Hemerocallis, Speaking of Lilies....

Patsy Carpenter

I have a weakness. . . . and it is pretty: Hemerocallis or the Daylily. Mixed with the natives that I have planted to feed, host and nurture the wildlife in our yard, we have day lilies.

 Almost too many to remember all their names, and yet I do. I should, as I have marked each one with its own stainless steel marker labeled with the flower's name, hybridizer and the year it was registered.

My husband and I belong to the Southern Michigan Daylily Society.  I know, you are thinking, it goes against everything I have written, Trouble in Native Paradise. It is a weakness and I will let you be the judge as you browse through the slide show of the beautiful flowers that make me smile as I walk through the garden each morning and get to take pictures of them before they fade away into the night, if I am a hypocrite.

As Sara Stein stated in her book, Noah's Garden, Restoring The Ecology of our Own Back Yards. "Our task is therefore nothing less than to create a new landscape". She wonderfully explains throughout her book how we all can help and recover how suburban development has on a grand scale wrought habitat destruction, one backyard at a time. We can mix the biodivesity of our plantings to help recover habitat loss and still maintain the beauty of our gardens.

I welcome your comments. Should one be a purist? Or can there be diversity in relandscaping our yards to support wildlife?