This is the story of one orange daylily that appeared in the garden uninvited. No one is sure how it managed this, but there are rumors that it may have been attached to another plant that was intentionally introduced into the garden. However it managed to find its way into the garden the real story is all about what has happened since. The tale is told by Gayla Trail on her You Grow Girl blog.
We call them ditch lilies here, a disparaging double entendre that eludes to their place in the proper garden plant hierarchy as well as their preferred wild landscape.
It came into my garden uninvited, an opportunist that hitched a ride in some little pot of earth alongside another plant, probably something gifted or bought at a horticultural society plant sale.
I knew what it was as soon as the leaves appeared. Day lilies were one of the first edible flowers I foraged back in high school under the instruction of a library withdrawal whose title I no longer recall. Years later I planted a small patch of them in the Guerrilla Garden, a hand me down from a friend?s mom?s garden. They soon took over a chunk of that space and I can recall a hot summer day spent pounding at the hard, compacted soil with a shovel in an attempt to thwart their imminent takeover. Some strangers came by in a car and offered up a plant they had just dug out of their own garden (I can?t recall what it was) in exchange for a few clumps that I was all too happy to give away freely. It?s not that I don?t like day lilies ? I like them much, much more than most. Were my garden a sprawling farm, I?d have some nice large stands of them in all sorts of colours. But here, in a small urban yard where land is at a premium, one has to get honest about space, and anything this pushy and downright uncooperative has got to go.
Read the rest at You Grow Girl
