Back in Montana, my mother, who was crazy over tulips, called daylilies "A lazy man's flower."
I left home at an early age and one thing I have in common with my siblings is that we all garden.
I never paid much attention to daylilies until I was wanting some yellow flowers to complete a landscape color theme and bought my first daylilies back in the early 1990's. I got 4 varieties of yellows back then. Planted them and forgot about them.
Lots of life happened between that time and this year when I re-discovered daylilies. Weddings, births, deaths, ups and downs of life.
I was the kind of "collector" who couldn't go to a yard sale and not bring home a plant I didn't already have. So there is a big variety of plants in my yard.
For awhile I was into hybrid roses and then gradually moved to heirloom/antique roses for easy care. For awhile I had a huge variety of banana plants that I raised and sold. My husband and I raised horses back then so fertilizer was never a problem.
For awhile there was a Natural Hygiene group in Ocala that preached soil mineralization. We purchased many plants and soil additives together and I still have 3 producing persimmon trees that have fruit to die for, but because the ripe fruit is soft, it isn't good for shipping.
Each season my Rottweiler dogs scarf up fallen fruit and now have even gotten into jumping up to pick it.
I'm now one of those "senior citizens." My husband and many friends have moved on. I don't have horses now, but keep a couple of rescued Rottweiler dogs for company.
Taxes and insurance costs keep going up and I was thinking if I could sell a few plants, that might help out a tad. Amazingly, locals want those elephant ears although a few have purchased some of my old daylily stock. But the good thing about daylilies is they are ship-able.
I've added lots of new plants this year. And have purchased lots of seeds.
If no one else jumps in to start a local daylily club in Ocala, I may pursue that in January, 2015, "if the creek don't rise".
