Getting ready to approach a Dayton Metropark Quilt..the wonders of Daylilies

Do you ever get focused on something an become sort of obsessed with it?  Well for several weeks I was going to write about  my last failed class, but I wanted to work it through on line....and could I find the drawings? Noooooo.

So, here I am.  Bear with me...my fingers are numb and it is very hard to type..I make all sorts of typos and I hope I catch them all.

The Miami Valley Art Quilt Network is getting ready for it's third series of art quilts inspired by the Miami Valley.  This time, we will be doing quilts inspired by the rather extensive Dayton Metro Parks.  There are many....but I have been to only a few.   Since it is sort of hard for me to get around, especially on uneven ground, I decided to go with a shot I already had.  This is a meadow  Englewood Metropark, right across from the Aullwood Nature Center. I took it a couple o of years ago when i still walk well.  My daughter was out running, and I went along to shoot photos.

These are common day lilies, Hemerocallis fulva, usally called "ditch lilies" in the Midwest.  They are escapees, originating from Asia, but they were brought over by the early colonists.  Bright and cheery, they are not true lilies at all, but take their name from the lily shaped flowers which last only for a day.  They have tubers, not bulbs, and the tubers, as well as the flowers are edible.  I've eaten them...not exactly one of my 'must haves" although I suspect deep frying the buds would probably taste pretty good as I have not much much that deep frying doesn't make something more edible.

This shot sort of makes me think.  I think it needs a few more lilies, although I like the wild grape and other 'weeds" growing along the edge.  I will do some drawings..

While they are invasive species, they are easily killed by round-up, or by digging so you get all the tubers...if you are patient, not terribly difficult...and by no means as hard to do in as Japanese honeysuckle or Japanese Bittersweet....or kudzu ...or a variety of other nasties.

Here, you can see them growing in a ditch not far from me on Nashville Rd.  I think this is the most significant patch I have ever seen, and I wonder if it wan't given a little "help" from  the owner.  The ditch is a drainage  ditch. The tall stuff behind the one with the barn in it is elderberries.

I find these very cheery, and when you find a patch with some chicory blooming in front...it is just spectacular...the soft blue of the chicory and the orange of the day lily is just fantastic!

Of course, I have lots of day lilies in my own garden, and in the spring when I am giving divisions away, and can't remember what I have planted where....I usually shrug and say well, it is probably a dark maroon one, or an orangy one.....but mine are not your run of the mill orangy ones....

I'll be sharing a few with you as it is day lily time....although day lilies bloom in my garden from late May through the end of September.  Even though my friend Martha pooh-poohs them because they get scruffy looking after they bloom (you need to pull the dying vegetation on them), I just love them.  They do so well in my hot, clay, full sun kissed beds....and while they are in bloom..well. they just delight me...dark ones with green eyes, orange ones which are practically fluorescent,  watermarked ones, ones with toothed edges, pink ones with shaded maroon centers.....what fun!

Lots to cover in the next weeks.....and I hope to show you this as I work, along with Aullwood's show, the MVAQN Redux and a bunch of other things....

Bear with me....I will disappear for days as the drugs wipe me out three days after chemo, but I will be back....and forgive the slip of the fingers.