deer, by reason of property line placement and the creek. We were thinking of fencing the creek two summers ago, but DH changed his mind, for fear of a "concentration camp" like look. I reluctantly had to agree, but that means there will always be some level of deer incursion. We have done what we reasonably can, and for the rest, it is sprays (which don't work well) and Fear of Dog.)

Enjoyed reading your moon garden thread! You have inspired me into thinking I should add more white blooming plants to the garden this year. A few beds need some minor reworking that will open some space to add perennials and I like the idea of seeing the whites by moonlight. Nigella hispanica 'African Bride' has an interesting bloom and I absolutely love the calla lillies which will require more thought, they are not hardy here.


Impulse bidding on the Lily Auction....all those guilty raise your hands

Polymerous said:

(Our property is difficult to fence against deer, by reason of property line placement and the creek. We were thinking of fencing the creek two summers ago, but DH changed his mind, for fear of a "concentration camp" like look. I reluctantly had to agree, but that means there will always be some level of deer incursion. We have done what we reasonably can, and for the rest, it is sprays (which don't work well) and Fear of Dog.)

For sprays, have you tried Bobbex? It works very well here.

Inspection here turned up aphids on the fans that stayed green in the cold months. It also showed a lot of new growth coming up through the dead foliage of those that had gone dormant. Since I wanted to treat for the aphids, I went ahead and cleaned out all the dead foliage. No losses through winter to this point and everything is now actively growing even with some freezing weather surely still to come before steady warmth settles in to stay. This is the first winter where all the larger pots were left out in the cold. There were some of the smaller large pots moved closer to the garage so they could be moved in if the temps got too low, but the plan all along has been to leave out those 10 gal. pots and see if the daylilies can survive under my growing conditions without further protection.

Char, the calla lilies are across the creek, and thus not in the Moon Garden. I have considered whether or not to add some real lilies in there...

Sue, I haven't heard of that spray before. I will look into it; thanks.

INTROS - short for introductions- as in newly registered/offered daylilies.