Daylily Daze: June 2008

Jack Carpenter's Lily Farm
The Lily Farm

Today, I bit the bullet and went to visit Jack Carpenter at his daylily farm here in Texas. His place is about four hours away from where I live, so I left at 6am this morning!

I was ready to be happy and be in dayliliville, but NOTHING had prepared me for what I saw... OH MY GOD! It was daylily heaven. There were daylilies as far as the eye could see... On and on the rows went.

Josie came out in the golf cart and saw my mouth agape, and that dazed look in my eyes... she knew right away I was new to their farm! :o) She instructed me in how it worked, which was:

1) Go pick out some little plant marking flags (I figured I needed about 5 - HA! that was a joke, I was outta flags in five minutes!)

2) Wander through daylily heaven, and mark the daylilies you might like to have. Jack came along at this point, and guided me to the proper beds to pick some things out. You see, there are some beds that are going to be NEW introductions and some that are being evaluated (you can tell those by the BLUE flags). Thankfully, we snuck around the "blue" beds too... :o)

3) At the point where you have exhausted ALL the flags in their bucket, and have inspected every daylily - you can hardly walk another step, they come around and pick you up in the golf cart, and then you get to discuss DAYLILIES! Whaaa Whoooo!

Jack and Josie drove me all over the farm - I had some in mind that I wanted (or at LEAST wanted to see), and I had marked quite a few! It was so fun listening to Jack tell me about his flowers, and he pointed out quite a few of his favorites, and picked some of the blooms for me.

(The blooms in the photo are: Land Of Our Fathers, Texas Kaleidoscope, Pat Soileau, Ohio Discovery, Texas Feathered Fancy, and an unnamed gold sculpted seedling)

He answered every question I had, and showed me examples of the flowers I had questions about. As we went around, he also let me know what was on sale, and what was available. There were so many seedlings on sale for $25/clump! I couldn't believe it!

Without further ado - on with the show!!

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NAMED CV'S:

Beauty of the King

Cosmic Kaleidoscope - Going to be a new intro:

Delware Doosy

Forever Redeemed

Freedom's Triumph

Glory in Red

Morning Breaks Eternal

Mount Herman Intrigue

No Greater Love

Red Dynamite

Sassy Sam

Sunrise Sunset Beautiful

Texas Blue Eyes

Texas Painted Eyes

Timeless Majesty

Triangular Tricksy

Warrior Victorius

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SEEDLINGS:

The next three I tried to get... but those darned blue flags kept getting in the way!

Couldn't get this one!

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MY PURCHASES:

And then there are the ones I got. Yippe!!! Man, were those hard decisions. I ended up leaving flags out in the field, because I just couldn't buy anymore! I guess there is always next year! :o) Broke the bank for sure! Now, keep in mind that the Carpenter's were having an open house, and a lot of what I bought was on sale... otherwise there was no way I could have afforded what I got. Now, THIS is the way to buy daylilies! I even managed to sneak away with three of Jack's seedlings... :o)

Plum Eyed Delight

Ivory Finesse

Lavender Exaltation

Levi Davis

Moments Rich in Blessing

Dr. Julius Charba

Here is a picture of the clump I got - pictured after I got home

Bonus - Ellis Powell

I also got two more seedlings, Royal Passion, and Texas Feathered Fancy... but I guess I got distracted and didn't get a picture of them in the field.

I did get a flower of TFF - so I took a picture when I got home

And here is a very beaten up flower from one of the seedlings (after I got home)

And a bad picture of Royal Passion, after it had been dug

As we were driving around, I got to pick them out as we went. Then Jack's assistant, Jose, dug them with a shovel and they they went into the back of the golf cart. I don't speak too much spanish, but enough to know what Mr. Carpenter kept telling Jose... Mas Grande! Boy did those two words make me very happy! And mas grande they were! Here they all are... I think I went a little crazy from the smell of daylilies and all the heat! :o)

(YES, those ARE the gigantic 55 gallon trashbags stuffed FULL)

The high that came from the smell of daylilies lasted all the way home... But, about 1 hour from the house, I started to panic. Where in the love of god am I goint to get pots big enough for these monsters? I would have to plant them in 5 gallon buckets. Pots just weren't going to work here. Thankfully, the daylily buzz gave me enough energy to plant them after a quick break from the drive.

Here they are at home... waiting to be free!

After I lugged the bags into the backyard, I still couldn't believe how BIG the clumps were... so I took a picture of one next to my leg and by the door, so you could see that they are HIP high! No WONDER ya'll like to buy straight from the farm!

Seedling Clump

Whew... and if an 8 hour drive and 2 hours on the farm wasn't enough... I managed to get them planted.

I just could have kicked myself in the Butt - REAL hard! I broke off a huge scape from Dr. Julius Charba while I was planting... I hope some will bloom in water! It even had a prolif. So SAD! (That is a 30" Ruler)!!

And the last note on the new flowers... Moments Rich in Blessing came home with a pod on it!!! Bonus!

Here are some pics of the flowers Jack picked for me - now keep in mind this is after a four hour car ride home, and after a full days bloom, so they are not looking too hot. But, I wanted you to be able to really get an idea of the colors we are looking at!

Texas Painted Eyes