Gardening Talk Sprinkled with Daylilies

Season 4, Episode 36, July 13, 2022

Jul 12, 2022

Here’s a link to this week’s episode of The Gardenangelists.

Dee just returned from a national daylily convention in Asheville, North Carolina, so naturally our garden talk this week was sprinkled with quite a bit about daylilies. She posted lots of pictures on Instagram over the weekend, including this picture of the daylily named…

…wait for it…

‘Porky Pig’.

Now that’s a name you’ll like never forget, though when we talked about it we kept calling it ‘Porky the Pig’. Still, a great name that perfectly describes this daylily’s coloring, if you ask me. I found it on at least one daylily site, though they are holding it back until it grows a bit more.

But daylilies weren’t really our topic for this week!

Neither were begonias, though we did mention the All-America Selections Begonia, ‘Viking Explorer Rose on Green F1’ that I’m growing from seed. And speaking of seeds, I talked about how I collected and shared seeds from Aquilegia ‘Tower Blue’ and other 'Granny’s Bonnets’ columbine with a reader and also Nan Ondra who sells seeds for so many unique flowers and vegetables via her website, Hayefield. Definitely check out her website if you like to grow plants from seeds that are just a little bit different. (Nan sent me seeds for Viola ‘Freckles’ and Viola arvensis as a thank you.)

Yes, I still have a bunch of columbine seeds so if you’re interested in trying them, email me at indygardener@gmail.com and I might send you some. I can’t guarantee what color they’ll be!

Dee collected and scattered seeds for Nigella, Love-in-a-Mist. ‘Tis the season for seed collecting.

Okay, our actual topics…

We talked quite a bit about drought-tolerant flowers, and what looks good in our gardens right now. Dee read a great article about this topic that gives more information on what to look for in drought-tolerant plants. We really came up with quite a long list.

And I wrote an article last week for Family Handyman about signs you are overwatering. Honestly, at least outside these days, that’s kind of hard to do but people are still searching for that info, apparently.

We gave a hat tip to John Scheeper's Kitchen Garden Seeds for making us think about starting seeds now for fall veggies like cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. I have some seeds so I’m going to try to grow some fall veggies. Dee, not so much. She’s too busy with her daylilies.

On the bookshelf we didn’t have a new book but grabbed an older book: The Once & Future Gardener: Garden Writing from the Golden Age of Magazines 1900 - 1940, Edited and with an Introduction by Virginia Tuttle Clayton (1999). Most definitely we will warn you it is a giant rabbit hole of of a certain style of garden writing that, as we discussed on the podcast, you don’t often find these days.

In our dirt segment, we talked about how scientists recently discovered that bees chew holes in the leaves of plants to make them bloom early.

Now, allow Dee to pull you down into a rabbit hole with the documentary Honeyland on Hulu about a beekeeper, and then follow up with an article on the ethics of documentaries and read the rest of the story about the beekeeper featured in the documentary. That should keep you busy on a hot summer afternoon.

Or read my blog post about another Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Mrs. Francis King, who isn’t really lost, but I found another lost lady who is proving to be elusive or confusing.

By the way, Dee just finished reading an 1,100 page book, Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Unset (Bookshop link, Amazon link), so now she’s ready to read the first book in the Aunt Dimity cozy mystery series to cleanse her reading pallet. (Bookshop link to the first book, which is where we prefer to buy books, or Amazon link to the first book if you must.)

And that concludes this week’s episode. All the usual links below!

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