Daylilies have me feeling that I’m in the pink
WINTER may still have us in its grip, but there’s no denying that the days are getting longer and the signs of approaching life are all around if you take a moment to look for them.
My ribes is covered in fresh, green buds and the Japanese quince has a few, young leaves, but it is the daffodils that are cheering me the most, growing in respectable spurts every time the sun comes out.
Soon we’ll have crocuses and squills and spring will be on its way, stutteringly to begin with, but then unfolding in a rush of bud and blossom and allowing nothing stand in its way.
Of course there are days when it feels as if it will never arrive, so last Saturday I popped into Glasgow Botanic Gardens to get a little foretaste of what’s in store.
Here, in the main range of greenhouses I found massed hyacinths scenting the air while in the Kibble Palace the camellias were in full flower despite the sleety-rain that was falling outdoors. It was just what I needed to convince me that spring is just around the corner.
Back home the first batch of salad leaves have just emerged from the propagator and their place has been taken by Plum Pudding, a new oriental poppy.
Who can resist a poppy? I certainly can’t and once the ground warms up I’ll be sowing seed of the opium poppy, ‘Pink Fizz’ directly into the soil. This is a bit of a glamour puss. It has two-tone flowers and with any luck it will self-seed, returning year after year.
But that’s some time off yet and in the meantime there are hostas to be divided, stipas to be repotted and wires to be set in place to allow honeysuckle, clematis and roses to clamber over the fence.
I’ve also got to muscle in on the Kwanso daylilies. Last autumn I wrote about how perturbed I was to have found myself in possession of the undisputed thugs of the hemerocallis tribe and so far mine seem to be living up to their reputation.
As early as January, when other summer perennials were still safely underground, the daylilies were already showing shoots and picking one up I discovered that it had made so many new, strong roots that it had distorted the shape of its pot.
Kwanso is no shrinking violet and its orange tones were chosen for a border devoted to spiky shapes and strong colours, but I haven’t even started work on this part of the garden yet so it looks as if I’m going to have to chop the daylily roots into smaller pieces and re-pot them several times before they go into the ground.
But before I get to work on the daylilies, I’ve got bare root geraniums and dicentras to take care of.
With the soil still unworkable, I’ll have to start them off in pots but I’ve been putting that off until the weather gets a little warmer.
These hardy perennials can cope with the cold and if the first flush of foliage gets killed off they will simply put out more, so in waiting for a milder spell it is not the plants’ welfare I’m considering, but my own.
I fear I’m becoming a fair-weather gardener.