Edited to add - I forgot there was another thread for Introducing yourself.... so you might also want to check out this thread....
The thread "Introduce yourself #1" in Daylilies forum
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I am Jules or Juli - pronounced Julie. I have been growing daylilies for nearly 30 years. At first, I grew some daylilies that my elderly Mom had that were "family plants"... handed down from one person to another. Sadly, I didn't know what I was doing when I first got them, transplanted them wrong or something, and they died. Dottie Warrell was the woman who really got me interested in the modern daylily. I used to grow a lot of my own seedlings and had thousands of daylilies.

Now, after drastically cutting back, I have less than 100. I can't care for a big flower garden any more.

Pictured daylily - Jerry Hyatt here in my garden. (hybridized by Curt Hanson)

I'll bite:

I am Jan, a mid 50's, mother of 3 adult kids - and the new addition of a wonderful daughter in law. I am a state employee, and commute an hour in each direction for work. But the flexibility the job gives me, makes the drive all worthwhile. I have lived all over the Midwest, including raising sheep and cattle on a small farm - and am still deeply involved in the agriculture community, including local & county 4H. Now I just have a couple of monster Maine Coon cats, plus a germadore (fancy name for a german shorthair X lab cross mutt) named Molly, and my sons lab, that visits for periods of time.

My town is a small village of 1100, 20+ minutes from anything larger where I live in a dated 70's house (and all that entails) with 1/2 acre of land.

I grew up with some daylilies - at my grandparents cottage in western PA, was a daylily farm directly behind their place. I loved those cultivated rows of dayliles in the 60's when I was a kid. Since then, my family purchased a small portion of that property, and many of those daylilies, 50+ years later are growing semi-wild there, in the brushy woods that has grown up around them.

After my marriage imploded several years ago, I brought back some of those daylilies, and planted them at my house - and the rest, as they say, is history.

As for the TB Iris, my other love - I grew up with a large single clump of iris in my parents yard. Recently I discovered that clump was actually hybridized by my other grandfather in North Dakota (he hybridized DL & TB's apparently) - but never registered. His green house in the late 40's - early 50's caught fire (suspected arson) and this clump, was all he could manage to save. Last summer I was able to transplant a couple of fans of that iris, and hopefully in the future, I can register it in my grandfather's name.

So I am addicted to both DL & TB iris. From having no flowers in my yard 5 years ago, I now have a bunch of beds, 100 DL and 50 TB iris - and seeds sprouting in my upstairs bedroom. I have found I love color in my life.

I also started at DG, and transferred to ATP when it was time to renew my membership. I have discovered a wonderful community of gardening "friends" here on the internet, and love it ~Jan

I had prepared this over in the Irises forum and have copied it here with a little updating (like I had to change my 250+ daylilies to approximately 400). Yikes!

Well, I guess I should also do this. I live in Bakersfield, CA, and I worked at California State University, Bakersfield as a secretary/admin. operations analyst for 28 years and have been retired for a number of years now. I am married and have a stepson, Jason, who thankfully comes over a lot to help us with "projects," as we are at the point now where we're having trouble keeping up with everything. We have 1/3 acre that is basically on a hill with quite a few steps, so it's definitely getting interesting around here as I have some problems with my feet and legs as I'm "maturing." I used to hybridize miniature roses but gave that up back in the early '90's when I became totally immersed in quilting -- and now my quilting phase is fading and I've been into irises for the last six years or so and am starting my "daylily crazies," as Newyorkrita calls it. I'm trying a little daylily hybridizing this year, although I don't know where I'll put the seedlings now that they're coming up -- I have over 400 irises and approximately 400 daylilies now, and right now I'm potting everything up until I can figure out where I'm going to put everything. Needless to say, I get caught up wanting to have everything NOW and I'm definitely a porcrastinator -- better at coming up with ideas than follow-through, unfortunately. But at least I'm having a lot of fun!

I live in Nassau County on the North Shore of Long Island, New York. We usually have humid summers, especially in July and August. But winters are anything from lots of snow were we might get a foot at a time and cold weather but the more usual is alternating cold and warmer all winter so that we get snow, it melts and stays warm and it all starts over again. This mixed with unusual warm winters and no snow.

In 2001 I decided to redo my yard from the typical suburban grass with a few shubs or so until I ended up with what I have today. I started with vines and shrubs to attract hummingbirds and bees and added lots of fruiting shubs to attract backyard songbirds. Plus lot of shall fruit shrubs that I also like to eat such as lots of blueberries and red currants. By the time I started adding lots of bloom I also had to start to add raised beds and terraced gardens as my yard is very multilevel. I got rose crazies, afew years later daylily crazies. after that lily crazies and iris crazies. I have a fair amount of perrenials here also. So in spite of the fact that I have near 600 daylilies, I also have about 200 roses, about 200 tall beared iris, lots and lots of lilies and more spring bulbs than I can count.

Can't wait to see your photos Rita! I really enjoyed them last year. I wish I could have that many roses! My Mom grew about 20 tea roses when I was in my teens and twenties. I used to grow many shrub roses and tried Dabid Austin's, but most of them did not make it in the hillside bed where they were.

People usually think I have lots of space considering everything I have here. But I really don't have lots of space. But it would have never all fit if the property was all one level. Multi-level means more fits in. Plus I do squeeze in plants all over the place.

I was JeanK in another cyberlife but got the name Rocklady from one of my dear friends. After we retired to AR fom Illinois and I once again found myself in the south (I grew up in NC), I wanted some of the plants I had grown up with, magnolia, redbud, gardenias to name a few. We found that in order to dig a hole for a plant, you needed a pick axe and after the hole was dug, you had a pile of rocks. Not to be outdone, we had to do something with the rocks, so I began building rock walls to contain my plants, thus I became known to the neighbors as Rocklady.

Other interests are photography, travel and collecting open salts. On occasion I crochet, knit and do tatting.

We spend time traveling in the spring and summer visiting our five kids, grandchildren and great-grandchildren therefore we have mostly shrubs and "bullet proof" perennials in our yard in AR. In 2003 my older brother passed away and we inherited his home in FL, where I do most of our gardening, and have a small daylily bed. The past several years we have made an annual pilgrimage to Ladybug Daylilies, with list in hand and bring back a few beauties for our garden.

The photos of all the beautiful plants posted here give me a treat with my morning coffee and inspire me to go out and do a little digging myself!

Just had my first Sweet Patootie open yesterday morning and there are lots of scapes loaded with buds.

Jean,
It sounds like you grow a lot of things! I would love to see Dan Hansen's! Please take lots of pictures to share with us!

I grow lots of things besides daylilies myself. Daylilies go well with all sorts of plants.

Hi Jean!

Hi , I'm Brian, also new here. I've been gardening for 40 + years now ( started REALLLLLLLY young ) Interested in a wide variety of plants but have always had a soft spot for daylilies, true lilies (bulbs), Irises and roses. Indoors I do my best not to kill anymore orchids. I also have recently been hooked (literally) on cacti and have started a hardy cacti bed here in my southern Ontario garden. I make my living as a critical care nurse and long for the day when I will no longer have to drive 3 hours to get to my garden. I've recently got the bug to try and grow some of my own creations but just haven't picked up the talent yet. Anybody know where I can get some of that on sale? My gardening style is a bit of a mishmash, if I like it, I find a spot for it. I've been working on self control, unsuccessfully of course!
I've been looking at all the beautiful hybrids and seedlings that people have been growing and I'm turning green I hope someday (before the daisies are being pushed from a different direction) to have something half as beautiful and be able to say "I bred that ________ ( Lily,daylily,cactus etc)"! Everybody here seems so friendly and I'm looking forward to conversing with everyone. Here are a few photos of my garden.
general view of part of front garden.

Front garden.

Cacti bed freshly planted.

Cacti bed 3 years later.


Sheik of Araby.


Other side of front.

Basil stands gard over the spring garden.

Glad to have you here! Lovely photos!

Your house and gardens are beautiful.

Thanks Juli and Rita! Glad to have found ATP and joined.

Is that Pulmanaria blooming in front of Basil, Brian? Lucky you, if it is. Only one has remained here. Guess I don't have the right spot. Lovely gardens! Why are they 3 hrs away?

Welcome Jean and Brian. Yes this is a friendly site. So many good people and no one afraid to give needed advise and encouragement.

Beautiful home and grounds. Love the cottage garden effect. Very very pretty.

lilylady said:Is that Pulmanaria blooming in front of Basil, Brian? Lucky you, if it is. Only one has remained here. Guess I don't have the right spot. Lovely gardens! Why are they 3 hrs away?

Yes, it's an old variety called Marjory Fish. It's quite happy here and self seeds. The hellebore behind it is even turning into a bit of a weed. If only my Japanese maples would start growing. My garden is 3 hours away as I work in Toronto and houses there are so expensive and the yards so small I could never afford to buy a place with any land. I bought out in the country at a fraction of the price with a good sized lot. My parents are currently living in the house and look after the house but aren't allowed to touch the garden except to water occasionally for me. Works out well for all of us.

Thanks Stephanie, I was trying for a more natural look even though the plants used would never be found together in nature.

"So many good people and no one afraid to give needed advise and encouragement."

And help name gardens!

Brian, a weed? No sirree! Great foliage for long months. Just move a chunk someplace else.

So are you east, west, or north of Toronto? Do you know Maureen Strong? Great place to buy daylilies, east by an hour. I have visited with her. Good wine vineyards there too! Oh, I think David Engle is north. Nice gentle man, don't think he sells though but he has a couple of mine.

Brian, your gardens are beautiful. Where I'm at now I don't have room to do any type of gardens. I'm renting so I wouldn't want to do too much anyway. At my old place, besides my daylily beds, I was making butterfly gardens, a perennial bed, and one I called the desert bed because it was around an old stump and I had some century plants and ice plants plus some purple hearts ( that wouldn't make it in a desert but it looked nice). I will just have to enjoy everyone else's.

Beautiful pictures, Brian. Your yard is lovely.

Juli: We usually go to Ladybug in May or early June. When we get there the beauty of all those daylilies just takes your breath away.

We have been enjoying the last of the camellias here and our azaleas are a little past their peak, but still nice. We have two citrus (orange and grapefruit) which perfume the yard and I have never seen so many blooms! I have about 10 pots of phaius which we bring inside and enjoy the blooms during the winter, but they are now finishd blooming and will return outside, where they will spend the summer and fall in the shade. I have some orchids which get to travel to FL if they are in spike, but if they aren't, a good friend is their caretaker while we are here. When we return to AR, we will experience spring all over again. It can't get any better than that.