While the weeds/grass competition would drive me crazy, I do love all the flowers and massive beds of daylilies.

Have you ever tried Preen? :P

Thank you, I always enjoy your photos. That is a lot of money invested in Day lilies.

that is the price you have with flowerbeds

You get used to the weed/grass competition. It is the groundcover effect often recommended to get rid of the lonely plants in an ocean of mulch look. It just takes some editing to train it down to a shorter height. I have been known to use ornamec - fluazifob -P-butyl1 on occasion for some of the harder to pull more annoying grasses. There is a story to go with it, but I put a stop to the annual spreading of countless buckets of Preen when I arrived. Slowing the indiscriminate and largely ineffective (long term results) use of glyphosate was a bigger challenge.

Catalogs Emmarene. She loves her catalogs.

Wow, very nice.

(Just checking your sense of humor. :-)

How beautiful! Can I borrow her for a week or two? 😄

A woman after my own heart. I have hundreds planted hither and yon too. And as I've gotten older and slower, the weeds grow with them. I love those blue weeds!

Debra

The blue ‘weeds’ are chicory. Does that make them seem less ‘weedy’? I love your style of gardening, Christopher. I imagine it’s alive with insects and other wildlife. I really hate the blobs in a mulch desert approach.

Beautiful!

matter chicory has some health benefits as well

My experience with Chicory is it is a stinker to get out and although pretty will eventually along with grass and queen's anne's lace choke out the dayliiles. You would think that daylilies are strong hardy plants but I have found here that just one season of not controlling the weeds means big daylily losses. I am fighting chicory, QAL , grass , Lamb's quarters ( another stinker to get out ) and sow thistle , regular thistle , yellow dock and creeping charlie to mention a few . I doubt I will ever get rid of all or any of these because I am surrounded by farmer's fields and all around the edges of where they don't plow the weeds are rampantly spreading their seeds into my gardens via birds? other animals ?

I hope you were kidding about all the chemicals you have used? Especially glyphosate . None of which do much anymore because the weeds have become pesticide resistant .not to mention the poison you are putting in the ground and on you when you use it

Oh my the claims about glyphosate ... it is both a ruthless killer where a few dilute drops will take out massive plants and the gardens surrounding them .. and it is also almost completely ineffective! I find it to be in the middle where it continues to kill the weeds to which it's applied. I haven't found it to be any less or more effective than it was 40 years ago.

Well there is plenty of science showing glyphosate is a killer of the human microbiome.

And I have personally witnessed it create an expanding dead zone in my parent’s lawn.

Jinx please. Come take my mother for two weeks. You can have her for a while. My 92 year old mother and I would make a fine catalyst for a British gardening sitcom.

Shive the thicker the daylilies get the fewer weeds can come up. As long as the flowers are on top, it's all good.

Thanks floral_uk. A Gentle Plea for Chaos. With this much land it is pretty much a necessity. I have the insect, bird and wildlife of the national park next door. It is a full on living zoo.

Chicory is one of my favorite weeds. It has many uses and an interesting history I imagine.

Signit you have some gnarly weeds. If you are in the middle of farm country anyone one of them could be roundup resistant. I have not come across any resistant weeds in ornamental landscapes yet. I think it's just a matter of time though. Chicory and Queen Anne's lace are two of my favorites here. I would suggest you make Creeping Charlie your friend in the daylily beds. Bulbarella makes up for any plant loss from competition by sheer volume. Plus she has divided and spread the strong that have lived for years.

No I am not kidding about the chemicals I have used. Preen is not one of them. They are a last resort and absolutely not a replacement for the actual work of gardening and the care of plants. They are used rarely and correctly. I pretty much put a stop to the use of chemicals as a go to solution in this garden. Better gardening with chemistry has not turned out well.

Yardvaark you're on your own. I hear ya though. I'm still chuckling about the Preen comment to start things off.

ulisdone it was the Garlon, a potent tree killing utility company herbicide with the expanding dead spots that I had to quickly take away from my parents.

I have been trying out a new spray the last couple weeks. Damn deer. Get Off My Lawn! Deer are always a lively garden topic. In the last two years they have become a problem. Before there was always plenty to share. Their browsing was barely noticeable. Lately they have been spending far too much time in the gardens and grazing them to the nub on a 99% native plant diet. They passed a critical tolerance threshold

I have long used cayenne pepper sprinkled on plants to deter rabbits and groundhogs and such. Why not mix it in water to spray it on all the deer food. I googled it. Turns out it is an old time remedy and people have their own special recipes. Three acres of wild cultivated gardens are now being sprayed with hot pepper water. How will all the wildlife respond?

Plant it and they will come.

I don't use them

Love all the beautiful flowers your Mom planted... along with what the birds planted. The fenceline is wonderful too.

I understand about the deer and other wildlife. I frequently said about our old place that all the gardens were was an oasis for the wildlife. They managed to eat most of every fruit and vegetable I planted.

they aren't touching the marigolds onions and garlic

I just planted Crocosmia this year, while it doesn't fit my (almost exclusive) native plant mix, I absolutely LOVE the shape of the plant and the flowers. I see you have one as well, which is why I mention it. You have such lovely gardens and fields that just call to you to stroll through and see what's flitting about.

Deer are very particular about what they will eat it seems in an individual garden/habitat, but they will eat pretty much anything when needed and in the big picture. Here they rarely if ever eat the hosta and elsewhere it seems hosta are deer candy. We have an abundant supply of their known native plant food to keep them well fed.

if u want to re move dear plant peppermint garlic and onions and marigolds they will eat you azaleas bushes and rhododendrons and poison ivy

Creeping Charlie is not my friend in my daylilies. They take over, climb up over, etc. I pull every last one. Queen's Anne Lace is a huge allergen for allergy sufferers like me! It is at the top of the list like ragweed. https://www.ftd.com/blog/share/plants-allergies Chicory has a pretty flower, too bad the plant isn't.

Queen Ann's lace is in the carrot family

Changing topic again.

Let me state that the gardens you see in these pictures cannot be made with glyphosate. The two do not mix. One of my first complaints when I arrived here was all the ugly sprayed dead brown spots in the gardens. Good gardens are not supposed to have ugly brown spots. Ever. It was a good day when my mother's knees got so bad she had to put down the roundup for good.

A full decade of good land management and gardening practices was also weaning her off the desire and need to spray. The garden she always imagined she planted was beginning to show itself.

not the aster family wich ragweed comes from

watch out for non-hotskins lymphoma

Ok Howard. Will do.

Went for a walk to the back forty after supper. Bulbarella has been VERY busy planting more daylilies and iris in her new garden. She is in her happy place. She probably still has in her mind she will make it to the back fence yet. It's only another 100 feet.

One of the Sisters is going to have to retire soon. I will need some help.

Howard, I wasn't saying Queen Anne's lace was in the Ragweed family. It is as highly bothersome as ragweed. See the link I posted.