We have all seen those threads along the lines of "If you were going to be marooned on a desert island, what 5/10/name-your-number daylilies would you bring?"
I was idly thinking the other day, of what if there were some sort of EOTWAWKI (End of The World as We Know It) disaster, on a *local* scale, which would mandate a hasty (and maybe permanent) evacuation...one in which, furthermore, even if I *could* return, the daylilies left behind might no longer be there. As to what type of disaster, feel free to fill in the blank on your favorite disaster scenario.... wildfire (maybe burns up the daylilies), hurricane/flood (maybe washes away the daylilies? or looters steal them?), geological hazard (earthquake with a crevasse gulping down the daylilies, or a sinkhole doing the same - though in those cases there wouldn't be advanced warning), a Fukushima/Chernobyl type disaster (you might have to smuggle out whatever glowing-in-the-dark plants), alien invasion, invading armies, etc. etc.
The whole point of this is, you can only save some number of daylilies (let's say 10 tops) before you have to get out of dodge. Since you won't have to dig them, you can take unlimited seeds with you, and some number of sprouted several-to-a-pot seedlings. Anything else, you have to dig, but you don't have much time. Assume that once you have gotten to safety, you can make a new garden (or maybe go back home and rebuild your old garden, depending on the disaster scenario), and you will have the rest of the daylily world to draw on, to beg, borrow, or buy new or replacement daylilies from.
Which daylilies do you save, in those frantic pre-evacuation moments? Remember, you don't have much time, and you are also going to be wanting to save family photos, important papers, keepsakes, your spouse/elderly parent(s)/kids/pets, and maybe pack a bag or two of clothes and grab some water and food for your escape.
So - which daylilies are saved?
For myself, I was thinking that top priority should go to the ones that would be difficult (if not impossible) to replace, which would mean favorite seedlings or daylilies which are no longer commercially available (or maybe only one or two nurseries had the plant the last time that I looked). Daylilies of sentimental importance could also go on that list. High performance isn't necessarily a factor; importance to your garden is.
Currently, my list is over 20 daylilies; I would probably be overtaken by the disaster while trying to decide what gets left behind
. Apart from those of sentimental value or difficult to replace, I confess that I have a few that I could almost certainly replace, but I really like them, they are decent sized clumps, and I don't want to take any chances on losing them.
Among my list:
(I really like it, and I'm not sure I could replace it)
(I'm about 99% certain that's what it is...)
(my daughter graduated from Amherst College 2 years ago)
You can see that the list is already over 10 daylilies, plus I want to save some seedlings, and then there are those I-can-replace-them-but... daylilies.
What daylilies would *you* save, and why?
