How I wish I could keep subjects like this in mind during the entire year. It would be great if I could just name the top ten performing daylilies right off the top of my head. Why not? Why shouldn't I be able to spout those names off right off the top of my head anytime someone visits and ask "What are the top performers in your garden", now that is a different question than what are the favorite plants in your garden?" Shouldn't I also be able to answer that question also at anytime. But no, I have to look back through photos, look through notes and then try and decide on the top one, two, three, four etc. Now I am trying to be a backyard hybridizer, but it seems I will never be very good at it because I just don't seem to have the skills of observation and the mental memory abilities needed to make a good analysis of the plants, well that would be OK I suppose if my note taking was better. I have looked at some of the journals or collections of notes that some hybridizers have left behind for us to look over. I see such great detail of observation, notes on things I just seem to pass over with little attention being given. So I am studying to become a garden judge, mainly with the goal of increasing my knowledge and my observation of plants. How great it would be to be able to spend a few days with some of the great hybridizers and listen to them talk as they go about the work in the garden and point out little things most of us will never see.
Wineberry Candy was not one of my top ten performers, it struggled and eventually just disappeared. I nursed it along for a couple of years but it never performed well here.
Paper Butterfly for sure was somewhere in my top ten performers, it bloomed and bloomed and finally even managed to open a bloom in early Dec. a first in my garden.
Femme Fatal, would have to be in my top ten performers, the number of blooms it put out was amazing. It was a large established clump, so it had the advantage over many of my plants. I dug the clump and divided it in November this year, so next year it will not be putting out all those scapes and blooms.
But looking through my photos this year I was amazed how few I actually took. Even in May and June the peak bloom months, I took very few photos this year. Thinking back and looking at my new acquisitions I think it was because I was so busy adding 80 new plants this year (something that will probably never happen again). I was digging and planting and making and extending beds, gawking at all the new blooms instead of taking photos.
I must say some of the G. Pierce plants had amazing blooms even this first year in the garden, and I feel sure some of them will appear in my top ten next year...I am going to keep this top ten theme in my mind all year!
Sorry I am not able to provide a great top ten list, just wait till next year!
