Thursday, July 30, 2009

Gladiolus and Daylilies and Non-Gardening Husbands

From In the Garden

When is a daylily not a daylily? Well, when it is a gladiolus of course! Mr. Fix-it and I ventured out to Guthrie Highway and The Tin Barn for a blackberry picking jaunt and daylily purchasing trip at the Tin Barn. I thought it would be fun if he picked out a daylily he really liked and I too would pick one. Keep in mind that Mr. Fix-it does not garden. He does enjoy the garden but does not garden and claims to know nothing much about gardening.

Mrs. Oakes, our local daylily breeder, gave us a handful of orange flags so we could flag the plants we liked. I always purchase seedlings since they are the most economical way to increase my daylily holdings. For $10 I can get a very large clump
of great looking daylilies. I would like named cultivars but at $10 per fan I think that it is not the smartest move for me so we go the thrifty way and buy only seedlings. To the fields we went on our venture to get the right un-named daylily.I picked a tangerine looking daylily with orange petals. It was in a separate field from where Mr. Fix-it was looking for his daylily. He picked his 'daylily' much faster than I picked mine. When Mr. Fix-it and I found one another again he mused that he was not sure if he flagged a daylily since the 'lily' had flowers all up and down the stem. Ha! I knew right away what he had done. Mrs. Oakes' daylily beds had gladiolus interspersed in and amongst the daylilies. I must say these glads were brilliant and most pretty. No wonder he flagged one! All is well that ends well though. Mrs. Oakes kindly gave us the gladiolus-no charge-and Mr. Fix-it found himself a nice tall raspberry colored daylily too after quite a bit of ribbing from me. You know how it is when husbands make really silly mistakes? Non-gardening or not! Poor guy. To be fair to him though now that I look at the pictures of the two plants I can kind of see a resemblance. Kind of:)

What kinds of flowers have you or someone you know confused the identification before?

in the garden....


P.S. We now have nightly lessons on flowers in the garden. Nah, just kidding. ;-0

31 comments:

  1. Too funny, Madame keeps calling clover, honeysuckle. She asked me, even though we got it thru her head it's clover, if she could still call it that because she sucks on the bottom of the blooms and it's sweet. I told her she could call it whatever she wants as long as she doesn't pick it by the dog's potty. That has ended that!

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  2. Great story Tina. My sweet hubby calls all flowers "impatients."
    Just a name he can remember--makes for pretty confusing consersation at times! :)
    Have a good day--it's stormy again here this morning!

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  3. wonderful pictures of beautyful flowers ! love Kathrin

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  4. Hi Tina, I am glad you got to bring home some of those Glads, they are really pretty. We don't have mixups per se. We get songs associated with the plant--- Magnolias- 'magnolia you sweet thing', amaryllis- 'amarillo by morning', or begonias- 'ruby begonia'.

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  5. My DH says..."did you see your large white flowers are open on the side of the house?"...for the white stargazer lilies. My hubby is a veggie gardner and most of the time has problems ID-ing everything else.

    The fact he went with you is all that matters. Gotta have fun.

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  6. Hi Tina, those glads are gorgeous. I can see why he picked them. Interesting about choosing seedlings. There is one daylily grower near me, I'll have to check that out.
    Marnie

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  7. Good morning all!

    Dawn, Too funny on the clover! That's like don't eat the yellow snow:)

    Linda, That works for sure! Makes flower identification easy.

    Kathrin, Danke!

    Janet, I think that is too cute and fun!

    Patsi, It's great your husband gardens-veggies or not. Super! Those stargazers of yours are awesome for sure and nice of your hubby to notice.

    Marnie, 3 clumps of glads in a field filled with 1000s of daylilies-still can't figure it out but they are pretty. Yes, seedlings are more economical. The clump hubby bought got us 3 good sized clumps once divided. When I bought Hyperion I bought 3 clumps and wound up with 60 fans! I thought that was most great and usually you know no one else has quite the same daylily.

    Everyone have a great day! I'm headed to the garden and can't wait!

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  8. Oh that is priceless, Tina! I can see The Financier doing something similar in the past. All those nightly lessons here have been paying off and he now knows quite a bit. If he can do it, anyone's non gardening spouse can. Both the glad and the daylily are gorgeous. :-)
    Frances

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  9. Everyone makes mistakes! I would probably go the cheap route as well Tina with the daylilies. I'm learning this year that I'm not a big fan of glads. Everyone of them has fallen over and I really don't want to mess with stakes. I'll move them into a spot all together soon so that I don't have to mess with them falling in front of the mower. More than one has nearly met an untimely demise!

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  10. You're lucky to live close to such a wonderful daylily farm.

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  11. I was talking about acanthus mollis and my significant other asked me about acanthus MOLLUSK which I quite enjoyed.

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  12. I can see why Mr. Fix-it was drawn to the glad:) My husband hasn't a clue about flowers or "decorative" plants, but he sure keeps an eye out on my vegetable garden. Yesterday he reminded me that I really should have thinned out those carrots.

    Beckie and I visited a daylily farm last week and had so much fun trying to pick out a few to take home. We were both perfectly happy with the cheaper cultivars that were just as pretty as some of the expensive ones. I can see how a daylily collector could spend a fortune on them, though!

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  13. Both flowers are beautiful. I go along with the less expensive ones. Doesn't matter what color as long as they bloom.
    My glads fell over too even though I had staked them up. Next time I will tie them. lol.
    So glad Mr Fix-it went with you. It's always nice to have company.

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  14. I gotta stick up for my son in law on this one. Never thought of it before but glads do look kinda like a day lily that has a whole string of blooms. LOL Besides I really like the glads and probable would chose one over a day lily. So thumbs up to you Mr Fix-It.

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  15. Oh darn I meant to tell Dawn that is funny with Madame and the clover. That being said, I guess clover really likes lots of rain as it has really been outstanding this year. I went to Portland yesterday and all the way I just kept seeing very high gorgeous clover everywhere.

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  16. That's a beautiful glad! Isn't it kind of late in the year for them?--Randy

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  17. Ha that is too funny Tina. Tell Mr. Fix-it that I'm laughing with him not at him. :) My grandmother who's been gardening for years gets the names mixed up all the time. So he shouldn't feel bad. :)

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  18. So is Mrs. Oakes related to the family that runs Oakes Daylilies in Corryton, Tennessee? I ordered from them last year and am enjoying the daylilies as they bloom for the first time this year.

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  19. That is such a funny story Tina. lol The glad that MFI picked is awesome and I see why he was attracted to it. The Saint and I often go to the Garden Center together and he picks out items but to this day, he still does not know what anything is called. He knows the Butterfly bushes, Banana and Cypress tree’s and that is about all. lol. but on the other hand, I dont know a lot of his car parts either... :-)

    I can hear thunder in the distance. Come on rain....

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  20. Frances, Kudos to the Financier and good job to you for teaching him. It is important. (at least to us;)

    Dave, I am not a big fan of glads either but not because they need staking. They do not bloom very long. That is a problem. But my oh my they make great cut flowers. Poor glads are quaking when you get on the lawn mower I am sure. That is why they fell over-from fear:) Cheap route is good sometimes.

    Sweetbay, Do you have a daylily farm near you? I seem to remember your area a wonderful area for gardeners. I loved living and gardening in Fayetteville. I just didn't like that sandy soil. We are lucky here for sure.

    Megan, Too funny! I bet he won't make that mistake again. Then again, I bet there are lots of mollusks in the garden:)

    Rose, Great that your hubby pays attention to the veggies. I am not sure but it seems a gender thing that men seem to like veggies more than flowers. Rare is the man who gardens but there are many out there-a good thing. I bet you and Beckie had a great time! I seem to remember you gifted her a special daylily. Very thoughtful of you.

    Lola, I use curvy metal stakes. They are barely visible to me and I just simply loop some twine around the whole bunch. It works okay. Even better is picking them when in their prime. Yes, Mr. Fix-it is the best to go with me.

    Mom, Mr. Fix-it will surely appreciate your support, of course everyone always takes his side over me anyhow:) I'll tell him. He has been working so hard lately. I planted his glad where he can see it regularly right behind his truck.

    Randy and Jamie, It was such a unique color glad for sure. Not too late for glads here. They are still blooming. I have a few orange ones and maybe one or two pink ones. I am not a real fan of them but do grow them for some reason. Once you grow them you can never ever get rid of them because they come back each year.

    Racquel, Mr. Fix-it got a good laugh himself so no worries at all. He is a laid back kind of guy who sure got it from me. I am surprised your grandmother gets names mixed up. She is such a good gardener but it is okay. They grow the same regardless of what we call them. Just look at those d^&%$# weeds. They grow great despite any name we may think of calling them.

    VW, She gets that question all the time and the answer is no. Many know the Knoxville Oakes but not so many know Mrs. Oakes. She is a fine gardener and wonderfully generous. She has registered many daylilies. I am not sure if she does mail order but she does win awards from the AHS.

    Skeeter, Mr. Fix-it tried to use that mechanic excuse on me. He said I'd know nothing of the workings but hey, I told him I at least know the difference between a wrench and a screwdriver! I thought that being in a field of 1000s of daylilies he'd figure out3 clumps of glads were not the same. But it is okay, all is fine. Too funny for sure. Your Saint does well in the garden. Boy would I ever love my husband to spread some manure like your guy does!

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  21. That is a funny story! My husband has done some funny things too like that.
    I do like the glad he chose though! The daylily farm sounds really fun, I don't know if we have anything like that around here. Enjoy your pretty new daylilies.

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  22. My daughter, on a rare visit to my veggie garden, once pointed to a tomato and said "that's a tomato, right?" It was then that I realized my child had been replaced in her cradle by an impostor. I mean, I get not being into gardening, but not recognizing a freakin' tomato plant?

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  23. Not sure where that list should start. Jimmy will say something looks alike and I just scratch my head, because they aren't even close. Not only not close in appearance, but then not the same color either. Kind of like saying a purple Coneflower and Black Eyed Susan are the same. :)

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  24. Funny post, it's nice for Mr. non-Gardening to go shopping with you. I hubby will think it is a torture for him to wait for me checking each plants in the nursery.

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  25. Catherine, One hardly which is worse for our husbands, the not knowing the flowers or getting the ribbing from the wives. Ha! Stay cool. The northwest again made the national news and do you know July in Tennessee has been one of the coolest ever? A good thing for us. I think our weather patterns have been reversed.

    WS, Yes, I agree exactly! I understand not knowing what type all flowers are but some things are as common as rain. I mean geez, a tomato plant and daylily should be recognizable.

    Leedra, Some folks just don't get it with flowers and we know the flowers are not the same at all, but oh well. My son's name is Jimmy also so when I saw Jimmy I had to do a double take.

    Vuejardin, It is torture for those guys for sure. Imagine if you had to wait in the auto parts store, or even worse, the fishing and hunting store for your guy to check out the parts. I know I'd be tortured. Boring! It is great for our hubbies to even go with us and I hope they know it is appreciated.

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  26. Wellllll, it was growing in a daylily field, so I can understand the mistake! He probably just thought he'd found a super-rare "fancy" kind. My SO has zero interest in/knowlege about plants. He calls everything a "bush" and is always offering to "hack" things back at bad times of year for pruning. I am not always great with plant names myself so won't make fun of anyone else's confusion, for sure!

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  27. Good morning Karen, Plant names can surely get you and poor hubby learned it the hard way. I hope you don't let your SO hack things back-that would get me:)

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  28. Non-gardening or not! - You're so right about that.
    Initially, when I was an amateur (not that I'm an expert now, but at least I've learnt a bit), I used to jump every time I see Lantana and say Verbena, because when I started blogging and visiting others' blogs, most of them had Verbenas and I whenever I see a Lavender colored Lantana, I'd ask the nursery woman, "Can this Verbena be grown in a pot?"
    "Well, that's not Verbena!" she'd reply, giving me a look that said, "I know you know nothing about plants!" I wished I were a bunny and dig myself a hole.

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  29. How cool that your hubby even go with you and join in on gardening excursions.
    My kids call everything Penstemon, heard me talking about them so much.;)
    Rosey

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  30. Hi Tina, Great story. I have a special love for glads because of the memories of my grandfather growing them against the house behind his roses. My oldest daughter carried them in her wedding bouquet so the memories continue. They were the first thing I wanted when we moved here but alas, like Dave mentioned, they fall over, and like you said, they don't bloom that long. They are gorgeous though!

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  31. Actually, I tend to call glads lilies myseld. I know what they are but always forget their name! :)

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