floral fridays -- a new daylily bed (with unboxing video!)

Two activities came together in one of those great synchronicities that usually only involve collisions of peanut butter and chocolate.

• The new flowerbed: Blair and I dug a bed out of the front yard. For background, Blair hates lawns. I don't hate them, except for the whole mowing part -- but I have a teenage son for that. But I don't have any burning need for an expanse of pristine grass. So we have gradually been expanding flowerbeds and whittling away at the grass in front of our house. We also bought a bunch of clover seed to spread around in the hope that clover gradually replaces the grass. Anyway, Blair suggested that we dig a new flower bed in the front yard, and the closest I could come to an argument against it was laziness. So we dug. I have included, near the bottom of this post, a few pictures showing the progress of the flowerbed (from our first starting to dig it out through its fully-planted state).
• The new daylilies: With the ongoing pandemic all the daylily gatherings -- LIDS meetings, Regionals, Can-Am, the National -- have been cancelled this year. So have the various sales at which we often buy daylilies from other LIDS members. So Blair suggested that we buy some flowers online. So we ordered a bunch of cultivars from Gary Jones, a Connecticut hybridizer and Vice President of the Connecticut Daylily Society.

The two decisions were unconnected -- or at least I thought they were -- but somehow we ended up deciding to devote the new flowerbed to the new daylilies. And, as luck would have it, the fifteen new daylilies seemed to be the perfect amount for the space.

The postal service took its sweet time getting the flowers to me -- they arrived half a week later than the "expected delivery date" their system printed on the mailing label. Fortunately, Gary wrapped the flowers well, and packed the box well, and we expect all the plants to survive. It'll be a few years before this flower bed hits its full glory, but we're looking forward to it.

Anyway, we totally geeked out and made an unboxing video when we got the plants. This was literally five minutes after they came through the USPS. Thanks to Sharon for taking the video and showing me the rudimentary editing skills I used to enhance it.

In case anyone cares, in the above video, I mentioned that I once posted about the worst Monkees song ever ("Shorty Blackwell"). That post is here.

Before I list the cultivars we bought, let me (as promised) share a few pictures of the flower bed:

And these are the 15 cultivars we got from Gary:

• Along for the Ride (G. Jones, 2017)
• August Frost (Trimmer, 1995)
• Bama Bound (Webster, 1986)
• Blueberry Breakfast (Rose, 1988)
• Chance Encounter (Stamile, 1994)
• Connecticut Candy (G. Jones, 2015)
• Eager Beaver (Apps, 2002)
• Grape Escape (C. Hanson, 2006)
• Little Miss Fish Breath (G. Jones, 2014)
• Mad Max (Wilson-Schott, 1989)
• Orange Heat (G. Jones, 2017)
• Peach Candy (Stamile, 1992)
• Pince Nez (M. Mason, 2000)
• Vatican City (Moldovan, 1996)
• Wisconsin Royalty (Klehm-Wisconsin Daylily Society, 2019)