Day Lilies are easy to grow & are dependable spring & summer bloomers. They’re also edible. I’ve heard that the chefs at Sooke Harbour House like to stuff the blossoms & serve them at dinner.
Well, that might be interesting & all, but I still have a hard time even picking the flowers in our garden. They’re just so decorative as they are!
Most often the choice is not mine.
photo by SVSeekins
For several years I’ve watched the lilies develop promise. The bud just starts to turn colour, & I think, “Tomorrow it will open into a beautiful flower.”
It turns out that the deer think, “‘Today it’s at its peak tastiness.”
photo by SVSeekins
Midnight snack.
This year it’s different. This might not look spectacular as a botanical garden display bed of day lily, but in a yard that’s shared with deer, I’m pretty excited to see so many blossoms at one time.
photo by SVSeekinsphoto by SVSeekins
So what’s the deal? I’m not really sure. I haven’t sprayed any stinky deterrent around the place. Perhaps the lowly day lily is just out of fashion for deer this year?
Yeah baby 🙂
One thing I have noticed that’s also unusual, is that the lupins have been nibbled instead… OK…
photo by SVSeekins
Lupins are easy to grow & are dependable spring bloomers. Fair enough. This year I’ll enjoy day lily blooms & consider it a fair trade-off.
Last week I flew into Alberta expecting their usual June entertainment. Hot sunshine, rampant mosquitoes and evening lightning storms. The big sky & open prairies create that kind of excitement. I wasn’t expecting a touch of the tropics, but that’s what appeared before me at the Edmonton International Airport.
photo by SVSeekins
Even though family was waiting for me at arrivals, I just had to stop & check it out. Through the glass, I could see the wall descended a 2nd full story down into another part of the airport. It was a massive living wall garden!
photo by SVSeekins
The lounge to the left of the glass was a lovely spot for passengers to relax while waiting to board their planes. It also allowed me the opportunity to walk up close to see if the plants were real. They were. 🙂
This particular wall was created by Mike Weinmaster of Green Over Grey, a company that builds green walls across North America. Apparently, Mike has a Masters of Science in Environmental Engineering & Sustainable Infrastructure. It figures it would take some know-how for adding moist tropicals to a building’s wall without having it rot out & fall down in short order. 🙂
photo by Barbara Hansen
As it turns out, these are the same folk who created the world’s largest outdoor living wall on the library in Surrey (Vancouver). Some friends & I ran across that piece of public art shortly after it was planted in the fall of 2010.
It has all sorts of drought-tolerant native plants that typically thrive on rocky cliff sides with minimal soil. I figured it was smart to add the new plantings in autumn after the stress of summer heat had passed. The new little guys were probably much happier getting acclimatized during the fall wet.
I’ve wanted to make a pilgrimage back there, to see how the vertical garden is surviving. Imagine the 3D effect of a short mat of wild strawberries, interspersed with Oregon grape shrubs & grasses growing out from the wall itself. That’s depth & texture, eh?
Photo by Barbara Hansen
A couple of months later, those same friends from the Vancouver trip discovered a small version of a bio wall inside a little café in Victoria’s Atrium building. When I inquired, it turned out Green Over Grey created it as well. What wonderful botanical art!
Since then, I’ve been looking for a guest for our garden club to speak about creating a vertical garden. More projects are showing up around town, but so far, folks are so busy building these plant walls, that I haven’t been able to get anyone to spare an evening for us. I can understand. These projects look pretty fun to me. I wouldn’t want a distraction from my goal of completing one. 🙂
The camas meadow swaying in the spring breeze is like no other. Suddenly I’m walking in a fairytale instead of strolling in a Victoria park. Has my mind gone wild? Could I ever have come up with a dream so lovely? No. It must be real.
Camas meadows have flourished on South Vancouver Island longer than memory reaches into the past. The southern slope of Beacon Hill has been a camas meadow for centuries. It’s probably one of the key reasons it’s preserved as a park today. The same goes for the Garry oak meadows of Mt. Tolmie Park. At this time of year, they’re magical places.
Early peoples saw more than beauty in the camas; they saw food. I wonder who it was to first realize the bulbs are delicious?
photo by SVSeekins
Perhaps she had gardening tendencies like mine; seeing a lovely flower automatically triggers an urge to have that flower in my own garden. (I’m known to dig up plants from roadsides.)
Before we moved from the Cedar Hill property to the Richmond house, I dug up as many camas as possible. The Garry oak meadow in the backyard was a great natural source for them, but the digging wasn’t so easy.
When I was able to dig deep enough, I often found the bulb tucked securely in a tight rocky crevice. Un-obtainable! I did manage to get a good number of bulbs (perhaps 2 dozen), but there was no risk of over-harvesting that hillside.
photo by SVSeekins
There was certainly more risk of starvation if camas had been my only sustenance. A good deal of effort for a very small reward. That gardener from long ago must’ve had more ingenuity than I have.
Apparently, she figured out a method that includes burning the meadow first. (?!?!…) Perhaps that was a way of cooking the camas in the process? By the time she got one out of the ground, it was already transformed into a sweet treat? I just can’t figure it….
Happily, after all my sweat equity, I now enjoy blooming borders.
It times out nicely. When the foliage of the spring bulb dies back, the daylily takes over for the summer. And from all that bounty, it’s only the latter that the deer like to feast on. 🙂
Garden Variety Life 