Hello Gardening Friends

Thanks again to all who ordered, visited and otherwise added interest to our summer of 2008. There seens to be more and more new daylily cultivars registered and added to the market each year. Thus selecting the evergreen repeat bloomers that thrive in our mild California Climate is a continuing challenge. CHERRY CHARM, HOTTER THAN JULY, and CATCHER IN THE RYE, have caught our eye in the past couple of years. We have decided that is because they bloom so much. BANANA BERRY TRUFFLE and LEMON BERRY TRUFFLE are both really great newer doubles even though LEMON BERRY TRUFFLE does not always bloom double in our cool climate. It does have a huge big lemon colored bloom.

We see more refinement and sophistication in the edged and eyed daylily cultivars. HILLBILLY HEART, LEMON ROUGE, and HELLO SCREAMER have been added to our list. DARK REFLECTIONS is proving to be popular, but the foliage does shrink a little in winter.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is finding smaller daylilies with small flowers for compact gardens. Of the 24 orginal daylily species only 2 were small and both of these were dormant. So, even though many, many daylily generations have passed it is still hard to find truly small evergreen repeat blooming daylilies. AMAZONIAN AMULET is small, but the foliage goes down a little in winter. SPACECOAST TINY PERFECTION, JAVANESE JEWEL, and COMING UP ROSES are small to medium. We are evaluating some new purchases that we hape can help fill this void. And we hope to see you in the garden in the summer of 2009.

Penny and Phil Ben