a day of sun and daylily sales

Daylily sale yesterday!

The Long Island Daylily Society (LIDS) had their -- had our -- annual sale yesterday in Farmingdale. This was actually the first time I came to it, and though I did help out a little with setting up, and talking to customers (wow! I've gotten to the point where I actually can answer some questions about daylilies), it ended up being largely a social event. For me, anyway.

Blair, on the other hand, spent the entire afternoon on her feet helping customers. When they wanted to know what a particular cultivar's flowers looks like she would look it up on her phone and show them pictures.

Elmore James

At the end of the day we bought a bunch to plant in our yard. For some reason I decided I wanted purples. We ended up buying some of each of the following:

• Elmore James (Hanson, C.)
  Tet.
  Violet purple self above chartreuse throat
  H: 40, D: 6
  EM. Sev.
• Got No Goat (Baxter)
  Dip.
  Purple, white midrib and waterwalk
  H: 29, D: 6
  M. Sev.
• Grapeade (Childs, F.)
  Dip.
  Purple self with green throat
  H: 30, D: 6.5
  EMRe, Dor.
• Prince of Midnight (Salter)
  Tet.
  Dark royal purple with green throat
  H: 28, D: 6
  M. Sev.
• Resistance is Futile (Baxter)
  Dip.
  Polymerous 85%, Light purple with white midrib above green throat
  H: 24, D: 5.5
  EERe., Dor.
• Sonic Waters (Hanson, C.)
  Tet.
  Pewter lavender self with green throat
  H: 28, D:6
  M, Sev.
• Swirling Water (Carpenter, K.)
  Dip.
  Purple with cream white splash and green throat
  H: 22, D: 6.5
  EM, Sev.
• Woodside Rhapsody (Apps)
  Dip.
  Purple self with light yellow green throat
  H: 31, D: 4

  

  Resistance is Futile

  
  M, Dor.

We would have bought Bela Lugosi, but it sold out -- Blair and I made a decision to only buy after the sale was over, so that we weren't taking anything that the public wanted. I'm actually surprised to see so many diploids on the list -- I've been under the impression that the dips are -- how to put this nicely? -- nebbishy compared to the tetraploids. 

I was planning to plant them during the week, but since it was threatening to rain when we got home, we figured it was better to get them in the ground before the rain. Well, it started coming down while we were out therwe, but we just continued. And driversby slowed to stare at these nuts who were gardening in the rain.

The LIDS people will disaprove of this, but we planted without labeling things. To me they're pretty flowers, and keeping track of what's where means more work than I want to put in. It would be helpful if I ever get around to hybridizing. But my interest in hybridizing is still somewhat limited. The big draw is getting to name my introductions. Imagine daylilies with names like "385 Gallons of Money" or "Yammering Gorgon."