Strangers in the Plotting Shed

Many years ago we did a house swap with a family in Pennsylvania, who amongst raising Suffolk sheep, ran a day lily (Hemerocallis) nursery with an acre of wonderful plants of all colours. This is the species that produces one new flower every day for most of the summer.

A year or two later the family returned to Yorkshire for a visit and the day before they arrived, a Fed Ex parcel of bare bulbs arrived, having been washed, inspected by customs and delivered within a day.

There were at least 8 bulbs all with special names like Bonnie Lennox, a pale apricot beauty. We made a special bed by the shed so they could have a permanent home but alas, the careful plan of each name I made has disappeared. The colours range from white, yellow, purple, plum and bronze.

Each autumn we clear, divide and share spares among friends or sell on the church plant stall. Now they blossom in the four corners of the country. These beautiful strangers hold their own against, bindweed and other perennial invaders. I have spent many a morning searching for that planting plan but no matter. I guess it will turn up where least expected but before the next Open Gardens event.

What is a garden without transplants from former homes, cuttings from friends and neighbours, self-seeders popping up unexpectedly? One of the best gifts we received was from an obliging bird who whose droppings contained seeds of a hybrid blackberry. The fruits are now the size of strawberries but it is a rampant thug and needs cutting down to size.