God creates and God creates creators, letting it all loose and saying “Here you go, paint what you want, with all the time and resources of heaven available to you.”
So here is this year’s painting, proven in the recent drought years of the Lake Diefenbaker area.
The sky of summer and fall was in a constant glow of the smoke covered sun from the forest fires that blazed in northern Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Many flower photos taken over the last few years are tinted with an alpenglow effect. Clear blue skies were rare and the dusty peach colouring of ‘Alpenglow Hour’ is a nod to hazy summer light.
‘Alpenglow Hour’ grew and multiplied out in the windswept field with minimal watering. 10 years in the making, these big glowing flowers are ready to leave Lilyfield and flourish in another garden.
‘Aplenglow Hour’ has huge reflexed flowers that would make a statement plant in any perennial garden.
The second in the dry summer series is tall and strong ‘Sweetgrass’. This daylily reaches to the sun carrying beautifully formed peach and mauve flowers. ‘Sweetgrass’ brings new colour, form and pattern into our tall group of daylilies that include creamy yellow Prairie Elevator, and bronze orange Old Fashion Plain.
‘Sweetgrass’ will elevate your eyes in the garden. Wouldn’t it pair great with a silvery grey companion plant?
Flower form is what catches my eye when I’m first looking at a new seedling. I love an evenly round cheery face and “Sweetgrass’ has that.
Our third release from the garden is the fancy faced ‘Levin’. What makes ‘Levin so special is that it is a baby from our own wildly unique ‘River Walks And Lattes’. They both exhibit a beautiful purple pattern around the eyezone that extends onto the flower petals.
Levin has a simple petal form that recurves nicely on warm days. The flower petals create a cream bowl shape that highlights the purple pattern above the vibrant yellow throat. ‘Levin’ is named for the farming character in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. While Levin worked in the fields and managed the farm, his mind was thinking about how one goes about becoming a good person and sharing that with others.
It is a privilege to invest time to work among these perennial flowers for improved varieties, it is a lonely and quiet task. As I dab pollen, plant seed, dig and divide giant clumps of overgrown daylilies, there I can think through how I can actively do the good I know to do. It is like a 12 step program in the dirt.
Thank you for letting me share the special plants that have been grown here at Lilyfield.