The daylilies have almost gone by. There are a few more days of blossoms, I think. Each blossom gets one day, then, sadly, gone until next summer. Sort of amazing - I try to remember to observe closely because I might miss something magical.
I fell in love with daylilies while I was growing up in rural Connecticut. They just grew wild along the road and old stone walls throughout the countryside. My mom grew them - by the pond, by the barn, by the road, by the house, and by the compost pile. When I moved away from home and could have my own garden, she gave me my first plants - divisions of decades old daylilies and iris. I still have their descendants in my Maine garden today, divided and multiplied annually.
I think I like daylilies best when they are random, unexpected, and un-deadheaded, and not necessarily in a formal garden. I imagine that they've been in that spot for a hundred years, maybe outliving any original intent or design They are beautifully common and happily surprising. They are whimsical.
Like by a woodpile and paving stones.
Or a telephone pole.
Or in front of a house.
Or by the harbor.
Or holding a spider's web.
Or in Monet's Garden . . .
+1914-17.jpg) |
| Claude Monet Hemerocallis 1914-1917 |
"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." - Claude Monet
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| Claude Monet Daylilies on the Riverbank 1914-1917 |
"It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly." Claude Monet
