You.

Hello and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain, and today we're coming to you from the blooming idiot in Seymour a beautiful day lily farm.

We're going to tell you how to plant them, when to plant them, and where to plant them, and even show you some really rare varieties of these gorgeous daylily so let's go find Ben, the owner, and get started.

All right, and I am here with the owner of the booming idiot.

This is Ben Montez.

Did I say that correctly?

That's right.

Okay, so you're the brains behind this operation.

Well, as it were.

Now, tell us a little bit about how, how all this got started.

Well, it's funny.

I mean, I I've always been a gardener.

I've been a gardener I've been a gardener since I was, like, about 12 years old, and I have a garden at my house.

And I was I started growing day lilies.

I started, I just happened to run into a day lily farm in Indiana, where my son was going to a wrestling camp.

I coached wrestling as well, and I bought a bunch of plants, and I had them in my front yard, and I was planting them, and somebody stopped their car and they said, Would you be interested in selling me some of those plants?

And that did it.

And, well, you know, but you know what think about it, you know.

And I said, Sure, you know, if anybody asks me, I'll always, you know, sell them or give them some plants, sure.

And at that time, I think we probably had about 100 day release.

We found a spot out in Toronto.

We were working out in Toronto, but then we moved here because we had a lot more space, and they were much more easier to work with, you know, with what the demands that they had on the on the on the land itself, and the space was bigger as well.

So you see, Ken gave us a nice spot here.

Yes, lovely.

And so in 15 years, you took those few plants and turned it into how many 100 throughout well we have.

We have about 450 500 varieties of day lilies.

Now we have about 350 here at this at this location in Seymour, and then we have about another 250 about another 250 although there's some overlap between the two groups at our house in Champaign.

I don't know this.

Yeah, this is what you see.

You know.

Did you ever envision that that small, you know, plant sale would turn into the booming idiot, or that I would turn into the blooming idiot?

Into the, you know, you know, this is about what I wanted.

This is about what I thought it would be, you know.

Thanks my wife and my son and friends, you know, we are able to do this, you know, and you've turned it into a lovely business.

I mean, you know, it's not like something.

There are bigger operations, you know, and sure, and probably a little more stylish as well.

But I like the way this is set up like this, because you can see all the flowers at once if you go to some of the other daily gardens.

Their actual gardens, they're laid out, you know, and they're they're designed, and they put a lot more thought into it than we do here.

We just have a mother plant, we have one, one main plant, and then we line out other plants for sale and make it easier to sell the plants.

Okay, let's, let's talk about some of the variety.

So I said maybe we could talk about a few, and you absolutely delivered on that.

So just to give folks an idea, you know, you you say you've got 350 400 some varieties, but this is just literally a drop in the bucket.

Oh, that's right.

Literally up in the bucket.

That's right, all right.

And this right here.

This is probably our most, our most, our biggest seller here.

And this is called Primal Scream.

And it, I think that the color and the way that it looks is makes it live up to its its name.

And it's just a beautiful plant.

And almost all these plants are fragrant, too, by the way.

And these are, there are so many varieties.

I mean, seems like people will tell you, you know, there's this kind of variety, that variety.

I mean, it doesn't matter.

You can see the difference in the plants.

And so pretty.

We have some that are.

We have these dark ones.

Smith brothers, that's one of the darkest day lilies available.

I like the ones with the frilly edges.

Those are pretty cool, too.

The frilly edges, yes, so we have like this one.

This is double delight.

It's like a little it looks like a little rose, a little carnation.

This is French lingerie.

I. Yeah, no, not really.

This is called French lingerie, and it has these frill the frills on the edges.

Sometimes the frills are more pronounced and they're sharp, and they call them teeth.

There's just so much variety, like the sizes.

You've got some really great big blooms, and then some really kind of small, dainty ones.

Speaking of the great big bloom, here is Sarah Christine.

Sarah Christine, I mean this, this has just started to open right here.

And you can see that it's, that's a it's, what about eight inches?

Maybe eight, eight inches there, when the plant is in full bloom, these blooms will be 1011, inches.

Oh, my God.

They're just really, really huge.

Earlier, you mentioned the ones that curl.

Yes.

What causes that?

Do you know nature?

Well, they breed for them.

Oh, okay, that was a characteristic that they wanted.

These.

They breed for these, these types of plants.

Sometimes they happen by accident, like the one that I had shown you before.

You know, but this, this is a spider plant.

You can see that the way that the leaves all move out, all out together, and they're very separate, and then they get to the end of it, and they curl down.

That's called a crisp eight form.

And then what was the other one?

Oh, we have some.

We have some very different colors too.

This is called milk chocolate, and it's a brown day lily.

And there are a few brown day lilies, but none quite as pronounced as that.

Milk chocolate is one of my favorites.

So what is it about the day lily that captivated you and made you turn this into a business?

I mean, you could have chose any plant.

Why?

That's right, you know, as as time went on, I mean, friends would see my garden, and they would say, Well, you can't eat flowers.

Well, the intention wasn't to eat flowers.

You get sort of captivated by the beauty, yes, of the plant, you know.

And if you saw my house, my house is my house, my wife, me and my wife, our house.

Our house is just covered with flowers, just surrounded flowers and plants and and my wife is a shade plant grower.

And so like close around the house, under the trees, we have all these shade plants, hostas, and a lot of woodland plants.

And then out in the sun are my plants.

Yes, the flowers are day lilies.

And as time went on, I grew less vegetables.

Now I only grow tomatoes and peppers and and the rest is all flowers.

The rest is all flowers, all flowers, and I just, and I just love them.

And you can wake up in the morning sometimes, and you can, you can just smell the flowers, yes, or even late at night.

Some of these flowers are late bloomers, or night bloomers, like these ones here.

These are, that's a night bloomer, yes.

These are, these are species day lilies, too.

By the way, I have about eight or nine varieties of species day Louise, and they're, they're kind of fading right now, because they bloomed all night, and they, they tend sometimes they tend to fade during the day, but these night bloomers are very fragrant.

And a lot of times when I plant them, I'll plant them someplace near where I sit, you know, at night, so you can get a good whiff of them.

So folks can come out here, and actually, this is, this isn't just to enjoy for you.

This is a working farm.

Folks can come out here and purchase and then you literally dig them up, cot them up, and send them home with That's right, we also sell flowers at the farmers market too.

Very nice.

So nice.

So we're at that actually, at the farmers market most Saturdays in during the summer.

Well, let's walk through the field.

I would love to have you show us a few more varieties that you've got, okay, and then talk a little bit about care and what folks need to do to keep them healthy and happy once they get them home.

But I'd love to walk through the fields and see what all you've got.

Okay, okay, so you.

Now that myself and all the viewers want all of these when people buy them from you.

How do you take care of them in your landscape?

Are they?

Is this a relatively low maintenance plant, or does it take a lot?

They're about as low maintenance as you can get.

Typically, what I tell people is, when you buy a plant or you get a plant from us, soak it in water overnight so it takes as much water as it can and then you can put it in the ground and keep it wet until it starts to put up new leaves, okay?

And then after that, you can pretty much consider it will be on its own, okay, so set it and forget it, huh?

Well, yeah, pretty much.

And the soil requirements, these plants grow well in good soil, poor soil.

One.

The places that I buy it from, by these from in Indiana, the sand is so the soil is so Sandy that, I mean, you could pick it up and it just sort of crumbles in your hand.

Wow.

And yet, the plants the fields look just like this.

Now I'm noticing some spent blooms.

Do you have to do any deadheading?

You know, with daily I think that if you want to do dead heading, it's mostly for cosmetic but you know, if you want to cut it back, if you want them to keep growing, if you want them to keep flowering, the best thing you can do is give them a little fertilizer, just a little fertilizer, they don't require a lot and water.

The more water you give it, the more it'll flower.

How many times per season are you going to get get these to flower?

Is it just once a year?

Most plants bloom once a year.

I have probably about 20 or 25 that bloom a second time.

So a lot of times the early bloomers, the plants that bloom early in the say, early summer, late spring.

If they bloom, then there's a good chance of bloom again in August.

Okay, okay, okay.

And I've also noticed there's some some pretty good height differentials here.

So we've got these are pretty tall, but right next door, these are a little short.

So you know, when people ask you, when they just come out here and say, I'm looking for this color, you also have to take height into consideration too.

Let's talk about that and where they want to put it in the garden, right?

I mean, if you want it to be seen, if you have a short plant, you can put it in the front.

If you have a taller plant, you know, you can put it behind, just about anything else.

I mean, this, these plants right here, some of these, like that red one there, this gold one and these purple ones right here.

You can set them up against the wall, against the fence, you know, against a garage, you know.

And they will be seen very nice.

And they transplant.

Well, I'm assuming, since people are I, you know, some people like to do them in the spring or the fall.

I dig plants all year, you know.

And it's really, it's how you treat the plants.

So when you when I dig them up, I put them immediately in water, you know, and let them soak up as much water as they can before we take them to the market.

Lovely.

Any other advice or tips for folks, if you're just trying to get these established?

Any, any hacks, any behind the scenes, hacks that you have found that would really help our at home garden.

You know, you know what I did when I when I dug up this field here.

We first dug up this field, we put down about two inches of sand on the soil, and then we tilled it under, and we made the so that the field drains better.

And then when you pull the plants out, too, you're not taking big clumps of dirt with it.

So the dirt falls away from the roots, very easy.

And I got that from a friend of mine who has that friend of mine from Indiana, who has a very sandy soil, and she showed me how easy the dirt fell away.

And I thought that was great.

That's really helpful.

No, and it was easy to do too.

So except lugging that sand.

Lugging that sand was not a was not an easy chore.

So I told you, Purple was my favorite color.

I'd love to go see some purples.

Want to see my favorite purple?

Yes, let's go.

Actually.

There's two of them, and they're right next to each other.

There's three of them.

Oh, look at that.

Okay, so I've got, ooh, so I've got this one is strutters ball, and I call this a royal purple.

This is really a that's gorgeous, beautiful, Royal Purple, gorgeous.

And then this is chalita, charlita, tralita, and it's a little bit darker.

These are so pretty.

I wish people could smell what we smell right now.

That's a spider.

Now, when we talked earlier about folks hybridizing these, are we looking for colors?

Are we looking for height when you when you start tinkering with different things the edges and, you know, yes, look at that green.

And yes, now that that's, that's a stunner.

That's cool.

But just, is just to look at these, the edges on all of them, they're just so unique.

And somebody just decided, one day I'd like this, and they worked for it.

You know, it's a lot of work to hybridize plants.

And my, my hat's off to the people that that are willing to do that much work, you know, I we've been to some daylily farms where they do a lot of hybridizing, and they may have, like, 1000s, you know, 10,000 seedlings that they go through.

Oh my gosh.

I don't have that kind of patience.

I don't have that kind of space, and I don't have that kind of time, but, but some people do, and that's how we come up with plants like these.

A lot of, a lot of the hybrid.

I mean, how do you come up with a orange like primal screen?

So, you know, they know what they're looking for, and they have to.

They it takes about three years for a plant to flower and look.

Is representative what, what kind of plant they're going to get.

So, you know, like, I say, my hat's off to them.

They do a great job.

And they've given us these plants that we have here now.

I mean, there's, like, there's over 100,000 varieties of daylily, wow, of registered varieties.

You better get on it.

You know, I've got.

I've got about three or four that have just sort of self hybridized here in this field.

And some of them are really nice.

I'm really, I'm really pleased with them.

So when folks come, I wasn't trying to do it, though, they tell you which ones they want.

There's a system they come out and kind of mark where they are, because everything's kind of on a map, so you know where it's at, and then you just grab a shovel and dig them up.

That's right.

Okay.

Well, I let me show you how we do it.

Yeah, let's see how the process works.

Okay?

And yeah.

Okay, so I found the one that is captured my heart.

What is this one called?

This is called Smith brothers.

Smith brothers, and for a long time, this was the darkest daylily that was available.

This one for a long time, this, this is the one we have.

Some other ones that are a little bit darker, but I don't think they're as attractive.

This has that nice gold center the throat, and has nice height to it too, that sort of stands out in a garden.

So let's pretend I've got these at home and well, let's just learn the process of digging them for customers.

The basics are that you want to dig a little bit away from the plant.

So you don't want to come, come up right up to the edge of the plant.

You've got to dig back a little bit further, maybe six to eight inches away, and dig straight down.

So not at an angle, not at an angle, because you want to make sure that you you get the roots, though, I mean, so you get the dirt away, and then you can always replace the dirt, but if you break the roots too much.

You you can't, you can't replace the roots.

So you get away a little bit.

Dig straight down.

Okay, here's some snapping, a little crack, yeah, then I just take it.

Remember I was telling you about how I put the sand in the soil.

Yes.

So the so this is for this part where it goes away nice and easy.

So the dirt falls away.

Now, you said that you wash them really good.

Is that I just wash it so they look good?

Okay?

So they look good.

I didn't know if it was because, you know, sometimes they talk about that if you share things from your garden, you know what I do them off.

What would I do when I when I take these plants out?

And I would suggest you do it too.

When you get it home, wash it with like a baby, dilute some bleach, okay, okay, maybe to about 1% and then let it sit in the bleach solution for maybe 1015, minutes.

Gotcha Okay, and that'll be used to get rid of it.

Now, typically, what I do, too, is I will cut the plant right here.

Oh, got it, okay?

And that's for a couple reasons.

Number one is that it will require less water for the plant when you put it in the ground, okay?

And the other part is the plant can basically do one of three things, and grow roots.

We can grow vegetation leaves, or it can grow flowers.

Okay, when you cut it off here, you cut off the flower, and you've cut off the vegetation.

So that means so it can direct all its energy to growing roots.

Okay, so it helps the plant to establish but, you know, but if people want to keep the if people want to keep the flower, you know, I don't blame them, sure, something beautiful to look at.

But what you have to do then, you have to get a little bit, you have to put it in a little bit deeper, and you might have to stake it up a little bit, okay?

And, you know, and really, just water it more.

Just water it a little bit.

All you could do is water it a little bit more.

Now, when people transplant these from you, can they expect them to then flower the following year.

Or is there a process where it's kind of got a React limit?

You know, it depends.

I if you if there are people that are now ordering plants from that field, and if they get the plants, say the middle of July, they may still flower.

Okay, okay, but most of the plants, once they flower, they typically don't flower anymore.

I've got a couple plants, and I will tell them, if they are purchasing a plant that will be re flowering, re blooming again.

Oh my gosh.

And then one thing I didn't ask light needs.

Let's talk about how much sun daylilies need.

The more sun you give a plant, the better.

I mean.

Look at these blooms.

These blooms are all nice.

They're big, they're bright.

I have maybe about 30 day lilies that I have sitting under a 40 foot oak tree.

Oh, and they're booming.

They're beautiful.

And, in fact, some of the colors are more vibrant, really, yes, the only, the only thing about it is, if you.

Plant in shade.

It'll take longer for the plant to mature, and the plant may not have as many blooms, Okay, gotcha.

But once they start producing, they're fine, and they'll bloom for a good long time.

The light colored and the yellow ones do best in the shade.

Light color and yellow do best in the shade.

No, I have a red one over here called lustil.

What a name, huh?

That that I have blooming in front of my house, and it is a beautiful plant.

It puts out dozens of blooms.

Okay, all right, let's go give this old gal a bath.

You this section.

Here are the newcomers to the farm.

Yeah, yes, these are some of the plants.

And when they get big enough, I'm going to land them out in the field.

Here is one here that I'm look waiting.

It grows very slowly.

Oh, wow.

It's called velvet eyes.

You see it's red with a really dark red center.

That's a beautiful plant and very pretty.

I was telling you about for the Smith brothers, used to be the darkest This is one of the darkest ones.

Now, black cat called Black Cat.

She's gorgeous too.

And I've had a lot of people asking me for that one, and it's it just hadn't been ready.

I think it might be ready this year, though.

So these aren't even for sale.

No, no.

Typically they're not for sale.

Oh my gosh.

We're getting a sneak peek of and we have this one here.

See how this is purple with the purple with the green center there, that's, that's a that's, that is a beautiful plan.

So typically, how long do they spend in the in the baby field, well before they move that, that red one back there that's been here for like, five years, it's been growing so slowly that I really haven't had much of a chance.

This is one that a friend of mine gave me last year.

Look at that.

Just gorgeous.

And this is one that I've been kind of waiting on.

This is orange, orange Nassau.

And this is, this is like a velvet will be a velvet orange with the frilly edges on it.

They're all even the ones that are in the same color family, all have their own look, their own unique look, texture, edges so pretty.

Our last stop today is the late blooming section of the farm.

So tell us a little bit about this.

Okay, this was probably the part that the of this, my business, that I really am proud of.

I love late season flowers.

And you know, I one thing that I really like about day Louis is they have such a wide variety of blooming seasons.

These plants do not start blooming until middle of July, and some of them start blooming in August, and a lot of them will keep blooming until frost.

Wow.

And I have a couple plants here that dug.

One was in the plant.

It's called final touch, and that blooms, that blooms till frost, regularly and even afterward.

I mean, I've had them blooming almost to Christmas, oh my gosh.

I have another one up there called On and on that is blooming now, and it will bloom until about about Thanksgiving.

You were telling us that you get some reactions from folks when you have either the flowers or the plants themselves out at the market, and even kids come up and they're interested, that's right.

And kids will come up and they want to smell the flowers, and the mother might say, or the parents will say, you want one of these for your garden.

And I say, Oh, you have a garden.

The kid shakes their head and say, Yeah, I said, Well, I will give you a plant.

How about Wow, I'll give you a plant.

And all you have to do is, next year, you bring me a picture of the plant and the flower, and I will give you another one.

That's a great program.

I mean, come on, kids, stop.

That's how my, that's how my that's how my mom, no, you're right, that inspiration, that not to be, you know, not to pun, but planting that seed right in little kids, you know, that's how we got started.

That's right, you know.

And it does start somewhere.

Sometimes kids pick it up on their own, and sometimes you, if you have a child that loves the garden, encourage, encourage, push it up a little bit Wonderful.

Well, Ben, thank you so much for letting us come out to your farm.

I'm so glad we were able to make this happen.

It's absolutely beautiful out here.

If folks see this, when they see this and they want to reach out, how can they get in touch with you?

Well, I have a Facebook page.

I'm sorry that I don't have a website.

I'm just too lazy to do.

Too busy, too busy.

We can say green card we want, right?

Okay, but, but they can visit you on the Facebook page, and I'm at the market from the middle of June to the middle of August.

On Saturdays, we have a field sale the first week in July and the second weekend in August.

So we have a field sale for the early season flowers, and then we'll have another field sale for this field.

And when they come here, this will be spectacular.

Everybody else Gardens will be in the wing.

It's going to be going to be going strong.

Okay, so put that on your calendar and check the Facebook page to catch that that fall sale, right?

Wonderful.

Okay, thank you so much for letting us come out.

Thank you, and thank you so much for watching.

This was a wonderful day out at the flower farm.

If you've got questions for us, you can send them in to your garden@gmail.com or search for us on socials, and just look for Mid American gardener.

That's the show for tonight.

Thanks so much for watching.

You.