Around the end of May and the first of June every year, our day lily beds are usually at their peak.
Only this year, Miz Jo and I are wondering what has happened? We are used to a bunch of different colors popping out from the plants we’ve ordered or have been gifted over the years or bought from growers we’ve run across around the state. However, for a few years now, we’ve noticed our beds seem like they don’t fill out like they used to. But we weren’t sure. This year, however, the lilies are off.
Back at the end of April they started blooming. But only red lilies showed up at first. Also, it seemed like there were a lot more of them than I remembered. But since we had dug up some plants and combined them with others over the winter, I figured we’d must have inadvertently bunched up a lot of reds.
So, I expect we’ll make up our minds to either live with the situation and just keep the weeds out as best we can or get the catalogues down, reorder, and replant. Same kind of decisions we’re faced with a lot of time in life. Live with it or do something about it.
But when I started looking back through my files of photographs to try to pick a subject for this month’s article, I was bombarded with the pictures of lilies from years past. Now, I really am wondering why our lily beds have gotten so sparse.
My first suspect is the weather. The weather has been unkind to my gardening activity for a couple of years. For instance, I didn’t get a single tomato off my vines last year. I chalked it up to the heat. I planted late and tomatoes don’t do well above 90 degrees. And as I recall, we had temperatures in the 90s well into October.
But as far as the poor showing of our day lilies this year, we had a weird winter. A warm snap in February popped us into the 80s for a week or so. We were saying, if it got this hot already what would August be like? And about the time we figured winter must not be coming back, an arctic cold front blew in, and dropped us into the deep freeze. My kitchen thermometer keeps up with the hottest and the coldest outside temperature since the last battery change. Since the recharge, it’s been as hot as 93 degrees and as cold as 13. I don’t think the 93 would hurt the day lilies that much. But I’m not so sure their bulbs would survive many overnights in the teens.
Now, I have to admit the weather may not be the culprit at all. Maybe Jo and I just haven’t had the time to fuss with the flower beds like we used to. There has been a lot of life going on lately. Good and bad. But all of it time consuming.
So, I expect we’ll make up our minds to either live with the situation and just keep the weeds out as best we can or get the catalogues down, reorder, and replant. Same kind of decisions we’re faced with a lot of time in life. Live with it or do something about it.
