Green Envy™ - An Exceptional Echinacea for Your Epidermis

For years, I've grown coneflowers (Echinacea sp.) in my garden, including one called Green Envy™. I love how its pink petals are tinged with green, as if designer Lilly Pulitzer had a hand in its creation. It gives coneflowers a special look, but it's also unique in its botanical qualities.

Echinacea has been used for centuries as a homeopathic way of boosting the immune system against colds. It can be found on many an ingredient list and many people swear by it when it comes to warding off disease.

Green Envy™ is notable because this particular cultivar, discovered by New York gardener Mark Veeder, contains considerably more of the phytochemical cichoric acid. An antioxidant, cichoric acid improves the condition of skin by inhibiting the enzymes that break down collagen. All echinaceas have it, but Green Envy™ has a higher concentration of it.

Farmacy, a skin care company in New York, bases its products on Green Envy™ and its pharmaceutical properties as related to the skin. They are partnered with Willow Wisp Organic Farm in Pennsylvania and Patent Wall Organic Farm in the Catskills, who grow the plants used in their products.

I've been using their Sleep Tight ointment for a couple of years now and have to say its my favorite skin treatment of the many I've used. It's not the sole product I currently use, but it's the one I reach for most often.

At first glance, it looks like petroleum jelly, but it's not as thick. You don't need to use a large amount at a time, and the skin absorbs it much like a serum.

Honey Potion comes with a metal

spatula, which stores on top of the lid
because the lid is magnetic!

I also use their Honey Potion on occasion and love how soft it makes my skin feel. This is a mask, though I've left it on longer than the typical mask time, even as long as overnight. When I do that, I use a smaller amount.

I'm often told I look younger than my nearly 62 years. I don't know if I do or not, and I don't know if Sleep Tight is part of the reason. But I do believe the research that has shown that the active ingredient in it is helpful for improving skin quality. I also like using a product that includes beneficial plant elements.

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Farmacy Beauty products are paraben and pthalate free, mineral oil free, formaldehyde donor free, synthetic fragrance free, and cruelty free. They also offer free shipping on orders over $40 and a flat rate of $5 on those under $40. They have free returns on all orders and Rakuten currently offers a 7% rebate on Farmacy Beauty orders.

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* Because I like their products so much, Sleep Tight in particular, I decided to participate in Farmacy's affiliate program. If you click on the links to products in this blog post and then make a purchase, I will receive a small amount of compensation. I was not asked nor paid to write this post and my opinion of this product is honest and genuinely my own.

In a Vase on Monday: A Milkweed Bouquet

I didn't intend to put together a bouquet today, although there are plenty of flowers in bloom out in the garden. All I was doing was feeding my monarchs.

Monarch egg on swamp milkweed.

Right now, I've got a dozen monarchs that I'm raising in the house. I found 11 eggs on various types of milkweed in my garden, and one teeny tiny caterpillar that had just hatched out that day. I don't usually raise them this early in the season, but when I saw the eggs and thought about all that could go wrong if I didn't, I just couldn't leave them out there.

Newly hatched!

We're well past that infant stage now, in fact, two of them are now chrysalides, as of Sunday afternoon. That means that the ten remaining caterpillars are eating voraciously and I'd better keep up with supplying milkweed, or else.

So that's what I was doing, going through my garden and cutting milkweed to bring in for them to eat. I decided I would cut four different kinds: common, swamp, butterfly weed, and whorled. The eggs were found on common, swamp and yet another kind I'm growing - poke milkweed. But hey, they'll eat any of it.

When I put the milkweed in water, in a little vase, and was ready to put it in the terrarium I use for raising them, I thought, "Wow, that's kind of a cool little arrangement." That's why you're looking at a photo of my monarchs' breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The wispy one is whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticillata), the yellow-flowering one is butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa 'Hello Yellow'), and the other narrow-leaved one is swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata).  In this photo, it's difficult to tell the difference between the foliage of the latter two, but in real life, butterfly weed has rather hairy or fuzzy leaves, whereas swamp milkweed's leaves are smooth.

Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) has been named Perennial Plant of the Year
for 2017 by the Perennial Plant Association. It's usually seen with orange blooms.
This one is 'Hello Yellow'.

All three milkweeds are native to Ohio and many other parts of the country. It's highly recommended that you grow what's native to your area and I give you all the information you need to make those good choices in my book, THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly.

It's appropriate that my bouquet is made of milkweed this week especially, since it's National Pollinator Week. And tomorrow, Tuesday, June 20th, I'll be a guest on Twitter's #plantchat, talking about monarchs and my new book. It starts at 2:00 Eastern, so be sure to join in!

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* "In a Vase on Monday " is a blogging meme hosted by Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

Pussytoes and American Ladies in the Butterfly Garden

You might think it's all about the monarchs here at Our Little Acre, and it is, for the most part, but monarchs aren't the only butterflies that call our yard home. For several years now, we've monitored the reproduction of both Eastern black swallowtails and American ladies.

I raised this Eastern black swallowtail butterfly from a caterpillar in my house.

The Eastern black swallowtails are all over the bronze fennel we grow, for most of the summer, laying eggs, chowing down, and becoming adult butterflies. I've also found them on my carrot tops and when I grow parsley and dill, they make use of those plants, too.

The other butterfly that we see lay eggs here is the American lady (Vanessa cardui). It's often confused with the painted lady (Vanessa virginiensis) and it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other, especially when they're in flight.

If you can get close enough to see them with their wings open, the easiest way to tell the difference is to look for the presence of a tiny white spot on the upper wings. If it's there, you're looking at an American lady. If it's not, it's probably a painted lady. (I say probably, because apparently, now and then, American ladies are missing the dot, too.)  I've only ever seen American ladies here, although painted ladies are probably are probably present here as well.

In late April, I was doing some weeding in the garden and was witness to an American lady ovipositing (laying eggs) on my Antennaria plantaginifolia, more commonly known as pussytoes. I've grown this plant for years and unlike milkweed, I didn't plant it for the purpose of providing a host plant for butterflies. I just liked the name and the looks of the plant.

Antennaria is a bluish groundcover that throws up six-inch stems with small
clusters of flowers at the top. The flowers can be white or pink.

 

A female American lady butterfly laid eggs in the centers of two of the
fuzzy Antennaria leaves.

After the female lays an egg, a few days later, the tiny caterpillar will hatch out. It will use its spinneret to wrap itself up in a leaf with silk for protection when it isn't out and about, eating its host plant. This is usually the way you can know if there are caterpillars present, as they tend to only feed on cloudy days or at night.

Soon, you'll see larger caterpillars moving around on the leaves, still eating and preparing to pupate. I've never found a chrysalis in the garden, but they're masters at camouflaging them. Colors can vary from brown to green, according to their surroundings, and like the monarchs, they crawl away from their host plant to find a place to pupate.

Last year, I had Helichrysum petiolare 'Lemon Licorice' in my front flower boxes. American lady butterflies made use of that as a host plant too. Other plants they use include pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea), and some everlasting plants that are also known as cudweed (Gamochaeta spp.)

Rose Report: At Last™ Rose from Proven Winners®

Let's just get this out of the way right now: I am not a big fan of roses. But it hasn't always been that way. I've grown lots of them over the years and in the past, have staunchly defended them. I've grown hybrid teas, climbers, floribundas, miniatures, David Austins, Knock Outs®, and other types that I can't remember.

My pink mini.

My first roses were miniatures. I'd won one at a dinner I attended and that little pink blooming machine performed beautifully for lots and lots of years. No disease, no real pests, just oodles of little pink blooms. It was my gateway drug to roses.

Then came hybrid teas and floribundas. 'Hot Cocoa' and 'Chihuly' were the rose stars of my garden. 'Disneyland' gave me gorgeous clusters of orangey-pink Kool-Aid® blooms. I reveled in the fragrance of my David Austin beauties. The uniqueness of a new Decorator Rose® wowed me.

I'd hear people wail about aphids and Japanese beetles. They'd curse black spot, powdery mildew, and fungus. They were losing roses to this or that. And while they were ranting away, I was wondering what was "wrong" with my roses, because I had none of these problems.

Until I did.

Pitiful.

It was like the universe was taunting me. I had bragged about the beauty and nobility of roses and poo-pooed the disrespect that roses are often the targets of. If I could grow disease-free and pest-free roses, anyone could, right? Ha.

I hung in there for a few years, taking advice from my rose-growing friends and seeking help by way of googling rose problems to death. One by one, my roses failed to live up to my expectations until one day last year, I'd had enough. One by one, I began taking them out. I couldn't stand to look at them anymore.

Now I didn't remove all of them. And not all of them that I did remove ended up being destroyed. Those that still weren't affected by the aforementioned afflictions found new homes, or received a reprieve (for another year or two, anyway). But you'll only find a fraction of the number of roses that used to call Our Little Acre home.

Those that got to stay include 'Gourmet Popcorn' miniature rose, floribundas 'Ebb Tide', 'Hot Cocoa', 'Chihuly' and 'Disneyland', and 'Morning Magic' climber. But half of those will be disappearing by next year too. I may keep 'Morning Magic' just for its Japanese beetle attracting character. It's a master at it and I rarely see the beetles anywhere else.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention my beloved wingthorn rose - Rosa sericea var. ptericantha - but that is in a class by itself. No pests, and it's been disease-free ever since I planted it in 2011. I hope it continues to behave, because I'd be really sad to lose that one. It's something special.

Aren't those thorns delicious?

So there's my history of roses. When Proven Winners® ColorChoice Flowering Shrubs told me they wanted to send me one of their new roses, I had to think twice about it. I read its description and decided to give it a shot. It was the color and the fragrance that were the tipping points. Fragrance! Imagine that! A rose that smelled like a rose...

I don't usually do a plant review until it's been in my garden for at least an entire season, meaning it's survived our often brutal winter. The plants usually arrive here in decent shape but there's often transplant shock and an adjustment period to our climate and soil to contend with. I'm not a gardening expert, I'm just an average backyard gardener, and sometimes my trial plants don't make it because of gardener error. Sometimes they thrive in spite of the gardener.

Rosa x At Last™

I received three At Last™ roses at the end of June. They've been in the ground for just a month, but oh what a difficult month that has been. Very little rain and extremely hot temperatures have made it hard for even some of my well-established plants.

The roses arrived with one bloom and a few buds. The color - apricot - was just as lovely as the photos. They didn't pout at all once I had them in the ground and in fact, have been throwing out new buds and blooms ever since. And then there is that fragrance. They smell like...ROSES.

Rosa x At Last™

So far, the Japanese beetles have not found them. I don't have a huge beetle problem here, but they're around. It's too soon to say if they will be bothered by disease or other pests.

It's too soon to say much of anything about them. But for now, I'm loving these roses. I hope I can say the same thing next year and for many years after.

Read more about this new rose here.

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*I received these roses gratis from Proven Winners, with no request to say a single word about them. But I'm duly impressed (so far) and wanted to share my experience.

In a Vase on Monday: The Tree Peonies

What a wackadoodle spring it's been. First, spring comes early, then winter returns, then it's summer, and now I'm sitting here wrapped up in a blanket in my flannel jammies, wearing my Uggs fringed moccasins to keep warm. I don't know what month it is behaving like, but it is not May.

But it is May. I know, because the peonies are blooming. I've got three types here at Our Little Acre: tree peonies (Paeonia suffruticosa), herbaceous peonies (Paeonia lactiflora), and intersectional (Itoh) peonies, which are a cross between a tree peony and an herbaceous peony. I used to also have a fernleaf peony (Paeonia ternifolia), but it disappeared one year and has never returned. I loved it and if I ever find another one, I'll buy it again.

The tree peonies are always the first to bloom, followed by the herbaceous and then finally, the intersectionals. (The fernleaf peony, when I had it, bloomed before the tree peonies.)

The buds on the tree peonies are bulbous and larger than those of the
herbaceous peonies. Some of my buds were as large as a racquetball.

Herbaceous peonies are known for their beautiful fragrance - traditional rose-like in nature - but tree peonies not so much. Many people think those stink. But it depends! Of all my tree peonies, only a couple of them have stinky smells. The others have a nice fragrance to them including my largest one, this pink variety that I purchased in 2005 at the Cleveland Flower Show.

This was sold to me as Paeonia suffruticosa 'Sahohime', but it lacks
that cultivar's dark red eye zone.

Paeonia suffruticosa 'Kamatanishiki' really is lavender.

I've purchased the 'Shimanishiki' tree peony twice, but both times, the bloom made it obvious that isn't what I got. I'll keep trying. Maybe the third time is a charm? I think I need to buy it when it's in bloom.

I had so many blooms this year that I cut several to bring in the house and put them in this silver bowl. These are from three different tree peonies, but most of them are from the not-Sahohime.

Tree peony blooms always look to me like they're made of crepe paper.

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In a Vase on Monday is hosted by Rambling In the Garden. Go there to see more beautiful cut flowers and plants!

I've Never Met an Anemone I Didn't Like

I've grown spring anemones, summer anemones and fall anemones. They have been ivory, white, red, pink, and purple. The fact that their flowers are daisy-like are probably one reason I love them so much, with white daisies being my favorite flower of all time. (Well, that's what I'll tell you today. Next week, it's likely to be something else.)

I got a new one that I planted this fall - Anemone nemerosa 'Bracteata Pleniflora' - and it's a spring ephemeral. That means it will come up in the spring, flower, and then disappear with the heat of summer, never to be heard from again until the next spring.

Wood Anemone (Anemone nemerosa 'Bracteata Pleniflora')
Photo: Washington State University

When my "bulbs" arrived from Easy to Grow Bulbs, my first thought was, "These are bulbs???" They're actually rhizomes. To be honest, they reminded me of some of my red wigglers that sometimes escape from my worm bin in my office and can't find their way back home. Three days later.

See what I did there?  ;-)

The included planting instructions said I should soak them in lukewarm water for about 3 hours or so, prior to planting. But as I often do, when soaking is recommended, I used Annie Haven's Moo Poo Tea. That's what everyone calls it, but its official product name is Haven's Natural Brew. Soaking bulbs is just one of the things it's good for. I also use it as a nutrient-rich drench for my houseplants about once a month, and in my garden as a soil conditioner.

After soaking, I planted the anemone rhizomes in a location that's part shade and I'm hoping for some of those beautiful semi-double blooms come spring.

In a Vase on Monday: A First

I have never met Cathy at Rambling in the Garden, host of the blog meme, In a Vase on Monday. I've never participated in the meme before today, but I'm familiar with it because of someone I have met.

Everything looks as if it was created expressly for Loree's garden - the plants,
the containers, the structures... She is an incredibly talented designer.

"Careful, you could poke an eye out."

Loree Bohl, who lives and gardens in Portland, Ore., has posted her version of the meme a dozen or so times. When the Garden Bloggers Fling was held in Portland in 2014, I was privileged to get to see her garden - Danger Garden - in all its spiky glory. I've long been a fan of her blog and seeing all those glorious plants in person as well as her edgy design was one of the highlights of that trip.

I don't often cut things from my garden, preferring instead to enjoy them in their natural setting. But today, as we were experiencing way above normal temperatures for the middle of December, I got the urge to go out and cut whatever I thought might go together in a vase. On Monday.

Because I don't cut things from my garden, I'm not the most accomplished flower arranger. Those things take practice. But I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. It even looks a little Christmas-y, though that wasn't the intent.

Red is the accent color in our kitchen and dining area. Chihuly's Burned Ikebana hangs on the wall, and photos of grandchildren Anthony and Hannah keep a
handmade angel (by mom) company on the mid-century buffet.

I worked hard to find something in bloom, impossible at this time last year, which had us with several inches of snow on the ground. Though we were at nearly 70° on Saturday and Sunday this year, it will be a couple of days yet before the fall self-seeded Calendula blooms open up.








But there were some wonderful things out there just the same. I used:

• Panicum virgatum 'Northwind'
• Baptisia Twilite Prairieblues™
• Washington hawthorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum)
• Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens)
• Sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora)
• Coral bells (Heuchera 'Tiramisu')

 

The vase is one of a set of three that I purchased at West Elm in Austin, Texas,
when Jenny Peterson and I were working our book,
Indoor Plant Decor: The Design Stylebook For Houseplants

I doubt I'll participate in In a Vase on Monday again until spring comes along and I've got something different to choose from the garden for cutting. But you can follow along at Cathy's blog here.

Thanks, Loree, for inspiring me to play.

Gifts From the Toad Lilies

I'm a seed saver. If I have some annuals or perennials that I love, you can bet that beginning in late August, you'll see little glass bowls with seeds in them lining up on the kitchen counter. They grow in number until about the end of October, which is usually when seed saving season is forced to come to a close. If the plants haven't produced seed by then, frosts and hard freezes put a stop to it.

I've long considered the toad lily (Tricyrtis spp.) to be my signature plant - the one that I take the most joy in, because [a] its bloom resembles an orchid's [b] it grows and blooms in the shade, [c] it blooms at the end of summer through fall, when blooms become more sparse, especially in shade, and [d] I can't imagine my gardens without it.

Toad lily
Tricyrtis hirta 'Miyazaki'

Every year, the toad lilies (not actually lilies, by the way) bloom their little hearts out and form seed pods. And every year, I hope to collect seeds. But I don't. They get soooo close to maturing enough, and then frost happens and I'm left with green pods and immature seeds.

But thanks to an unseasonably warm fall this year, I've got toad lily seeds. I've got lots of them because they're so tiny - nearly as small as petunia seeds. I have petunias that self seed every year and I've said that if every single petunia seed germinated, there would be enough petunias to supply all the garden centers for 50 miles around.

The seed pods of these toad lilies measure about an inch, tip to tip,
with the seeds about the size of flecks of pepper.

But that never happens and maybe that's the reason that petunias produce so much seed to begin with. Toad lilies have the same potential, but they can be difficult to grow from seed.

They need cold stratification and they need light to germinate, so that means I'm going to need to sow those seeds now by sprinkling them on top of the soil where I want them to grow, and hope that the freezing and thawing cycles (not to mention the cats) don't manage to bury them by spring.

I'll let you know next spring how successful I am.

Wordless Wednesday: Flora or Fauna?

Once I saw the swans engaged in conversation, I could no longer see the columbine.

Aquilegia sp.

Wordless Wednesday: Winter Jewels™ 'Painted Doubles'

I picked this up today at The Anderson's in Maumee, Ohio, making it the first official plant purchase of the 2015 season. A fine choice, don't you think?

Helleborus Winter Jewels™ 'Painted Doubles'

Hybridized by Marietta O'Byrne, owner of Northwest Garden Nursery in Oregon, this fully double hellebore is just one of the Winter Jewels™ series.

Of course, I want all of them.

l've Never Met a Better Lavender - It's 'Phenomenal'!

We know that fragrance has the power to take us back in time to an experience and it can transform our mood. It's also one of the joys of gardening - growing plants that not only look pretty, but smell that way too.

Lavender is one of the most well-known fragrant plants there is and while I love growing it, it can be persnickety about our Zone 5b climate and our native heavy clay soil. Even with soil amendments, there are years that can be pretty tough on even well-established lavender plants. If only there was a lavender that existed that was just a little more forgiving...

Oh, wait. There IS!

A few years ago, I met Lloyd Traven, plant breeder and owner of Peace Tree Farm located in Pennsylvania, a short distance from Philadelphia. Lloyd is one of those people whom once you've met him, you never forget him. There's just something about him, whether it's his no-nonsense approach to life or his enthusiasm and knowledge about the plants he grows. Or maybe it's the beard. I'm not sure.

Lloyd and me at National Green Centre in St. Louis in
January 2013. (Photo by Chris Tidrick)

Lloyd had been working on some things and in 2012, he introduced Lavandula x intermedia 'Phenomenal' to the rest of us.

Now this is no ordinary lavender. Yes, it has purpley-blue flowers and yes, it smells really nice. But 'Phenomenal' lives up to its name in many ways:

• It has exceptional winter hardiness. Lavenders succumb to the cold mainly because they require excellent drainage and soggy soil coupled with the cold is more than most lavenders can handle. While 'Phenomenal' also likes good drainage, it's more tolerant of adverse conditions than most other lavenders.
  
  Remember the winter of 2013-14? Oooooh, that was a bad one. I'd been growing several types of lavender, including 'Hidcote' and 'Munstead', quite successfully for several years in my heavy clay garden that's located in what was once The Great Black Swamp. I had just planted two 'Phenomenal' plants that I'd been given as test plants late in the season right before that brutal winter and I was worried that they wouldn't survive it.
  
  But when spring came, guess what happened? I lost every single one of my well-established lavenders, but the 'Phenomenal' did just fine. Like most plants last spring, they were a little later to break dormancy, but both plants made it. Of course I bought more and to be honest, it's the only lavender I intend to grow for the time being.
  
  
• It's not bothered by hot and humid summers. Global warming, anyone? We've always had periods of extreme heat in July and August, but in recent years, it's pretty much a sure thing that those months are going to be scorchers. Not only that, with the exception of last summer, it's as if God turns off the spigot around mid-June and gets busy with other things until he finally remembers to turn it back on around September. Most plants hate that. 'Phenomenal' seems to just roll with the punches.
• It's a vigorous grower. Last summer was a good one around these parts and it seemed like we got rain right when we needed it and not too much when we didn't. So of course I would expect most plants to do well, and 'Phenomenal' was no exception.  But Lloyd sent me a photo of it growing at the farm in Pennsylvania, showing what it's capable of as it matures:
  
  

  

  Candy Traven (Mrs. Lloyd), standing behind just one 'Phenomenal' lavender plant!
  (Photo courtesy of Peace Tree Farm)

  
  Wowza! To be honest, if mine gets that big, I'ma gonna have to move some plants! Mine are relatively young yet, but those original ones I planted in 2013 just might do the third year leap this summer. We'll see.


• It's deer and rabbit resistant. Nothing is deer or rabbit proof, as most gardeners who battle these pests will tell you, but they don't seem to like this plant very well. Perhaps it's because of the oil that gives it that luscious scent. It's also resistant to common root and foliar diseases.


• It has both culinary and aromatherapy uses, not to mention its use in floral bouquets. You know how Dorothy and friends got sleepy when running through the poppy fields in The Wizard of Oz?  I secretly think those poppies were underplanted with lavender. 'Phenomenal' is exceptionally good for using its oil, which is known to have a calming effect and helps us sleep.
  
  

  

  Mmmmm... can't you just smell it?

  
  I cut the flower stems from my plants this year and let them dry. I then rubbed the dried flowers from the stems and put them in one of the lavender sachet bags I bought at Carolee's Herb Farm near Hartford City, Ind., a few years ago. Carolee grows a LOT of lavender there, among other wonderful things.

The oil in 'Phenomenal' is long-lasting. All I have to do is shake the sachet a bit and it releases a fresh waft of fragrance through the room. It was the beginning of last August when I cut those flower stems.

What you need to know

If you think you can't grow lavender, try 'Phenomenal'. I haven't done anything special in regard to growing them other than what I usually do when planting lavender of any type and that's making sure they've got good drainage. I  plant them in slightly elevated mounds of soil and if the soil is particularly heavy with clay, I'll amend it with a healthy helping of orchid bark. (Don't wrinkle your nose - it works for me!)

I found some plants locally last summer at Stuckey's in Ft. Wayne but they only had a few and I snatched them right up. As the word gets around about what a great lavender this is, I think it will get easier to find, although it's only sold in independent garden centers. If your favorite IGC doesn't have it, ask for it. That would be doing you both a favor.

Lavandula x intermedia 'Phenomenal'
Zone 5-10
Full sun
24-32" height and spread
Average moisture
Slightly acidic pH (our soil is alkaline and it does just fine)
Flowers in spring and summer


Hey, Lloyd... got any other wonderful things in the works?

Daylily Proliferations

Hemerocallis 'Sarah Christine'

I have never really thought of myself as being a daylily fan (no pun intended!), but I've been rethinking this in the last few years.  Every time I see a beautiful one, I want it. In spite of the foliage of some of them getting rather ratty looking late in the season, I still want it. I've made a compromise with those by cutting the foliage back to about 8-10 inches and pulling off the brown and yellowed leaves.

As a result of my non-love of daylilies, I have no less than 44 different ones (possibly a couple more that I missed when I just went out to count) and I have a wish list of some that I'll buy if I ever run across them.

One of my favorites is a very large lemon yellow one, called 'Sarah Christine'. The American Hemerocallis Society's Online Daylily Database says this about it...

 

 'Sarah Christine' 

Introduced by Millikan-Soules in 1993

Scape height: 28 inches
Bloom size: 6 inches
Bloom season: Early-Midseason
Ploidy:  Diploid
Foliage type: Evergreen
Fragrance: Fragrant
Bloom habit: Diurnal
Color: Pale yellow and ivory to pink bicolor with cream throat
Parentage: (Siloam Mama × Groovy Green)

I would challenge the bloom size as stated in the database.  Mine have gotten larger than that on a regular basis. Regardless, it's one of the larger blooming daylilies out there. Its color doesn't really command attention because there are a gazillion yellow daylilies (at least), but its size certainly does, and that makes it worth having.

This week as I was walking through the garden doing a bit of late summer clean-up, I noticed 'Sarah Christine' was doing something her friends and cousins hadn't. She had proliferations! I've had a daylily do this before, but I didn't do anything with them and merely cut off the scape and composted it.

What are proliferations?

Sometimes a daylily will start to form little plantlets at nodes on the stem of a flower scape. These will often form roots while still attached to the plant. If the stem of the scape is cut on both sides of the plantlet - the proliferation - and put into potting soil, a new plant can be grown. It will be a clone of the mother plant - in other words, identical to it.

'Sarah Christine' has several proliferations on this flower scape. The middle
one is actually two, which I will pot up together.

The reason I don't get too many of these is because I'm pretty obsessive about cutting scapes off once they're finished blooming.  I missed this one.

There are four proliferations on this scape.

I cut it off at its base and then cut each proliferation and put them in water so they can form some roots before I pot them up. I'll keep the potted plants in the greenhouse this winter and then plant them out near the mother plant in the spring.

'Sarah Christine' had babies!