Sutton Garden Club

Daylily Mania!

Check it out! Sutton's own Linda Burnett was one of three daylily growers featured in the Worcester Living Magazine article titled "Day(lily) Dreaming" wriiten by Nancy Sheehan with photos by Tom Rettig. What follows is the portion of the article about daylilies themselves and how Linda found her passion for that 'perfect' plant. 

"Daylily disease. It’s not something that flowers get. It is a distinctly human affliction. You may think you’re immune, but once you start poking your nose beyond the ubiquitous orange roadside daylily varieties you are in danger of becoming an incurable collector. First, you buy a few clumps from among the rainbow array of colors, shapes and flower forms that are available. The next thing you know, you are the local daylily diva or don, scouring catalogs in winter for the latest offerings and digging new beds for them in the spring. Soon, the-lily-to-grass ratio in your yard overwhelmingly favors the flowers.

And why not? Daylilies have been called “the perfect flower,” a designation earned by their many botanical virtues, according to the American Hemerocallis Society, an international daylily society.

The plants are not true lilies but belong to their own small plant family, hemerocallidaceae. From Greek words meaning “day” and “beautiful,” the name refers to the fact that each flower lasts but a day. That might be considered a fault except, the society says, the plants offset it by producing so many flower buds on each flower stalk, and so many stalks in each clump of plants that the plant’s flowering period is usually several weeks long.

Additionally, many cultivars have more than one flowering period and are able to survive with little care in a range of soil and climate conditions. They are drought tolerant, and few pests or diseases affect them."...

 "In 1995 Linda Burnett paid a visit to Pennsylvania with her then-new husband to visit his aunt, who had been the secretary of a state daylily society for 35 years. ” She had show gardens. Her backyard was absolutely gorgeous, but she was in her late 60s at the time and wanted to downsize,” Burnett said. So the aunt divided up some of her plants and gave 15 apiece to each of her nephews and their wives.

“I wasn’t too worried about planting them right away,” said Burnett, a non-gardener at the time. “When I was at my aunt’s, she had some daylilies that she didn’t know the names of because she had lost the tags or whatever. She threw them into trash buckets and they were still growing with no water and no soil. I said ‘I like those plants,’ and that’s what got me going.” Within five years, Burnett’s collection grew from 15 plants to 500.

Things really escalated when she and her husband went to the annual convention of the national daylily society in Philadelphia in 2000. She went a little crazy that year at the plant auction, where expensive new plants often sell for just a few dollars because they have been donated to raise money for the society. “You can’t go wrong when you’re paying $5 or $8 for something that’s usually $50, so I went wild,” she said. “We went down in a Jeep and coming back it was packed full of daylilies — maybe 80 of them. My husband laughed. He said ‘I may be up on the luggage rack.’

By 2002, when the national group held its convention in Newton, Burnett was running the plant auction. "

Now's the time to visit Linda at 'Flower Trail Gardens' to see her daylilies in full bloom and pick your favorites to take home to your garden!

Flower Trail Gardens is located on 278 Mendon Road in Sutton and is open weekends from 9am-4pm; weekdays from 4:30 until dusk (best to call first to be sure/ 508-865-7971)  or  e-mail   sunshine278power@aol.com.

Container Gardening & More

Be sure to check out this month's Fine Gardening e-Newsletter with great tips on how to make your container plants look their best without being a slave to them, how to use the color 'red' in your garden, fertilizing basics, flowering ground covers and... more!

A Day in the Garden or 'Venting'!!

What I have been up to……… 

              Well here I am up to my eyeballs in “chore season” I call them  “CHORES” because this part of the work schedule is the one that I dislike the most…. The arm and back breaking work with your arms extended for long periods of time  trimming all the hedges with the electric trimmer and the plug constantly coming out of the connection because of the vibration (not sure which is worse the old-fashioned pre-electric or the electric). then the cleaning up not only with the raking but also getting down on all fours and making sure I got everything including the leaves, weeds and debris hiding underneath. 

Pruning all of the rose bushes, (that’s a good one as well) I guess they don’t like getting cut….. I get attacked from all sides by their thorns! At times they attach themselves to me so that I feel trapped….it’s almost like being in a war, for crying out loud!  Some get imbedded in my fingers. I think they talk to each other and devise a plan of attack….They see me coming with those pruners in my hand and are ready for me. But then comes June,they are pretty happy to have gone through the pruning and I guess I am as well at the sight and smell of their beautiful fragrant blossoms. (but then of course I am at battle again all through the summer trying to save them against the destroying beetles, (they are Disgusting with a capital D!) and the diseases that try to attack them) NEVER-ENDING ! And roses are ferocious feeders and drinkers!  Time & $$ !! 

Then there is all the mulching ! thank God I have a motorized cart these days or the use of the tractor to haul the mulch back and forth all over this place! I can’t believe I use to do so much of this without them in past years. But I still have to shovel it into the wheelbarrow to get it into many places The part I dislike the most is being on my hands and knees (and combating the stinking flies that are all over you, in your ears, your nose your mouth, well you get the picture?) for such long periods of time to do the “prep” work before putting down the mulch then carrying all those many loads of debris to my dumping site. Oh I forgot, there is also all the edging that has to be done before this takes place in the lawn areas. The feeding/fertilizing is not too bad except for the weighty manure bags which gets spread around the strawberry patches, currant bushes, rhubarb, peonies and on certain flowering shrubs. Oh the thrill of it all !!  The trips to the nurseries to load up and load out all the supplies. Oh and a lovely experience is to be in a hot car with bags of manure which have torn open. That is a real treat!! 

I can remember seeing a neighbor of mine in one of our past abodes, by her poolside gardens, looking beautiful,all dressed in dazzling white with dazzling white sneakers…can you believe it?! Gardening!  Here I am in tattered, frumpy, stained, torn and dirty pants, old, t-shirt, either a dirty old baseball cap or one of those rice-paddy type straw hats on (so my hair does not get dis-colored),I look real cute (not) as a matter of fact I remember my parents coming to visit once and didn’t recognize me and if someone comes to deliver something they think I am one of the guys, a groundskeeper. I wonder why that is? Ha, ha ! 

I could go on and on and on with a list of all the other “chores” that have to be done on this “high-maintenance” property (right down to the lake-front area and in-between). Seems like everywhere you look, every nook and cranny needs attention. (and it’s not like I haven’t tried to think of ways to make it less-maintaining) it’s just that kind of place. You would think that I would be more fit looking after this season? Must be my age.  Hey ! Do I sound like I am whining and complaining??  Nah. 

Then there are the hours of being on all fours doing the planting, OUCH ! My back and my legs are screaming at me the whole time.

(of course if I was 50 lbs. lighter and younger? Would certainly be a different story) In saying that, I can actually remember those days…..there was no stopping me,  the digging, the cobblestones, etc. etc. Paul would have to turn on the lights so I can see outside or blink them off and on to try to get me inside. I could whiz through this whole property without a complaint-even got into the wooded area  to clean it out. So…..here I am at 63 and some things haven’t changed much…..where the heck did all of this arthritis come from anyway? I am sitting at this computer trying to avoid going outside to finish trimming the hedges around the rose garden and picking up all the huge piles from yesterday. 

I think people who are not familiar with gardening most likely do not realize all of the “prep” work that is required, they only get to enjoy seeing the finished product which I guess is what most gardeners are blessed with as the fruits of their labor….the satisfaction of seeing that enjoyment on peoples faces when they are in those gardens. And there are times that I can look out of my window or sit at my deck and really appreciate that first great bloom in the month of June. So beautiful!  And the birds ! They sing to me all day, especially the little wren.

But still…..the gardens are always beckoning me, “Come out, come out wherever you are”……..I simply cannot walk these gardens or grounds without seeing something that needs tending or weeding of some sort. 

Well as I said, there are “MANY” other things I have not mentioned but hey, I am lucky and thankful to have this work to do and a body though worn, still able to do much of it, (though more slowly)…..and so now that I have” vented”…….I do have to go out and finish the trimming of the hedges and the mulching, etc. etc. etc. 

Wouldn’t it be a dream if you could have a couple of professional gardeners that you could just tell what you wanted and all that was required of you was to wear a pretty outfit and hat and just go out and water the garden or pick flowers?  WOW ! Oh, dream on…..dream on.  Isn’t there a Disney song that says, “Dreams do come true?” 

From my garden to yours………HAPPY GARDENING !!!!! 

p.s. did I mention that I am allergic to bees ?!

Response to 'Venting'....

From the eyes of the beholder....

We drive up to your house, I can hear the sound of the pebbles under the tires of the car as we roll down the driveway to park. The first thing we see is the beautiful garden that you've been working so hard on. We get out of the car, usually with our towels and a bottle of chardonnay in hand. My mother and I saying “Oh my god, look at all the work she's done! Mom, look at the rose bush! Oh look, she has her bird feeder out with a flower floating in it. Mom, look at Mary overlooking the garden. What a sight she gets to behold each day. And look how happy the flower bush is that came from Memere and Pepere's land. Mom you can go in and see Auntie, I think I'm going to walk around out here.”  As I walk through the garden, it makes me think about how I dream to one day have my own land to plant flowers and vegetables on. I look at the cobblestones, the mulch, the beautiful blooms and the flowers you chose to put there. Something about a garden that makes you feel so good. The winter is finally behind and we get to enjoy a couple months of warmth, beauty and flowers. There is something spiritual about your garden.  It could be the birds that are there, it could be the statues, the statue of the blessed virgin, the bird feeders, the feel that your land is so private, the water down below, or maybe the thought of how much fun and many great memories I have with you, Uncle Paul and my family at your place. It is so beautiful there. For you, you see things that need weeding, cleaning, raking, pruning, mulching, watering...for us, we see complete paradise. The lawn is perfect, the flowers in the planters and pots are so colorful, the vegetables are in neat rows and soon will be used in a Martha Stewart-like dish that you make.

You fill the 4 wheeler with some delicious treats that you whipped up, “oh it's nothing" and my mother and I drool at what you've made. We make our way down to the boat house where more pots of flowers greet us. We go onto the boat at the dock and sit back with our glasses filled with wine, our hands are holding great magazines and we sit and chat and eat crackers and cheese (probably my absolute favorite thing to eat) and we laugh and drink and enjoy the sun on our bodies. You decide we need a little music, so you put on IZ and we listen to his voice, an echo of an angel from the spirit of a wonderful man from Hawaii that knew and still knows how to make so many people smile and feel so good. His voice, so sweet, sings words that bring a smile to your heart.

I know that your garden takes a lot from you like your energy, your strength, and pain in your hands, feet, knees and muscles. But I hope that you know that for me, your garden and land bring an instant smile to my face. Just writing this email and thinking about the times at your house actually brought me to tears. Any time that I had a chance to bring a friend to see your gardens and home, I was so proud to show them all that you had done.

In my mind, when I think about the most relaxing place I could possibly be, I ALWAYS think about relaxing at your house on the docked boat. I live in Hawaii and yet still think about how much I enjoy a visit to your house.

I say all of this not because I want to make you feel good, I say it because your gardens and you have inspired me in so many ways. So, all I have to say is, your hard work does not go unnoticed.

Love you! Jill